Childhood Abandoment

This is a very hard hitting question and a very important one at that.

For me, abandonment took on many forms. I grew up with with an emotionally unavailable alcoholic father. My whole family system was centered around his addiction and we grew up learning codependency and denial of problems to the world. As a child of an alcoholic, my identity was more or less abandoned and reconstructed to play a role in the family structure. I was mommy and daddy's counselor, co-parent, rescuer of my mom when my dad lashed out at her and rescuer of my dad when he wanted a nurturing female to turn to.

After my parents separated, I was sent to stay with my mom's family for a time. Her older brother (uncle) planned out a scheme to trap me in his apartment, when i was 14 yrs old, and rape me. Him doing this, betrayed and further afflicted the issue of self abandonment. I had further been used to fill a sick need and was no longer myself, but an extension of someone's addiction and illness.

Right after the rape, my mom's side of her family abandoned me. This is the last major blow to my identity. I had not only been emotionally abandoned and physically separated from my father who failed to protect me but my uncle raped me and then my family further compounded my shame by leaving me too... in my time of desperate need.

Those events, esp at a time when I was forming a sense of identity and self, shattered me and stunted my emotional ability to be intimate with others, especially myself. from that point, I was subconsciously drawn to others who were unavailable, i think it was my mind's way of trying to bring closure and to feel like I was real. My identity had been submerged and abandoned in dark waters and i looked, I crawled like a child who couldn't yet walk.. towards the same kind of people who had hurt me.. It was as if my inner child was asking them to give me back my worth, my dignity, stability, love, protection and to give me back.. to myself.

It is childhood abandonment that made me a love addict. Growing up, feeling no true, intimate connection to others or myself.. led me to search for what I craved but feared and ultimately would deny because I couldn't handle intimacy... even if someone were to give it to me. So unavailable people kept me locked in the familiarity of childhood without bringing me any closer to intimacy. i looked like I was running toward POA's but I was really running away from myself and from my pain, from feeling non-existant and unlovable.

I projected onto them the fantasy role that had been projected onto me, growing up, and that i had projected onto myself. I buried every shame, guilt, fear, pain, loneliness in them. Ironically, their unavailability, kept my pain alive and was creating more and more damage, underneath... i was oblivious to this when I was getting "high" off love and fantasies and chasing POA's.

This is my experience with abandonment. How about yours, bliss33?

Thanks for sharing Grateful and Rick, I am starting to see through this program that I was abandoned when I was very young. I had a mother who was codependant and a father who was mean and unavailable. They both drank alot. It was a push/ pull relationship with my mom. Now she's there, now she's not. She passed away when I was very young and I never had a relationship with my father as he never really liked me. My father competed with me for my moms love. He even told me one time that, "he would win" over me and that he will "take her away" whenever he wants. Sick, as I was a child and didn't know better. They left me every weekend with my brother who was "nuts" and locked himself up in his room and never interacted with me. I didn't know what to do with myself. It was horriable and I learned at an early age that alcohol would eliminate those feelings of fear and abandoment. I'm sober now but after getting in to this program and seeing i am a LA, things are coming to the surface. I think I am choosing sick, unavailable woman becasue I am trying to patch up that horriable relationship with my father. He's still alive and still a drunk. He doesn't want to be in my life and it hurts. My POA was exactly like him. Distant, narcissistic, cruel, mean and unavailable. It's weird when you get into recovery you see the similarities in your dysfunctional parent as you see in your POA. I was trying to repeat it to repair it. But, like most of us, it was just another dysfunctional relationahip that ended in horror. I'm really looking at all this in recovery. My inner child wants to reach out to my POA and repair everything but, my adult knows it's a NO WIN situatioon and I need to stay in NC. I am interested in hearing more of your childhood abandoment stories. Much love to you all.

Wow Gratefulheart when i read your story it was so familiar to me. I only just came to this board in the last two weeks but i think i have been slowly coming to the realization that i was a love addict for a couple years (just didn't want to admit it) i have been reading all the recommended books slowly for some time as well. i have been in and out of therapy for a couple years but i tend to bolt when i get challenged to face something i don't want to remember. i can only seem to digest a little at a time though. it is extremely scary to face some of the things i know i need to face but have been running from...

i am a child of a borderline & narcissist mother and a father who is a codepenent, workaholic, and suffers from depression. I was the oldest of 3 and I also served as co-councel to both my parents, a co-parent to my younger brothers, (actually some days i feel that i was more of a grown up as a child than i am now) and probably most damaging to me a scapegoat by my mother. I was labeled the "toxic" child--anytime anything ever went wrong it was somehow my fault.

my mother suffers from many addictive behaviors such as shopping, overeating, drinking, etc. growing up we never really lived anywhere very long i think i had lived in over 13 different cities (6 states) by the time i was in high school which didn't help my identity issues, always being the "new girl", i tried to latch on to people who were popular so that i wouldn't feel so rejected by my peers as i did by my mom. (probably the begining or foundation of my LA.)

