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Some links in this article are affiliate links. We may earn a small commission if you make a purchase through these links, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products we find useful to our readersBeing abandoned by parents or even your partner or anyone close to you is always taxing on one’s mental health. If you have experienced such, it is important to ensures that you do overcome the fear of abandonment by finding ways to deal with abandonment issues altogether.
The constant inflicted fear of being left alone is a constant. You will never find ways to combat that, to be able to fight back through the constant fear of not being good enough until and unless you decide to fight back and stand up for your future and for your overall well being.
By the end of this article, you will have a fair share of knowledge concerning the ways to cope with abandonment issues.
What are abandonment issues?
There are often times when the person we trust the most and rely the most on ends up leaving us with a vague reason behind the same.
Such an act of abandoning one is what entitles the condition of abandonment issues within us. It goes without saying that if you have been struggling around with this problem; chances are that the effects of this have imbibed deep within your subconscious.
You will find that it becomes very hard to not just trust someone but also put your entire faith on them. People with abandonment issues tend to have a rock solid wall built around themselves as a shield of self protection altogether.
Signs of Abandonment Issues
While many people tend to think that abandoned people are hostile and not that good to surround you with, you will often be shocked when you do come to know the reality behind the same.
Some of the common signs and symptoms that you will often encounter in people with abandonment issues include:
- Subdued nature
- Doesn’t trust people easily
- Doesn’t show emotions easily
- Could be hostile if triggered
- Signs of depression
- Constant fear of being abandoned by people
How To Overcome Abandonment Issues?
If you are stuck struggling with the abandonment issues, it is important to ensure that you find constructive ways to overcome the same so it doesn’t conquer the entirety of your life. Many people do fail to realize that one act like this doesn’t define one’s entire life.
In order to helping you in overcoming abandonment issues, we are going to suggest some of the best ways that we deem effective in fighting back through the negativity entrapped in your life.
1-Don’t have unrealistic expectations
People struggling abandonment issues will always have the unrealistic expectation from the people coming on next in their lives. Given that they have experienced people bailing out on them before in their life, chances are that the same will reflect in what they expect in the people gracing their lives later.
It has been found that people do impose some of their unrealistic wishes onto the person, especially if it’s their partner. This is one of the possible don’ts that can cause a complete negative turn in one’s life. If you constantly have unrealistic expectations from your partner, or anyone for that matter, chances are that you won’t get to experience life like you should.
Having unrealistic expectations also tend to make you overreact and become needy and when these aren’t fulfilled, you have the fear of being abandoned come back to you full force. This does cause an obstruction with the process of getting over abandonment issues that you predominantly signed up for.
2-Finding healthy outlets
You can’t necessarily handle someone else’s emotions but if you want to fight back through the condition of healing abandonment issues, it is important that you take control of your own emotions. Taking responsibility of one’s emotions itself is more than enough to fight through the negativity altogether.
In order to recover from the constant fear of abandonment issues, it is quite important to ensure that you find healthy outlets to channel that fear and fight it back. Take full responsibility of how you feel instead of cooping yourself up in the room and running away from your feelings.
This is not how recovery works. Even though there could very well be a number of emotions that are triggered by someone else’s actions, it is completely up to you on how you react to them.
Instead of lashing out right then and there, try and take a moment to assess the damage done and try and calm yourself first. Take a peek into your inner self and see what would be the best way to handle that situation in a better way.
3-Stop beating yourself up
It is human nature to start blaming things on ourself when we struggle to have things right. Specifically in ways to deal with abandonment issues, it is quite important to ensure that you stop beating yourself up for someone else’s actions.
Just because someone close to you did abandon you doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to constantly keep beating yourself up thinking that you did something wrong when it wasn’t necessarily your fault. It is easier said than done but if you want to overcome your fear of being abandoned, it is time to start working on yourself as well.
[ Related: 21 Marvelous Ways on How to Be Happy Alone ]
You need to understand that the fear of abandonment is an involuntary action. It isn’t necessarily something that you did that caused the same. Own up to the problems and do find ways to fight them back instead of constantly beating yourself up for it.
4-Identify what is causing the fear
Often times what happens is that we have that instilled notion of abandonment within our minds but do you even realize what is causing it in the first place?
