Shirley Davis | Feb 25, 2021 | Abandonment and CPTSD | 6 comments
One of the most egregious behaviors a parent or other caregiver can do to a child is to abandon them, allowing them to suffer alone. The damages done to the child when grown are significant and should not be ignored.
In this article, we shall examine together what childhood abandonment is, how it affects adults, and ways to mitigate the power it has over our lives.
What is Abandonment?
All children are entirely dependent upon parents or caregivers for their safety in their environment. When these caretakers fail to offer support and meet the child’s needs, emotionally and physically, they are said to have abandoned their child.
When parents abandon their children, their kids grow up feeling unsafe in the world and feeling people cannot be trusted. These unsafe feelings lead to the child experiencing emotions where they feel they do not deserve positive attention or adequate care.
For many children, abandonment is physical and may include:
- Lack of supervision
- Physical or sexual abuse
- Narcissistic abuse
- The inappropriate offering of nutrition
- Inadequate clothes, heat, shelter, or housing
For other children, abandonment takes the form of emotional neglect and abuse when parents do not give to their children emotional conditions and environments that are necessary for their healthy development.
The child is left feeling inadequate, rejected, and damaged, needing to hide themselves away from others knowing who they are on the inside. Abandoned children are left believing it is not okay to make mistakes, that it is not okay to show their genuine emotions, that they should not have needs, and that it is not okay to be successful.
Fear of Abandonment in Adulthood
Because they were neglected and abused as children, many adults grow up having internalized all the messages they received from their parents when they were young. Also, because they craved attention from their abusive parents, many adults grow up fearing losing the love of those they have in their lives.
Fear of abandonment is not a mental illness by itself but rather a form of anxiety that can negatively affect those who experience it. Adults experiencing abandonment issues often experience problems in their relationships because they fear the other person will leave them.
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