Fear of Abandonment.
Rachael Courts (MSW) (AASW)
It is human nature to fear losing someone you care about.
However, if you experience persistent feelings of dread and worry about others leaving you, especially if there is no evidence to suggest they will, you may be living with a fear of abandonment.
This fear can have an impact on how you experience relationships with friends, family, partners, or professionals, therefore understanding where the fear comes from can be crucial for creating and maintaining connections.
WHILE FEAR OF ABANDONMENT FEELS DEBILITATING, YOU CAN OVERCOME IT.
What is fear of abandonment?
Fear of abandonment is a real, true, and very raw emotion. It is an intense fear of losing those closest to you, believing they will physically and/or emotionally leave you.
Fear of emotional abandonment: feeling that someone you care about is being emotionally distant, and therefore is going to replace you or leave you
Fear of physical abandonment: feeling that someone you care about is exiting your life, such as moving or passing away
Causes of fear of abandonment.
For healthy human development, it is a requirement that physical and emotional needs are met.
In childhood, such reassurance comes from primary caregivers.
When a child is denied their needs, such as physical affection, emotional connection, and safety, they learn not to trust the permanence of such needs in adulthood.
Examples of experiences in childhood where the child needs have been denied include:
Abandonment
Abuse
Death of a loved one
Emotional distance of a caregiver
Neglect
If you have experienced emotional neglect from a caregiver, you may fear someone close to you will neglect you too.
If someone close to you exited your life when you were a child, whether leaving or passing, you may fear someone in your present life will exit your life too.
In adulthood, this reassurance comes from personal and/or romantic relationships you may develop. Events that can interrupt the assurance that your needs are being met in adulthood include:
Abuse: All types of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual) can elicit a persisting fear of abandonment
Someone passing: Whilst this is a natural occurrence, it does not make it any less traumatic. The loss of someone close to you can leave you feeling empty, such emptiness can be filled by fear
Relationship loss: loss of friendship, breakup, divorce, infidelity. For you, the end of a relationship can be so debilitating, that it leads to persisting fears of abandonment
SUCH EVENTS CAN OCCUR AT ANY AGE.
Signs of fear of abandonment.
If you experience fear of abandonment, you may relate to some (or all) of the emotional impacts:
Intense anxiety
Activated by fear of someone leaving you or losing interest in you
Activated by being rejected by someone close to you or the pervasive fear of being rejected
Activated if the person you care about is not around or in communication
Difficulty staying in the present moment by often worrying and becoming suspicious that things are going ‘too well’
You are incredibly observant, always watching for any subtle signs that someone is pulling away
Difficulty trusting
Trusting others can be challenging when you believe everyone may leave you
Difficulty trusting others can lead to difficulties in forming or maintaining relationships
You are often questioning your relationships with others
You become suspicious when the person you care about is not around
You become upset when the person you care about is in contact with others
When people express their feelings about you or compliment you, you are unable to believe them
Emotional distance
You build imaginary walls around you to emotionally protect yourself from others becoming close to you
You find it extremely difficult to communicate or express your true feelings as you fear others will leave you if you do so
Push and pull emotions
When overcome by fear of abandonment you transition from feeling angry and pushing people away to feeling helpless and wanting people around
One day you are people-pleasing the next day you are defiant
One day someone may be the love of your life and the following day you withdraw from them completely
Low self-esteem and insecurities
Living with a persistent fear of abandonment can diminish your self-worth giving rise to feelings of not being good enough
You disown your own needs by becoming overly compliant and agreeable, otherwise known as people pleasing
You have a loud inner critic who is really harsh on you
You often compare yourself to others, feeling like you are less desirable in comparison
You seek constant validation, reassurance, and find it difficult to make decisions
You create nonconsensual expectations for others, where you put in so much effort to please those you care about but feel annoyed and hurt when your efforts aren’t reciprocated
Feeling empty
You feel a deep sadness when those you care about are not by your side
Whilst in this deep sadness you feel an unexplainable dread that your people/person may be harmed in some way or will disappear. Thus, perpetuating your empty feelings.
