Abandonment and Neglect

When someone fears abandonment, they are afraid of losing a loved one, either through death or the relationship being dissolved. While abandonment is not a condition such as depression, fear of abandonment can often stem from anxiety that is rooted in a strong fear of losing significant others. Having abandonment issues can produce negative consequences in a person’s relationships and on their sense of self.

In relationships, each person has responsibilities to others, and sometimes a failure to meet those responsibilities amounts to neglect. Neglect can occur when a spouse who works and earns an income deprives their partner of financial resources and support.

Between spouses, it can also occur when one either refuses to meet or overlooks the emotional needs of the other. Neglect can also happen when a parent or caregiver doesn’t provide the food, shelter, and emotional support a child needs to thrive. Being neglected can also cause issues in a person’s life and relationships.

Some challenges in life can be traced to experiences a person had when they were younger. Those issues don’t evaporate or disappear with age, but they shape how a person responds to others and has an impact on their relationships. With abandonment and neglect issues, even though a person may have grown up as part of a family and a home with both parents present or where other issues such as alcohol or domestic abuse are absent, it is still possible to develop that fear of abandonment or to experience neglect.

Some people develop issues because they’ve experienced abandonment and neglect, whether as an adult or as a child.Abandonment and neglect issues can occur in several situations:

• Being left alone for extended periods and left uncared for as a child.
• Physically present but emotionally absent caregivers who don’t give the attention and care needed to help a child flourish
• Childhood trauma or loss, such as when a parent dies
• Losing a loved one through death or divorce
• Not receiving the care and support you need from your spouse or romantic partner, such as provision for physical and emotional needs.
• Situations of extreme lack such as poverty and economic deprivation
• Receiving minimal support and communication in your home or family, leading to a loss of emotional connection with them and others.

In other situations, a person may develop abandonment issues for other reasons than what they may have experienced in their life. Abandonment issues can be rooted in the fear that something might happen to their loved ones. You may not have experienced abandonment, but you may live in fear of happening to you – you are afraid that you will lose a loved one and be left alone, either through them dying or leaving the relationship.

Abandonment and neglect issues can affect anyone. The inciting incident can occur when a person is younger, but it can also happen when they are older. People from all walks of life, genders, ages, and ethnicities can experience abandonment and neglect issues. It is not entirely certain why some people develop abandonment and neglect issues when others who go through similar experiences do not. There may be other factors at play such as brain chemistry, environment, and genetic factors.

Abandonment and neglect issues can cause all kinds of problems in a person’s life. Due to the fear that they may be abandoned at any time in a relationship, a person with abandonment issues may develop certain problems in how they relate to others. Some of the symptoms and effects of abandonment and neglect issues in adults may include the following:

• Being unable to maintain healthy relationships. Relationships may be punctuated with the desire to control others, pushing others away to preemptively avoid being rejected first, struggles to trust others, a lack of emotional intimacy, or giving too much in relationships. This behavior, along with codependency, is an attempt to mitigate the fear of being abandoned.
• Moving rapidly from one relationship to another
• Requiring constant reassurance that one is loved
• Being a people pleaser is one way a person tries to make sure that people don’t leave them.

The result of abandonment issues is that a person may enter and stay in unhealthy relationships because they don’t know how or when to leave. Because the fear of being left alone is greater than the negative experiences they go through in those unhealthy relationships, they choose to stay.

When a person experiences neglect, they may develop a warped relationship with money as a form of security against want. They may even gravitate toward unhealthy situations because their needs are met in those spaces.

Abandonment and neglect affect how a person perceives themselves, the relationships they enter, and the situations they remain in. Some of the negative consequences of abandonment and neglect issues are:

• Depression
• Doubting God and his promises of provision and care
• Experiencing chronic anxiety or insecurity
• Tendency toward isolation, and difficulty forming meaningful and healthy relationships
• Feeling like you don’t have control
• Needing excessive reassurance of your loved ones
• Feelings of Shame
• Grief over loss experienced or anticipated
• Self-doubt
• Trust issues
• Panic attacks
• Reliving and obsessing over the abandonment
• Substance abuse

In children, abandonment issues may be present when they are clingy, are afraid of being alone especially at bedtime, struggle with anxiety when being dropped off at school, or frequently have an illness with no apparent cause. Children do go through a phase of separation anxiety, but fear of abandonment presents as more severe and lasts longer than the typical signs of separation anxiety.

Human beings are complex, and the world we live in isn’t perfect. The dynamics that shape us and our responses to life’s challenges are difficult to unpack on our own, and so help from a person who has training and understands the dynamics of human relationships is a precious gift. You don’t have to deal with abandonment and neglect issues alone. If you have experienced, or live in fear of, abandonment and neglect, it is important to seek the help you need.

God has said that he will never leave nor forsake us and that he cares for us. In Christian counseling, your therapist will provide you with wise and compassionate faith-based support as they help you work through mistrust, grief, and pain toward healing, a sense of self-worth, and peace. Your therapist will walk with you to explore and identify any negative thought patterns that root you in your fear of abandonment or that stem from any neglect in your life.

Investigating the root causes and experiences of abandonment that may lie at the fear of abandonment will help a person begin to grieve any experiences of abandonment to come to terms with it. Abandonment issues can lead to maintaining poor boundaries in relationships, and so your therapist can help you draw up healthy boundaries in your relationships.

Where necessary, medications for anxiety or anti-depressants may be prescribed in the short term while working on the underlying issues during therapy. By leaning on God and His many promises to His people, your therapist will help you develop healthy ways to cope with the fear of abandonment and neglect, and with any issues that stem from that.

Your journey to begin dealing with the effects of abandonment and neglect can start today. Browse through the counselor directory and contact us today to find out more about counseling for abandonment and neglect issues.