Definition, Issues, Symptoms, & Triggers

Abandonment is the state of being left helpless and without protection. When we feel abandoned, we feel undesired, unimportant, and discarded. Abandonment often comes with the sense of betrayal as well, that we’ve been left by someone who was supposed to support us. One common example is parental divorce during our childhood. The departure of one of our parents can leave us feeling betrayed and unworthy of love. The lasting emotional impact of abandonment centers on this sense of betrayal and unworthiness. The experience can leave us feeling as though we can’t trust those that are closest to us or that we are simply not worth their love and commitment.

Abandonment issues are a collection of symptoms or emotional and psychological responses to an experience of abandonment. To say someone has “abandonment issues” typically refers to the persistence of coping mechanisms that were adopted in response to a previous experience of neglect, abuse, or having been left in a state of vulnerability. 

Abandonment is a traumatic experience and requires the development of different psychological and behavioral strategies for protecting ourselves in the future. These strategies can be helpful as we navigate the immediate aftermath of being abandoned, but they become maladaptive if they persist in the long run, thus they become “issues.” Abandonment issues are commonly characterized by anxiety and fear of losing loved ones which results in a hypersensitivity to perceived distancing in a relationship (Smith, 2018).

​Abandonment wounds typically result in fear and anxiety marked by hypervigilance regarding signs that you are about to be abandoned again (Smith, 2018). We respond to our fear and anxiety by trying to predict when we are going to be left so that we can avoid it or at least prepare ourselves for the impact. Our attempts to manage these feelings manifest in a variety of ways—ways that we might refer to as symptoms of abandonment issues.

Below are just some examples of the many symptoms we might observe if we suffer from abandonment wounds.

• Difficulty forming close, healthy relationships
• Patterns of choosing partners who are abusive, controlling, needy, emotionally unstable, or emotionally unavailable
• Patterns of unhealthy interpersonal communication with partners and friends
• Consistent feedback from others that you are too needy
• Losing yourself in relationships
• Inability to trust others
• Pushing others away to avoid rejection
• Always wanting to please others
• Feeling insecure in relationships
• Developing codependency
• Need for constant reassurance that others will not leave
• Need to control others
• Maintaining unhealthy relationships
• Inability to sustain relationships
• Hypersensitivity to criticism
• Tendency to dissociate
• Social anxiety
• Addictions, eating disorders, and self-harm

Abandonment issues are commonly the result of adverse childhood experiences which result in what is known as an insecure attachment style (Conradi et al., 2016). According to attachment theory, our relationship with our parents or caregivers provides a framework or working model for what we can expect from others, which we rely on throughout our lives (Bowlby, 1988).

This theory asserts that as children when our caregivers are present and reliably responsive to our needs, we develop a working model of ourselves as worthy and loveable and of others as caring and reliable, known as a secure attachment style. When our caregivers were absent, neglectful, abusive, emotionally unavailable, or otherwise inconsistently responsive to our critical needs, we develop an insecure attachment style or a model in which we are inept or worthless and/or in which others are cold and untrustworthy (Bretherton & Munholland, 1999).

Though insecure attachment styles are commonly observed in people who had adverse childhood experiences (such as neglect or abuse), insecure attachment styles can be developed throughout the lifespan in response to traumatic losses of attachment figures, such as the death of a parent, friend, sibling, or spouse (Daly & Mallinkrodt, 2009).  

For more on the causes and effects of abandonment, check out this short video from Psych2Go:

People with an insecure attachment style resulting from abandonment commonly anticipate being rejected by friends, family, partners, coworkers, and others. In response to their fear of rejection, they tend to be hypervigilant for cues that are consistent with their expectations. In other words, they are constantly looking for signs that they will be rejected or abandoned.

These expectations often tend to be self-fulfilling. That is, our expectations bias us to see signs of pending rejection when they aren’t really there or misinterpret others’ behavior as indicating they are going to leave us when they aren’t. We then are likely to respond defensively, push people away, or panic and demand constant reassurance – all of which are behaviors that tend to drive people away which confirms our suspicions. Said simply, when we treat others as though they are going to reject or abandon us, we make it hard to be close to us, which leads them to do exactly what we expected of them. Additionally, when we are presented with evidence that refutes our working model (i.e., evidence that we are loved and worth loving), we reject or ignore it, making it difficult for us to receive any reassurance we are offered (Bowlby, 1988).

Insecure attachment styles are traditionally divided into at least two types: anxious and avoidant (Conradi et al., 2016). Anxious attachment styles are thought to be a reflection of the internal working model of the self (i.e., the reason people leave is because of me), whereas avoidant attachment styles are thought to reflect the internal working models of others (i.e., the reason people leave is because of them).

Anxious attachment style
An anxious attachment style is characterized by a preoccupation with anxiety, insecurity, and a need for reassurance in a relationship. People with an anxious attachment style typically feel unable to trust in their ability to support themselves, which leads them to lean on others for guidance, reassurance, and comfort (Braehler & Neff, 2020). In people with an experience of abandonment, an anxious attachment style might manifest as being needy or clingy, sacrificing their own desires to please others, staying in unhealthy relationships, and developing codependent relationships.

Avoidant attachment style
An avoidant attachment is characterized by a defensive isolation or withdrawal from others. People with an avoidant attachment style believe that they can only rely on themselves for comfort and support because they have learned that others could not be relied upon to meet their critical needs. Seeking help from others evokes a powerful fear of being abandoned, rejected, or disappointed. 

It has also been suggested that an avoidant attachment style will provoke shame when help is needed because the avoidant person must confront the reality that they cannot meet all their needs on their own (Braehler & Neff, 2020). An avoidant attachment style will commonly manifest as an inability to trust others, the tendency to push others away to avoid rejection, difficulty forming close relationships, and the tendency to disassociate.

• “Absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through its walls and hang pictures on the air.” ― Pablo Neruda
• “And what if—what are you if the people who are supposed to love you can leave you like you’re nothing?” ― Elizabeth Scott
• “When loneliness is a constant state of being, it harkens back to a childhood wherein neglect and abandonment were the landscape of life.” ― Alexandra Katehakis
• “I clung to books and words because, unlike people, they’d never abandon me.” ― Ruta Sepetys
• “The fear of abandonment forced me to comply as a child, but I’m not forced to comply anymore. The key people in my life did reject me for telling the truth about my abuse, but I’m not alone. Even if the consequence for telling the truth is rejection from everyone I know, that’s not the same death threat that it was when I was a child. I’m a self-sufficient adult and abandonment no longer means the end of my life.” ― Christina Enevoldsen
• “Abandonment doesn’t have the sharp but dissipating sting of a slap. It’s like a punch to the gut, bruising your skin and driving the precious air from your body.” ― Tayari Jones
• “There must be different kinds of loneliness, or at least different degrees of loneliness, but the most terrifying loneliness is not experienced by everyone and can be understood by only a few. I compare the panic in this kind of loneliness to the dog we see running frantically down the road pursuing the family car. He is not really being left behind, for the family knows it is to return, but for that moment in his limited understanding, he is being left alone forever, and he has to run and run to survive. It is no wonder that we make terrible choices in our lives to avoid loneliness.” ― Charles M. Schulz
• “…in addition to feeling sick and tired and feverish and nauseated, I also felt forgotten. And there was no easy cure for that.” ― Sarah Thebarge

The experience of being abandoned can shape our entire worldview. It can make us feel as though we aren’t worthy of the same love, care, and compassion that others are and that the people we care about the most cannot be trusted to protect and comfort us when we need it most. These perceptions can have significant negative impacts on our relationships with our family, friends, co-workers, romantic partners, and even with ourselves. We can, however, recover from these deep and painful wounds by offering ourselves self-compassion, care, and self-forgiveness as we explore the source of our pain and our responses to it. For more on the causes and effects of abandonment and what you can do to heal, check out this video from Practical Psychology:

• Bowlby, J. (1988). A Secure Base: Parent-child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. Routledge, London.​
• Braehler, C., & Neff, K. (2020). Self-compassion in PTSD. In Emotion in posttraumatic stress disorder (pp. 567-596). Academic Press.
• Bretherton, I., Munholland, K.A. (1999). Internal working models in attachment relationships: a construct revisited. In: Cassidy, J., Shaver, P.R. (Eds.), Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Research and Clinical Applications second ed. Guildford press, New York, 102–127.
• Conradi, H. J., Boertien, S. D., Cavus, H., & Verschuere, B. (2016). Examining psychopathy from an attachment perspective: The role of fear of rejection and abandonment. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 27(1), 92-109.
• Daly, K. D., & Mallinckrodt, B. (2009). Experienced therapists’ approach to psychotherapy for adults with attachment avoidance or attachment anxiety. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 56(4), 549.
• Smith, M. E. (2018). Managing abandonment issues through recovery. Family Tree Counseling Associates.​