Flashbacks
Any subtle signs of rejection or criticism throws you back into an emotional or visual flashback, reliving an experience you had in your past
Behaviourally
You often withdraw or pull away, either physically or emotionally, when feeling criticised
When experiencing a new relationship, you often become attached to the person very quickly. In response, you often become co-dependent, or you prioritise your partners needs over your own
A history of relationships that haven’t supported your mental wellbeing
Reaching out for comfort food when feeling overwhelmed about a relationship
Using substances to soothe yourself when feeling stressed about a relationship
Your fear of abandonment is very debilitating and distracting, to the point you find it difficult to focus on yourself, work, studying
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE EXPERIENCE ALL OF THESE SIGNS TO BE EXPERIENCING A FEAR OF ABANDONMENT.
Fear of abandonment and object constancy.
Some of us can bear some degree of relational uncertainty, where, in some cases, we are not feeling constant worry about the potential rejection from those we care about. Therefore, when we have a disagreement with loved ones, and we require some space, we trust that we are still held in that person’s mind, even though the person is not physically by our side.
This process is called object constancy, which describes the knack of maintaining an emotional connection with people, regardless of distance or conflict.
Object constancy is often developed in early childhood, learning that objects continue to exist despite not being seen, touched, or sensed. Typically, over time you learn that your caregiver can be both your carer and their own person who can take a step back from you.
Rather than relying heavily on your caregiver, by constantly requiring their presence, you hold an image of their care in your mind. A good example of this is when a child attends school and is geographically distant from their caregiver. This means, that by learning object constancy…
During adulthood, object constancy enables you to trust that your connection with a person is not broken if the person is not physically present, not responding to your messages, or if you have a disagreement.
However, a person experiencing fear of abandonment can compute momentary distance as abandonment. Believing that they will never see, nor talk to, the person they’ve connected with, ever again.
YOU EXPERIENCE PEOPLE AS CONSTANT AND RELIABLE AND UNDERSTAND THAT IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIPS ARE NOT BROKEN BY TIME SPENT APART.
A PERSON’S ABSENCE DOES NOT CORRELATE WITH ABANDONMENT, ONLY MOMENTARY DISTANCE.
Black and white thinking.
When you are deprived the opportunity to develop object constancy, you can view others as fragments, rather than seeing their entirety. This means, you view others, and yourself, as being either only good or only bad. This is termed black and white thinking, and we do this by reducing the complexities of life down to two options: Good or bad, loved or hated, without allowing any room for any grey area, such as ‘this person made a mistake, but they are still a good person’.
Black and white thinking goes hand in hand with an all or nothing mindset, where you can feel your emotions shifting unexpectedly from one extreme to the other. Our interactions with those we care about can feel like a rollercoaster, as our views on them shift from trusting the person with your life to becoming suspicious that they’re breaking your trust, which can ultimately exacerbate your fear of abandonment.
When your fear of abandonment is activated, the feelings of being abandoned or being left by the person you care about, are so powerful and overwhelming that it can create incredibly raw reactions, often expressed towards those closest to you. Post activation is often full of apologies that stem from shame surrounding your reactions. In hindsight, your reactions to your feelings of fear of abandonment can be subconscious, as we are often reacting from a place of trauma we experienced when we were younger.
IF YOU CAN IMAGINE YOURSELF AS A THREE-YEAR-OLD WHO WAS LEFT ALONE, OR NEGLECTED, THE INTENSE REACTIONS YOU SHOW ARE COMPLETELY VALID.
Fear of abandonment and relationships.
So far, we have learnt that childhood plays an important role in our adulthood. This holds true for relationships. However, I do want to mention that this can be re-written at any point in your life.
When I say relationships, I am referring to anyone you care about, whether that be friends, family members, partners (the list goes on).
As a young child, the way your caregiver would respond to your attachment needs – such as crying to be held, fed, and comforted – determines how you view the world. In the case that your caregivers tended to your calls and were nurturing, this would have allowed you to develop a sense of safety and reinforce that the world is a positive place, whereby when you require help, someone will help you. Given you view the world as a safe place, you would have learnt over time how to calm yourself when experiencing distress. Also meaning you have a secure attachment style where you hold a sense of trust and validation within yourself, rather than seeking reassurance externally.
Yet, if your attachment needs were not met, you would view the world as an unsafe place, believing that when you call for help, no one would be coming. This manifests in adulthood as a difficulty to rely upon others, disrupts your capability to endure uncertainty, and alters your disappointment threshold.
In response to your attachment needs not being met, you could have developed an insecure attachment style. Whereby, at any point there is distance between you and the person/s you care about, emotions that feel drastically like those you experienced as a child, when you were all alone and rejected, will resurface. This feeling of fear of abandonment can flick on our ‘survival switch’ leading to behaviours in relationships, such as avoidance, clinging onto the relationship, or patterns of sabotage in a means to avoid being rejected.
If you’re creating a new connection, and you experience feelings of fear of abandonment, you may relate to some (or all) of the following:
Hold distance
Walls up
Guarded
Cautious and hesitant when it comes to trust
The word ‘love’, used in any context, can make you feel uncomfortable
Deflects questions that require a vulnerable response
Avoid hanging out with new people due to fear of rejection
Engage in unwanted physical intimacy because you long to feel close to someone but are terrified the person will leave you when an emotional connection is formed
People pleasing
Aim to please, because the more pleasing you are the “less likely someone will leave you”
Feel insecure
Your core tells you that you are unworthy of love
You frequently engage in self-blame
Are hypersensitive to criticism
Attachment
Feel nervous about committing to someone wholeheartedly given the fear of being abandoned
Once you’ve let your guard down you become intensely attached to this person, as you often don’t let your guard down for anyone
Often becoming attached to those who are relationally or emotionally unavailable
The attachment you experience for this person is possibly one of the strongest feelings you have ever experienced in your life
You have a tendency to stay in the relationship despite how toxic the relationship may be
Experience extreme feelings of separation anxiety, you want to spend every waking moment with this person, or talking to them
Detective
You overthink things
You become the best detective in the world, spending loads of time on figuring out hidden meanings/agendas behind your persons behaviour
You are hyper-attuned to the way others feel, especially your person
You may have played detective for so long that it becomes second nature, and now you can read an entire room
Repressed feelings
You hold onto repressed anger and often sit in a state of hypervigilance
Experiencing this in the long term can lead to depression and anxiety
Activated feelings of abandonment in relationships.
The word ‘relationship’ refers to anyone you care about (friends, family, partners, the list goes on).
A connection develops between you and someone. You feel somewhat safe, yet cautious.
Time goes on and your connection grows, you may (for example):
Go from not speaking at all to speaking often, or;
Go from being an acquaintance to a friend, or;
Go from not dating this person to dating this person
Typically, at this stage, you jump all in, hoping to spend every waking moment with this person, potentially ignoring some red flags in the process.
However, daily life interferes with your relationship expectations. You may work varying hours, become sick, have problems with family/friends which require attention. Whilst this is an important and positive step in any relationship process, for those experiencing fear of abandonment, it can cause panic as you mistakenly believe your person is pulling away from you.
You’re already feeling panicked, then something small happens (for example):
Your person leaves you on read
Your person said they will call you, however, they became busy
Your person reschedules your plans
Your person asks for some space
Your reaction to the above scenario is highly correlated with your feelings of fear of abandonment, and the way in which you usually cope in stressful situations. Your reaction could be one of the following:
You immediately cut your person off. You’ve computed that they no longer care for you because they did not respond. You cut them off as you want to leave them before they leave you. You often cope in stressful situations by becoming silent, withdrawing, and isolating.
You immediately verbally attack your person. How dare they treat you this way! You believe by verbally attacking someone, you will get them to act in a way that you want (however, this is far from the truth). You often cope in stressful situations by slamming doors, throwing things, storming off.
