Abandonment Fear Loneliness: One of the most important mental events in a person’s life is the feeling of abandonment. This feeling starts to matter from the moment a mental bond is created. That is, when the mental space is inhabited. When it is full of feelings that have been exchanged and that have acquired some meaning. Then being abandoned is traumatic.
Abandonment Fear Loneliness – Why is abandonment traumatic?
Because it stops being possible to give what you have inside. So there is a forced conversion and what you intended to give to the companion object (to the parents in childhood), now you have to give it somewhere else. But this is not easy because you cannot repeat the same things you did before. So the safety is reduced. Now you have to create a new bond with new ingredients and be able to start over again to see how you can exchange feelings again. See how you will give and how you will receive. But if you have a problem there for some reason, then you will find someone to repeat the abandonment. In psychoanalysis we call this repetition repetition compulsion. It’s what we all repeat because that’s where we feel safe. In addition, abandonment is traumatic because a stream of negative elements such as a sense of betrayal, withdrawal of trust, withdrawal of investment and regret for the loss of the object enters. So it is indeed a very difficult point there and some redress will need to be made in order for the self to be supported on the one hand, and on the other hand to carry on. But because just as we said before the repetition comes in the middle, again the abandoned will seek to meet the repetition. And if he doesn’t find it, he will create it.
Abandonment Fear Loneliness – Abandonment and psychopathology
Abandonment is much more common than we think and it does not only concern children in orphanages, or the homeless of the economic crisis. Abandonment is felt by a child who wants to be attached and has nowhere (his narcissism kicks in). In fact, if it has not been attached since a baby, then we observe serious forms of trauma that reach childhood psychosis and adult disorganization of the personality, but also when someone has attached but later the object of attachment is suddenly lost, again we encounter psychopathology which has depression in it. A sense of abandonment, however, is also the feeling that the significant other has no real concern in him.
Abandonment Fear Loneliness – The real worry
There is a word that today, badly in my opinion, has ceased to be used often. It is the word “bond”. The bond is much more important than the replacement word “relationship”. In bonding, you declare to yourself that you have feelings that bind you to the other, that you have created something in common with the significant other, and that you intend to continue devoting a part of yourself to an ongoing interaction. Of course, real caring is the ability to be able to see others, leaving your personal narcissism, but also the ability to be able to give to others.
People in Western civilization experience individuality as abandonment, and where this happens, it is because the community does not work. The concept of community is not only about charities and NGOs. Community means opening up and collaborating. I get involved, I relate on many levels, I help and let myself be helped. It is very important to be able to work together for a common cause and we don’t have to wait for some major disaster to work together. Collaboration is a joy. It gives life those little moments that we all need to be happy. But in order to do this, one must come out of one’s individuality. That is why I talk in my articles about narcissism, how it is created and what it consists of. The group is the space that one can use to start “seeing” others. Without the group, we are trapped in our individual spheres, abandoned in the vastness of life that just moves towards death. There is no meaning there. It is the abandonment that one feels inside when they suffer abandonment from a very young age. It is an abandonment that brings despair, freezing. Getting there is very difficult. Touching another, or allowing yourself to be touched more, is not only difficult but scary. Inner fear is established, it dominates, it rages.
Abandonment Effects on Mental Life Fear and Loneliness: Experiencing the Moments
So the effort to live by experiencing the moments that life brings with it, passes by the other. It’s over the relationship. There the infinite entanglement of the self unfolds, its possibilities, its inclinations, its wounds, its idiosyncrasies. Otherwise we are all frozen the same. But we are not the same. We are different. And this makes our life richer and kinder. Why kinder? But why when you know diversity and recognize that it completes you, how can you not see that this participation in understanding yourself, hides within it kindness? It takes years to see these. We usually open our eyes when it is too late but even then one can understand that beauty is hidden there. Approaching death cannot prevent us from feeling the beauty of life. Paradoxically, it probably helps us to see her. Death is total failure, final abandonment. But, as I have always said, let us be glad that we can talk about this matter alive. We still manage to talk about everything while we live and breathe. For everything that happened in us as children which is also the most important age in our lives. There the self is born, there it learns to grow, to be hurt, to think, to frustrate, to endure, to symbolize, to express, to defend, to transform, to wear a mask, to understand it all but to repel it, to feel it but to push them to the unconscious side, and finally to repeat all this incessantly throughout life. Even abandonment. Especially the abandonment. We even repeat giving up, to find a solution. But there is no solution. There is a relationship. Me and you and the others.
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See also: the importance of the mother figure
The process of psychotherapy requires commitment, dedication and is addressed only to those who seriously see that they need to change their lives. If you are thinking of starting this journey, call me at 211 71 51 801 to make an appointment and see together how I can help you.
Mixalis Paterakis
Psychologist Psychotherapist
I accept by appointment
Karneadou 37 Kolonaki
Τηλ: 211 71 51 801
www.mixalispaterakis.gr
www.psychotherapy.net.gr
Ψυχολογος Ψυχοθεραπευτης
“θεραπεία σημαίνει η προσπάθεια να καταλάβει κανείς τον εαυτό του. Να τον κατανοήσει. Να μάθει γιατί μισεί, γιατί έχει χαμηλή αυτοεκτίμηση, γιατί δεν μπορεί να αγαπήσει, με λίγα λόγια να δει από που προέρχονται όλα αυτά…”
Για οτιδήποτε ψυχολογικό σας απασχολεί, μην διστάσετε να επικοινωνήσετε. Υπάρχει λύση σε κάθε πρόβλημα απλώς χρειάζεται να δούμε λίγο εσάς.
Psychologist Psychotherapist
“healing means trying to understand oneself. To understand him. To find out why he hates, why he has low self-esteem, why he can’t love, in short to see where all this comes from…”
For anything psychological that concerns you, do not hesitate to contact. There is a solution to every problem we just need to see a little of you.