Help, Please!

[SuperAnxietyGirl]

OK, so, last night a thought occurred to me. One that I don't have an answer to and thought maybe I could find one here. I have a serious problem with friends. I always think I annoy them, I'm always scared they are going to leave me, etc etc. So, last night was when the thought occurred to me. When I was little, starting at around four, was when my dad's drinking got bad, my mom would leave to go clear her head. But it always terrified me. Being left alone with my dad who had just broken a lamp. I hated her leaving and I felt like she was abandoning me when I was scared. Later, through the years, that kept happening and then sometimes my dad would leave too. Take off and say he won't be coming back only to call the next day in a motel so drunk he'd almost need to go to the hospital.

So anyways, that brings me to this question, would that have anything to do with being scared of my friends leaving me? Could I be having some sort of abandonment issues even though they always came home?

 

[Tinyflame]

I'd say yes. You wouldn't know they were coming home, & you'd have to manage without them there too.

:hug:

 

[Justmehere]

I'm so sorry for what you went through. Yes - it very likely does relate. I had experiences of both my parents abandoning me in various ways as a kid and while my parents always came back, my therapist said it set up a pattern of insecure attachment and a pretty big fear of abandonment. When we are kids we need our parents to not just a be there, but to really be there for us and to actively protect us and to meet our needs. My own mother never physically left, but she would dissociatively check out when dangerous things happened and it has taken me a awhile to understand that even this impacted me greatly. She wasn't fully there protecting me from my father hurting me and the real dangers I was scared of, and I really needed her and the other adults in my life to protect me.

The good thing is that this can and does get better. I have had a hard time in friendships, but by working on it in therapy it has started to get better, sometimes significantly better. It's still really hard to endure. My heart goes out to you.

 

[Go Hungry]

It probably is involved. A person, especially a little one, needs to know that people are there for them, particularly caregivers. Those sorts of repeated failures by caregivers can have quite an effect on a child. Having it continue as you got older certainly didn't help either.

 

[Meadowsweet]

would that have anything to do with being scared of my friends leaving me? Could I be having some sort of abandonment issues even though they always came home?

A child doesn't know if they're coming home, and may not necessarily understand why they've left. So, I would imagine that not knowing why they left or when/if they were coming back, would cause a child to feel a great deal of anxiety. I think your self-analysis is very good.

 

[Ladyghosthunter]

I have severe abandonment issues that will never be alleviated because it has happened most of my life. I always felt my friends were trying to leave me because they didn't understand that I was constantly depressed. I was physically and mentally abused as a child and in my neighborhood, my brother and I were treated differently because we didn't have a mother and a father. The whole neighborhood never knew the truth; that my grandmother paid off my mother to leave my brother and me while playing the "good woman" of the town.

I never knew my biological mother until I was 19 and that was the WORST thing I could've done trying to establish a relationship with her. My brother and I were stuck in an orphanage by our biological father and left there for over a year until our grandparents came and adopted us; they told my biological father he was never to see us ever again. However, in saying that, my grandmother suffered from abandonment issues and depression (which you didn't talk about in the South) and took it out on my brother and me by saying, "We already raised our family. Why do we have to raise our grandchildren?"

Writing this down has been hard for me but yes, I have SEVERE abandonment issues and it's something you need to talk about openly, no matter who is listening. I stopped crying about it years ago because it's who they all were-sick, narcissistic, depressed and f**ked up individuals who I dumped at 42. I can't run from my past nor can I have anyone erase it; I just wish someone would understand it.

(((HUGS)))

 

[Go Hungry]

I have abandonment issues too. But it's not my parents so much, at least not that I know of. It sounds weird, but it was the abandonment of God that struck me so hard. I was raised to believe that he would always be there to help. It's a big thing in the south. But he didn't live up to the hype, not at all. Kinda threw me to the wolves. It was like the ultimate crime of my abusers.. They took God from me. I'm a lot better now, but it used to be that I couldn't even walk into a church without a knife on me, and even then I nearly puked at my brother's wedding...

:hug::hug::hug: to everybody who's ever had someone run out on them.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Do you know CBT? I really think that CBT could help you tackle those negative thought patterns regarding your friends.

 

[SuperAnxietyGirl]

Thank you all so much for taking the time to reply!

@Ladyghosthunter, I am so sorry for what you went through! I was raised in the south too, by the way. I was part of the perfect family that wasn't so perfect.

@Go Hungry, I am so sorry for what you went through too. At times I would feel like God wasn't there during rough times,, but He always wound up there for me in the end. Though I know he was always there.

@Solara, I looked it up, but sadly I can't get any kind of therapy.

 

[Tinyflame]

@SuperAnxietyGirl there are some good workbooks & books out there you can do on your own.

I never felt the 'right' to question people not there (mostly), & didn't want to add to the burden of having needs. I think that's why in some relationships, past ones, I've always left. Sometimes if they were unhealthy it was good, but usually the unhealthy ones I tolerated most easily. :rolleyes:

Good for you to recognize the impact. Even without therapy that is really big! :) :tup: