Abandonment

Dr. Ramani recently said that when you have experienced trauma in your life, and something happens that reminds you of that trauma, it feels like an echo that never goes away.

Maybe it dulls over time and healing. Maybe you get better at loving yourself when the familiar feelings creep back in. But the echo never truly goes away.

I realized something tonight after my husband and I had a disagreement. Arguments are pretty normal for couples, right? They don’t necessarily feel normal for people who have experienced abandonment.

I was first abandoned at 6 years old, when the person I loved the most in the world, my grandmother, was diagnosed with ALS, and died a year and a half later after becoming a shell of herself. I was abandoned again at 13, when my mother alienated me from my father, made me feel like a traitor for loving him and wanting to live with him, and I didn’t speak to my dad for 8 years after that out of perceived loyalty. And of course, as the obvious states, I was emotionally abandoned by my mother over and over and over and over again.

My beautiful grandmother and me. I lived with her and my Grandfather my first two years of life. She was vivacious, spoke 6 different languages, sent me monthly packages with my favorite things, dressed me in fru fru dresses and her house is still covered in pictures of me. She was strong, courageous, and lived a tough life but never let it shake her spirit. When she died, I never felt loved in the same way again, and I only realized that recently. I miss her every day.

I’ve never been able to completely 100% be authentically myself and trust that the person receiving me won’t leave. I’ve always been too much. I’ve always been shown just how capable I am at pushing people away. One too many times I screamed, one too many times I cursed, one too many times I isolated myself and didn’t return texts. Certain people stayed longer than others, but whether by their own fault or not, they eventually left. 

For years this made me put up an iron wall. I left people before they left me. Took a step back when I felt the relationship crumbling. Or embarrassed the hell out of myself fanatically holding on to something that was meant to go. The hell of codependency combined with a fear of abandonment. 

The idea of letting myself get angry and make mistakes and to think differently than those I love and to not be left in the end? That was completely foreign to me for a long time.

I live a very different reality now. My husband has seen me at some of the lowest moments of my life and he loves me now more than ever. I have friends and family who have shown me time and time again that they love me, and I will always have a place in their lives. But the echo, it still rings, ever so faintly. 

Every time we disagree 

Every time one of them is angry with me

Every time I disappoint them

Every time we argue 

I feel like I’m being abandoned all over again

It makes my heart ache. Intrusive thoughts take refuge in my head. I’ll ask if they’re okay or if we’re okay a million times because no matter how many times they answer the question, they can never give me enough validation when I’m not receiving it from myself. 

I may be familiar with the ways I’ve been abandoned, but tonight I saw for the first time how I respond to those echos when they come singing. Me tailspinning down a rabbit hole of things that happened a long time ago, and are not happening now. 

Having healthy relationships after living an entire existence full of toxic ones is a gift from God, but it also shows every single spot where you sabotage yourself. As painful as it is to see, it also feels like someone turned on the overhead light and now you can see all of the dusty corners that are in need of cleaning. 

I saw myself fall down the rabbit hole tonight, instead of being the one falling down the rabbit hole, the world swirling all around me. I watched what happened, how I triggered, and followed those thoughts until I understood why I triggered before emotionally reacting. 

Before I might have let myself drown in the thoughts and would have emotionally reacted into another much larger ‘fight’. And then I would have beaten myself up for letting my emotions get the best of me. I didn’t realize for a long time that by doing that, I was abandoning myself. Perpetuating the same cycle I was desperate to escape.

Self accountability is scary, and rewarding, and triggering, and freeing. Every time I see one of these patterns within myself, I don’t ever respond to that pattern the same way again. Once I know, I can’t not know, and that knowing alone makes it easier to make different choices in the moment. 

What a beautiful gift I received tonight, on the eve of the Libra New Moon tomorrow morning. All about reevaluating relationships, with yourself and others, and relationship patterns that no longer serve you. 

The echo of the things I’ve experienced will never go away, but I’m not living in their chapters anymore. I’ve started a new book, full of new adventures and blessings waiting for me. And all of the defenses I built to keep me safe aren’t needed anymore. I’ve said this before, but this feels final. Like I’ve unlocked the door with the final key. I’ve got your number, abandonment trauma, I feel your hurt and know your pain well, and although you will knock at my door again, you will be greeted with love, but you will no longer cross the threshold. 

—————————————————————

Fast forward to the following day. I arrived home from work and my husband told me he had a surprise for me tonight. I asked him if it was anything I needed to mentally prepare for with a giggle, and he smiled and said no. And that I would just have to wait and see what it was.

We packed up and got ready to go. Judging the things he grabbed for our daughter, I immediately drew the assumption that we were going to a friends house. I felt the ground beneath me rattling as I thought about all of the reasons why I was not in a space for social interaction and how this was most definitely something I would need to mentally prepare for and wouldn’t he know that or is this something that he feels completely comfortable doing so he sees it being comfortable for me too? All thoughts happening simultaneously in my head, none of them actually real or happening in real time.

So what was my husbands surprise? He arranged a babysitter for Madison and made plans to take me to a movie I really wanted to see, Dear Evan Hansen. 

I was beside myself shocked and touched. I asked him if he had seen anything about what the movie was about. He said no and I warned him that he was in for a tearjerker. 

For those of you that don't know, Dear Evan Hansen is about a teenager who suffers with anxiety and depression, who comes into contact with another student who takes his own life. Without giving too much away, its a story that will touch your heart and remind you that we are never truly alone. 

My husband held my hand throughout most of the movie. He would rub my leg during certain scenes and he even gave me a tissue when he noticed me crying. To think about all of the lies my intrusive thoughts told me when I was still waiting for the surprise, meanwhile this is what this wonderful man had in store for me. 

He made these plans a few days ago. He had these plans laid out when we argued last night. He holds no anxiety when we don’t see eye to eye because he knows he’s not going anywhere, and neither am I. 

At one point in the movie, while Evan Hansen’s mom is comforting him about his feelings and mental health, she told him that one day everything he was experiencing would feel like something that happened a very long time ago.

None of this was a coincidence. Hearing those words wasn’t a coincidence. My husband spontaneously surprising me with something that he didn’t realize was so meaningful wasn’t coincidence. The universe with the energy of this Libra New Moon is literally shouting at me to look around at all of the love I have, all of the acceptance I have. It’s lovingly urging me to release the fear, to answer the echos back and tell them the truth that I know, because I will never reside in that dark place of abandonment again. Most of all, I will never be without myself again. 

To quote Evan Hansen: 

Even when the darkness crashes through 

When you need a friend to carry you

And when you’re broken on the ground

You will be found

So let the sun come streaming in

‘Cause you’ll reach up

And you’ll rise again

If you only look around

You will be found 

❤️