Do you find yourself attaching to people quickly? Whether it’s a new friendship or romantic relationship, could you describe your experiences as fast and furious?

Do you ever stay in relationships that are kind of crappy (and you know it) because it’s better than being alone?

Do you feel like you keep picking the same unavailable people over and over?

If you answered yes to any of these q’s, it might be time to take a closer look at what’s going on under the surface. When left unhealed, abandonment issues can negatively impact your self-esteem, your boundaries, and your relationships. 

You might feel a persistent longing–like you need something, but you just can’t seem to get it…and you might not even know what it is. 

Watch the video below to learn some of the causes and signs of an abandonment wound, because there are things you can do to become more securely attached and create happier, healthier relationships. 

From a psychological perspective, abandonment can create feelings of chronic fear, anxiety, disconnection, and rejection. Abandonment is not a stand-alone mental health disorder, per se, but can be considered part of an anxiety disorder. 

Childhood experiences such as the loss of a parent or loved one by death or divorce or physical and/or emotional neglect can profoundly impact our ability to create and maintain healthy attachments. In adulthood, abandonment issues can manifest in many different ways depending on your personality, family system, and your unique lived experiences. 

It took me years in therapy to understand my own abandonment issues. My father was emotionally absent and it deeply affected me and my relationships in my early adulthood. When I was finally able to uncover my abandonment wound (in this case, a father wound), I could connect the dots between my approval-seeking and what my father valued- good grades, accomplishments, and being successful- and my perfectionist and over-giving tendencies. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with doing well in school or in your career, but when I was younger, I was driven by fear and insecurity. My abandonment wound left me feeling like I needed to add value in all of my relationships in order to earn the other person’s affection or attention. 

If this resonates with you, please know: you are inherently worthy. You are not broken. Raising your awareness of how an abandonment wound can manifest itself in your relationships is a great first step to healing. 

As you go through the list below, some of these symptoms may seem contradictory, and some may not apply to you at all. You don’t need to check all the boxes to have abandonment issues. 

1. Overgiving and Overfunctioning in Relationships

Do you feel like you do more than your share? Do you do things for others they can and should do for themselves? Abandonment issues can show up as people-pleasing, where you prioritize everyone else’s needs above your own and it feels like all of the work of the relationship is on you. You might be seeking external validation to confirm your worth. 

2. You Leave First

Do you ditch them before they ditch you? Have you ever been in a relationship or dating someone where you’ve thought, “Let me just end it and get it over with”? 

I did this a lot when I was younger because, unconsciously, I was afraid they would leave me and I didn’t want to face rejection or abandonment, so I took control by being the one to end it. Did they actually want to break up with me? I still have no idea.

3. Being Distrusting From the Get-Go

Do you have trust issues? You might not trust anyone, even if they have never given you a reason not to trust them. It’s almost like you keep people at arm’s length because, deep down, you don’t really think they can be there for you. It’s safer to distrust them than to let your guard down, be vulnerable and potentially get hurt. 

4. Codependency + Control Issues

Are you overly invested in the feeling states, outcomes, and decisions of the people in your life? At the core of codependency is really the overt or covert desire for control. If you experienced any form of abandonment in childhood, you may feel compelled to try to control the outcomes of those close to you. 

Quick codependency check: when someone has a problem, does it feel like it’s your problem to solve? How urgent does it feel?  

5. Staying in Bad Relationships

Another indication of having abandonment issues is staying in bad relationships. You know, it’s not great, but the idea of being alone is scarier than the idea of staying. While it’s likely a lot of us have been in a situation where we know we should get out but we just can’t seem to leave, abandonment issues make it much more difficult because the fear of being alone is acute. 

6. Serial Relationships/Dating

Another indication of an abandonment wound is moving from one relationship to the next. Are you a serial monogamist or a serial dater? Have you often found yourself in a situation where as soon as one relationship is ending, you’re already starting the next one? Or taking a page out of my playbook from back in the day and overlapping the end of one with the beginning of another? (not my finest decade!)

7. Sabotaging Relationships

When we have unprocessed abandonment issues, there can be a conflict between wanting intimacy and the fear of rejection and “inevitable” pain. You might have perseverating thoughts and feelings of being left alone, that people don’t stay, and/or people can’t be trusted. These feelings can lead to self-sabotaging behaviors in relationships, like violating an agreement so the other person will end the relationship (or, you end it, see #2). 

8. Being Drawn to Unavailable/Untrustworthy People

Sometimes an abandonment wound from childhood can manifest in our being drawn to people who don’t treat us well. It’s almost like we need to reinforce unconscious beliefs- people can’t be trusted, people won’t stay, I am not worthy of a healthy relationship, etc. 

We might experience repeating realities, where you’re attracted to someone who reminds you of the person who abandoned you and you are unconsciously seeking a better outcome this time. (Example: Time and time again in my younger years, I found myself in relationships with people who were unavailable in a very similar way to the way my father was unavailable.) 

If any of these behaviors resonate with you, I want you to know it doesn’t have to be this way just because of what you experienced in the past. As long as we can give our childhood wounds the time and attention they deserve, healing is possible. 

Inside this week’s downloadable guide, I’m giving you 3 ways to start doing the work of healing abandonment issues. You can grab it here now.  

And if you feel like you are interested in learning more about a father wound, I encourage you to join me in our new workshop this month! 

Here’s where you can join us for The Father Wound interactive workshop! 

I hope that this was helpful to you. I read all of your comments and questions, so please, drop them here or connect with me on Instagram @terricole.

Remember you are inherently worthy no matter what you’ve experienced, and as always take care of you.