You immediately seek reassurance from your person. You become clingy and demand your person to prove their feelings for you. You ask a series of follow-up questions such as ‘do you still like me?’ or requesting them to jump through hoops to prove themselves. However, you’re always moving the benchmark for them to reach. You often cope in stressful situations by hyperfocusing on the one issue at hand, where you will repeatedly, verbally, relay this issue to anyone that will listen.
You immediately assume that your person has rescheduled your plans because you are not good enough (when in hindsight, its because they have a work meeting), therefore you transform yourself into what you believe would be a ‘perfect partner/friend’ so then your person will not leave you. You become a people pleaser, however constantly hiding your true feelings and self, can be exhausting. You often cope by saying yes to everything that comes your way. The more projects that you complete of a high standard, proves to yourself (and you believe to others) that you are worthy. However, this also prevents you from sitting with any feelings you may have.
As mentioned above, your reactions are directly related to the severity of feelings of fear of abandonment AT THE TIME. This means, five months ago you may have reacted in a way that was like number 1. However, last week you reacted in a way that was like number 3. People, and their coping styles, can change, and you may cycle through all of these, learning that after you react one way, that this way is detrimental to your relationship, so you take another approach.
Your reactions to the small event can push people away, which may ultimately lead to what you fear most.
In a balanced relationship, you and your person would identify that not replying to a message, or returning a phone call, is bound to happen and does not hold any bearing on your relationship. Or, one of you may address your uncomfortable feelings surrounding the situation, and you can both discuss (or even have a minor argument).
IT IS HUMAN BEHAVIOUR TO SOMETIMES HAVE DOUBT IN A RELATIONSHIP THAT MEANS A LOT TO YOU. YET UNLIKE MOMENTARY DOUBTS, FEAR OF ABANDONMENT IS A PATTERNED RESPONSE OF BEHAVIOURS THAT WILL NOT DISAPPEAR UNLESS YOU ADDRESS IT.
How to heal fear of abandonment.
Feelings of fear of abandonment can be incredibly painful, but it is something you can overcome.
It is a natural human response to hold some fear of abandonment. However, to experience balanced relationships, we need to get to a point where we can trust and love without being thrown into a state of anxiety and fear.
We can learn that people are not all good or all bad, and that someone can still care for us, even if they are angry with us.
We can learn that distance can be safe, and not only fixate on the times we’re in the presence of our person.
Ways in which we can heal from fear of abandonment:
Educate yourself
You may be able to learn to control your feelings of fear of abandonment by becoming educated about your reactions and learning about different coping styles and behaviours
For most, our feelings of fear of abandonment can be deep-rooted which can be difficult to upheave alone
Professional help
Find a therapist to assist you in exploring your deep-rooted fears (those who take a DBT informed approach or have experience with fear of abandonment are highly regarded)
Heal trauma
Identify your attachment style
Discover how you show up in relationships
Rewire negative thought patterns
Learn new coping styles and behaviours
Learn how to build connections with others, including balanced relationships
Develop your emotional regulation and self-soothing strategies
A therapist can help you to progress in all the following areas
Self-awareness
Explore and acknowledge the roots of your fear of abandonment
Explore the impact this fear has on your perception
Learn how fear of abandonment correlates with your thoughts and behaviours
Keep track of events and feelings, highlighting events that bring up your feelings of fear of abandonment
Identifying what events induce fear can allow you to be better prepared with coping strategies
Have self-check-ins when you feel a rush of emotion. Identify it is a strong feeling and ask yourself what memories or fears are the root cause of this feeling.