Realizing the fear or the trigger will definitely help you cope with abandonment issues better. You will not just have a better perception but you will also be able to fight them back when you know what is causing it in the first place.
Technically, it does take quite a lot of time to realize what is causing the problem because we fear reliving the times that have affected us in such intensity. If you have been struggling to find the same, don’t stress it a lot, just take your time through the process and the rest will most definitely fall into place.
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Often times what happens is that people have this underlying fear that they won’t find anyone who would love them the same way if their partner ends up leaving them. This could possibly be a stemming reason behind your fear altogether.
5-Work on your self confidence
Not many realize this but your self confidence does define you as a person. You wouldn’t be able to conquer things effectively if you don’t even know about the varying ways to boost your own morale.
It is important that you work on yourself to find better ways to cope deals with abandonment issues and the constant underlying fear of not being good enough.
If your fear stems from not being enough or having flaws in yourself, it is time that you work on building and boosting your self confidence as a way to fight back those fears altogether.
Once you know that your self confidence is well balanced, it will be quite easy for you to fight back the unnecessary fear of being abandoned. It technically isn’t that easy to find constructive ways to wipe out self doubt from your mind but it isn’t impossible too. Just have an open mind and stop dragging your self esteem down every time something doesn’t go according to your plans.
6-Stop with the generalization
We are often stuck up in something that maybe happened years back. This is where the problem stems from. If you have experienced something in the childhood, chances are that the same might have been ingrained into your mind, making it hard for you to get over the same, thus imbibing a constant fear of not being enough.
But, it is important to stop generalizing. Just because something happened in your childhood and you encountered someone who wasn’t good enough, doesn’t mean that every last person on this planet is the same.
Generalizing is one of the things that we do quite often and this is exactly what we shouldn’t do. If your abandonment issues stem from a single person, don’t think that every person you get close to will end up doing the same. That is most definitely not how it works.
[ Also Read: Amazing tips to Reduce Stress ]
One of the tips for dealing with abandonment issues is to ensure that you stop generalizing everything.
7-Practice emotional self reliance
One of the best ways to deal with abandonment issues is by ensuring that you stop relying on someone else for your needs and how you dictate your life.
If you don’t want to experience history repeating itself, it is quite important to ensure that you practice self reliance. Don’t give anyone the power over your life and how you dictate it. Prepare yourself for the worst all the time and don’t expose your vulnerable side and give them that power over you.
Self reliance and self dependency is one of the best ways of deal with abandonment issues. When you are on your own, even with people surrounding you, you have complete dictatorship of your life, especially when it comes to making decisions.
8-Check if your thoughts are objective
Often what happens is that we let our thoughts become very irrational. We often do find ourselves in a situation when we assess whether or not our thoughts are even rational or not.
Owing to the fact that we are so subjective in terms of our thoughts, it is quite common to have thoughts that have nothing to do with our overall fear. Fact checking in times of heightened anxiety is important. All you got to do is distance yourself from the source and try and find better ways to channel your constant worry.
Try and think the things through and see whether or not the feelings that you are harboring within yourself are actually worth the time or a complete waste altogether. Stop with the irritation fear that has no base to it in the first place. Instead of constantly thinking people are going to leave you, try and harbor a positive and optimistic outlook to it.
[ Also Read – All that you need to know About Anxious Thoughts – Try to Get over it ]
9-Practice mindfulness
A constant unrest in our mind is often a common reason behind the condition of the underlying fear. Healing abandonment issues comes from within. You can’t physically do anything until and unless your mental health is in a good shape.
Start by opting for a mindful approach to your well being. Don’t let anything distract you from gaining that peace of mind altogether. Meditation is actually an amazing way to tame your mind and to find a good way to channel all the negative and dark thoughts clouding your mind.
[ Also Read: 20 Healthy Benefits of Meditation- According to Science ]
Take some out of your day, it could even be 5 minutes and practice mindful meditation and you will actually witness the results within a few days in how calm and in control you feel.
When you feel a certain control over your life, fighting back through the constant unrest does become easier even more so.