my dad was always gone alot at work so i really only saw him on the weekends when he was doing chores like mowing the lawn. my mom was present physically but that would be about it unless you count the time she would focus on me when i did something "wrong". she was constantly critical. she would take my homework and re-do it herself for me to turn in. nothing was acceptable unless it was the best. on everything. to me the message was "if your not perfect your not lovable"

when i was in the 4th grade i was molested by a friends dad. i never said a word because i was so terrrified. the next day he came over to the house probably to make sure i wouldn't talk, with the premise that he wanted to take all of the kids out to mc donalds. i remember begging and pleading with my mom to let me stay home but she made me go since it was "good manners" and i was disrespectful to turn down a "gift" from someone who was being so kind.

and so it goes on and on. I ended up getting into alcohol in high school and getting raped at a party (the very first time i drank). i was found in the middle of a corn field by another girl i'll spare the details. if she hadn't found me though i probably would have died. never said a word to anyone. of course everyone at school knew and felt sorry for me but i could never quite bring myself to tell anyone who could have helped me. i tried telling my mother a couple months later because i was so depressed but her response was "sorry that happened to you" as she turned back around to watch tv. afterward she treated me differently as if i was somehow even more toxic or tanted because now i wouldn't be a virgin on my wedding day.

needless to say by the age of 15 i was a mess although you wouldn't know it from appearance or my grades b/c everything had to be top notch. but inside i've been suffering for a long long time.

my experience with my POA, which i posted on another board here, finally brought me to my knees. i couldn't go on anymore. i was tired of suffering, of feeling so awful about myself. of not being able to move on with my life when he so clearly had. i was tired of letting myself be manipulated and used. and i was tired of hurting myself. so i came here. i got a therapist. actually 2. (trying to get all the help i can!)

just this last week in a therapy session my councelor told me that love addiction really wasn't about love at all but the fear of abandonment and attachment hunger due to unmet needs as a child. in addition she indicated that typically children who have trauma's in childhood tend to fantasize to escape their reality and in adulthood that can lead or contribute to LA.

that was hard to hear. because as i thought back on it. i'd been living in a fantasy world since i can remember. but its not working for me anymore.

needless to say after that session it got me thinking about things i had long tried to forget. but only superficiously, when i really started to examine some things it got too painful and instead i began to think about my POA. (typical) I read psalms 57 that night after a recommendation from a member here since i was really struggling about my POA. -or at least thought i was, really i was just struggling not to think about what my therapist said or about anything in my childhood. i was exhausted and went to be at 10pm, early for me.

I woke up at 2 o clock in the morning, sat straight up in bed on full alert, after dreaming about a tree that used to be outside my window when i was a girl. i had completely forgotten about it for the last 20 years. but back then that tree had been a life line for me. it was at a house where we lived for 6 years. it was in the shape of a face. i remember so many nights and days sitting in front of my window having a "conversation" in my mind with this tree to protect me. sometimes i just used it as "company" feeling like it was somehow a magical tree that would save me. that if i talked to it about what was bothering me it would somehow change it for me....

that night when i woke up and remembered that tree it was like someone put a knife in my chest. i cried like i never had before. how is it that a 9 year old child felt that a tree loved her more and was more real than her own parents??? i just laid there and cried and cried. it brought back so many memories of how alone i felt. and it just made me think. how sad. how terrible that a child would fanasize about a tree loving and protecting her... i justed wanted to go back in time and pick that little girl up and hold her and tell her she is okay, she is beautiful, she is worthy, she is lovable, that she isn't alone...

so that's my story of abandonment, its affects, and the breakthrough i had this week. i know its good but man does it really hurt.

Wow. Thank you all for your posts. They're helping to shine light into my own past.

My experience with childhood abandonment is similar but different, I guess.

My mother was an alcoholic/amphetamine-user and a narcissist. My father was depressed, and absent. Both were completely unavailable. I was the youngest of 3 children and by the time I was born, my parents were particularly disconnected. My mother binged on drugs, then locked herself in her room for days at a time. My father was gone, working, and ignored the neglect and abuse. I learned very early not to expect anything or rely on anyone, and to be ready to run away if things looked dangerous.

Now, on the surface my life looks OK. I'm educated, seemingly confident, athletic, apparently mostly happy, have friends, etc. I don't have active addictions other than my addiction to unavailable men, my LA.

I've been involved with a string of completely unavailable men over many years. This is what I learned from my family. Some of them neglected me, like my parents. Some of them were addicts, like my parents. Some were very very erratic, and mentally ill, like my mother.

The few men who were healthy, I ran away from.

My last few relationships were with narcissists, and unbelievably painful and scary. They wooed me, placed me at the center of their lives, told me I was everything to them, then began the slow downward spiral of abuse--psychological, verbal, emotional, occasionally physical--then unceremoniously threw me away.