Self-dependence
Recognise that some of the fears you hold do not reflect your current reality
Being an adult, you now have different choices
You have autonomy and freedom
You can identify yourself as whole and aren’t searching for the missing piece
Self-esteem and compassion
Create or build upon your self-esteem
Promote self-worth through positive self-talk
Challenge any negative belief that gives rise to your feelings of fear of abandonment
Practicing mindfulness
Mindfulness strategies encourage you to stay in the present
Reduces fears and anxieties
Reduces the ability of the past to have an impact on your current emotions
Healthy boundaries
Be clear about your boundaries in any relationship
Learn how to prioritise your wellbeing whilst maintaining connections
Embracing vulnerability
Progressively open up to those you trust
Learning how to be vulnerable allows you to build deeper connections
Utilising transitional objects
Have an object of emotional significance from your person
An item of clothing, photograph, any object that brings a sense of safety and familiarity
This allows you to access positive memories when you are experiencing fear of abandonment
IF READING THE WORDS ‘TRUST’ AND ‘LOVE’ BROUGHT ON SOME ANXIETY FOR YOU, THEN THAT IS A GOOD INDICATOR THAT WE HAVE SOME WORK TO DO.
GIVE YOURSELF SOME CREDIT BECAUSE ALL OF US ARE A WORK IN PROGRESS. THERE IS NO PERFECT ATTACHMENT OR RELATIONSHIP. IT IS NEVER TOO LATE FOR NEW INSIGHT OR CHANGE.
Supporting someone who experiences feelings of fear of abandonment.
These approaches and techniques can assist you in supporting someone who has a fear of abandonment and can be useful in any relationship.
Understand how your person computes love/being cared for:
You may have heard of the five love languages:
Words of affirmation
Acts of service
Receiving gifts
Quality time
Physical touch
Your person may have told you that their love language is ‘acts of service’. However, is this how they EXPRESS their feelings? Or is this how they want to RECEIVE love? This is important to know in times of hardship. Let’s say your person;
Expresses their feelings through words of affirmation
But;
Receives love/feels cared for through physical touch
If your person’s feelings of abandonment have been activated, regardless of what you say to them, they are not going to feel cared for in that moment. However, if you were to give them a hug, they will feel cared for, thus reducing their fears.
Pause emotionally charged conversations:
When emotions are high, logic goes straight out the window. Therefore, conversations will be unproductive
Pause the conversation
Be clear why you are pausing the conversation
Be clear that this conversation is not beneficial for both of you
Communicate that you need to step away from the conversation
Be clear about how long you need space (30 minutes, 1 hour)
Transparency is key in this moment, otherwise the person will become more activated as they will believe you’re leaving them
When you do return, begin the conversation from a less emotional place
Validate their fears and feelings:
Validation means you acknowledge someone’s feelings without judgement
Through validation you show you support your persons feelings, which builds trust.
How to validate:
Give your person your full attention without multitasking
Actively listen to them express their concerns
Reflect and summarise what they have expressed
Reach an understanding. If the above steps are followed, this will be reached without judgement
At times, it may be difficult for your person to verbalise their concerns (due to their fear of you leaving). However, the more you listen, the more you will be able to assist them in identifying their feelings. Additionally, having knowledge of their upbringing and previous relationships, allows you to have insight into what might be making your person activated.
Particular phrases can be incredibly unhelpful, invalidating, and can lead to disconnection.
Avoid saying these phrases (or ones similar):
That never happened
Why are you blowing this out of proportion
Everything happens for a reason
That’s nothing, this (*insert a one-upping comment) happened to me
Do not fall for ‘I’m fine’:
When someone tells you nothing is wrong and/or they don’t want to discuss what’s going on, take them at face value, and trust their word.
Respond with ‘no problem, let me know when you’d like to talk’ or simply change the topic of conversation.
Pushing someone to open up when they have said ‘they’re fine’ can create a negative pattern. Where, your person will rely on you to ask them what their feelings/needs are, without expressing them freely.
Communicate your feelings:
When someone communicated with me that my reactions to my feelings of abandonment hurt their feelings, this hurt my feelings too. This was the biggest factor that encouraged me to begin my healing journey.
When you are upset with how your person is treating you, whether they are currently amid fear of abandonment, or not, openly express how their actions are making you feel. Be clear and be direct. Then propose how both of you could work towards a better approach.
WHEN YOU VALIDATE YOUR PERSONS FEARS IT DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN YOU AGREE WITH THEM.