10-Peek within yourself
If you have experienced abandonment, try and ask yourself what drove that to happen. Chances are that if you find yourself being the problem, or your behavior being the trigger that did push people away, it is time that you take the time to find within yourself what is causing the problem in the first place.
You wouldn’t technically realize this but sometimes it could very well be you that caused the rift and the problems in the relationship. If that is the case, try and find it within yourself to rectify such behavior and the rest will fall into place.
[ Also Read: How to Remind yourself that your Worthy? 17 Effective tips that works ]
Work on yourself, not because you want to be perfect for someone else, but do that because you want to live a life that is your own, one that you have the complete ownership of. This itself will help drive away the issues you face to deal with abandonment issues altogether.
11-Take up a hobby
Often times, one of the primary reasons behind the lingering fear around the abandonment issues stem from an empty mind. You are bound to have negative stream of thoughts if you don’t necessarily find an effective way to channel your time and thoughts.
The best way to keep yourself preoccupied is by ensuring that you take up a hobby that you actually enjoy doing. You’ll find that you spend more time in that, instead of holing yourself up somewhere with negative thoughts swirling through one’s mind.
The hobby could very well be anything that interests you and the rest is bound to fall into place without any kind of issues whatsoever.
12-Seek professional help
The best way to fight through your fear of abandonment is by talking to someone who knows the deats around the same. Often times, you will find that it does become quite hard to handle the work altogether.
Seeking out for professional help can be one of the best ways to deal with abandonment issues. You will find that people who do struggle with their own self esteem have the affinity to get affected even after doing everything possible to help them through the process.
Professional therapy can help them get a better guidance into how one can handle their way through the same and find better ways to combat the problems that one is struggling with. Your therapist will have a better way to guide you through the issues that you have been struggling with.
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Make sure that you look through the reviews of the therapist and ensure that they are good enough to handle your thoughts and show you a positive way to handle your string of thoughts.
How To Help Someone With Abandonment Issues?
The fear of abandonment is one of the worst things that one can experience. If you find someone struggling through the same, lend in your hand of support. This itself could be more than enough to help them through their negative string of thoughts and fight it off for good.
It is never easy to see someone beating themselves up but the best you can do to help someone cope to deal with abandonment issues are the following things.
1-Validate their thoughts
Often times, what happens is people tend to demean one’s feelings of abandonment thinking they aren’t real and are nothing but irrational. This is where you are doing it wrong.
If you have a close friend or family having such issues, validate their emotions. Let them know that what they are feeling is completely valid and isn’t something that one experiences on a whim. This itself will help a lot in ensuring that what they are feeling aren’t a burden or unnecessary.
2-Be supportive
If you have a partner who struggles with abandonment issues, it is yours to tend to. You don’t need to invest yourself completely, thus forgetting your priorities in the process but what you can do is be supportive.
Make sure that they know that you are there when they need someone to talk to. Don’t impose any impression that suggests you possibly leaving them behind. That is not a good thing at all.
[ Also Read: 14 Ways to Maintain Healthy Life Style for a Rejuvenated Mind & Body ]
You can actually be supportive in a number of ways without having to worry about the consequences. If possible, try and ensure that you take the time out to show your support to the people who are struggling through and through.
3-Recognize that everyone is different
Every single person has a different thought process and a different way in which they process their emotions. The same applies to the string of fear regarding abandonment as well.
It is quite important to ensure that before you try to help someone getting over abandonment issues, it is important to ensure that you know that not every single person is the same.
People cope in a different way and the best way you can help them recover from this is by being there for them in the way that positively influences their recovery process.
4-Be a good listener
One of the best tips for dealing with abandonment issues and helping one deal with it is by being a good listener. Listen to the problems that one is struggling with and try and suggest constructive ways to help them through it.
This might necessarily won’t seem like a lot but the same can most definitely help ensure that you can help someone recover from their constant string of negative thoughts swirling along in their mind.
There are a number of ways to deal with abandonment issues. It is completely up to you and how you handle the things that do matter in the end. If you are struggling through the process, take your time out to assess what it is that you are doing wrong. Never invalidate your feelings because then you won’t know how to recover from the same. We have suggested the best 12 ways you can opt for and we hope that comes in handy for you.
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