I stayed and stayed, hoping to change the outcome. I bent over backwards, plead, coerced, manipulated, threatened, pouted, starved myself, ran away then came back, knocked on their door in the middle of the night, lost sleep, wasted my life, changed my plans, paid for their therapy, researched their pathologies, bored then frightened my friends with my endless endless suffering and refusal to let go.

And here I am. I'm STILL sick.

My parents are now both gone, dead, and I'm STILL unable to parent myself, keep myself safe from abuse.

Every time I think the latest man who arrives at my door is squeaky-clean mentally healthy, months later his facade wears thin and I realize that it's the same ole' narcissist, black hole at the center, but wearing a new mask.

Paisley, yeah I know how you feel. I married a man just like my dad. My dad and my husband were both pilots and gone a lot. Strange how that happens.

But I really think inner child healing is getting at the root of our issues. We found a place that has answers and we are willing to read and do the work and get out of our rut.

My life was similar. I was pursuing unavail guys since I was about 17. Then got married and spent 15 years trying to change my husband into what I wanted him to be. Got divorced and then spent 8 years pursuing the wrong men. It went from emotional stunted narcissist men, to abusive men, to emotionally unavail men and so on. Now I am too old for this and willing to do the work to get out of my rut and heal.

runrunrun

Paisley, I like your analogy and thanks for posting it. It gives me hope. I do catch myself saying things that a non codependent person would say and i make a mental note of it. I see signs of healing. It all goes to show that healing is possible. We dont have to live like we were anymore.

Thanks sunny too. I get something from everyones post here.

runrunrun

I think that I was abandoned alot as a child. I never really talk about this because I feel like I am blaming my parents who have been very helpful and supportive in my life today but I guess I have to work through my feelings from the past.

My father was an alcoholic. He never wanted to be a father I dont think. He provided for us but he was not emotionally present. Physically I saw him come home drunk and call me and my mother" dunces and other derogatory names. My mother was very angry. She would take her frustration from my father out on me since I was his child. My older brother's father was never in his life. She raised us separately and I always felt that she loved him more. she would yell at me and I remember times she would send my father to the store when he was drunk and make me ride with him. Really? who does that? The most hurtful thing I ever heard her say was when she gotten into a fight with my dad. She told my brother she was going to find a place for them to move but I could stay there with my father. I felt so alone and so unloved. why would I want to stay with him? he didnt care about me. He never hugged me or did things with me at all. When I was 12 my mother left one day. It was awful. She told me she was on her way home from school and she never showed. I waited up for her the entire night worried that something bad happened to her. The next day she called like nothing was wrong and I hung up on her. After that she made me stay with random family members and then I returned home with my drunk father. She came back months later when my dad was gonna charge her with abandonment and send me to North Carolina to live with my crazy aunt. I was so angry with her. I was angry with both of them. My other family members never cared either. They felt that since I had my biological father in the home and I got good grades; I was alright. Thats what everyone keeps telling me but I dont feel that way.
I think that feeling invisible and not taken care of by my family is what led me to reach out to people who were emotionally available. It also caused me to fantasize about life. It helped me get through this stuff.
I cant even tell my parents about my love addiction finding because they were just feel blamed and try to make me feel like I dont have a problem.

Hi,

Well I am a new comer but I am working on my innerchild issues since the begining of the year. Today I got away from my fantasies to get back with POA and I started to feel the pain of all the abandonment.As I wrote I realised my parents did not want me at birth. I became a scapegoat to vent their anger and also for my mother to feel better when my father raged and hit me hard. I was not allowed to cry like a boy and my poor little princess girl shut down. This allowed the violence to increase. I am surprised that I am alive. I was their punching bag. My adult self is angery and I wish I could stand to them and say "Shame on you, bigs".
I was sent away finally. My father spent years telling he will send me here and there and everywhere. Finally he sent me to live with my Uncle and Aunt. I was their maid. I had hardly any clothes, a diary that I kept of all the issues I had. I wasnt given any money, the younger ones were. I was a depressed angry and filled with anxiety. On many occasions I wanted to explode "ENOUGH is ENOUGH". I cooked and cleaned and looked after younger siblings. These shameless adults turned me into a maid and someone to give nurturing and support and was rewarded with critisism as I did not toe it perfectly. I was made to look ugly, given second hand stuff. I dont speak to that part of the family and my shameless father. Glad I did this for my little baby and next my mother is going as well. I will also tell her not to contact me. Bloody abusers.
I am in therapy and everytime I sit I want to fanatasise I can stop and let the little one tell me everything. the little one feels safe in her new home with nice things for her, warmth and away from work quiet and she can tell me everything. n some ways not having a job is a gift. I can sit and talk to my inner child.
My family was my enemy. Sometimes my anger is so much I would not help them in their old age. They will have to do it for themselves. I am not sorry about that.

Thanks

Anita