#44 Abandonment

I have never thought seriously about what abandonment has meant for me personally. It is a textbook issue for Borderlines but, other than the panic I feel when my therapist goes away, I have not considered how it runs throughout my life.

My mother did not welcome a fourth child and I grew up feeling no particular bond with her, only fear. I was just 3 years old when my Dad got sick and he spent most of the next 4 years in hospital. My father was gone and my mother was stressed beyond her capacity to cope. In those years, I looked to my oldest sister for comfort, but I was only 6 when she left for good to start a career and a family of her own. When I was 7 years old, we were forced to leave everything familiar and go live a hand to mouth existence where ever we could. When I was 16, my big brother and my father died.

For sure, this adds up to a mountain of abandonment. How does it play out in my daily life?
Lack of trust is a constant. How can I put my trust in anyone or anything, because they can just disappear without warning. Recurring panic. I continually watch for signs of impending catastrophe. It is difficult, impossible it seems, to ‘connect’ with other people. It will hurt so much when they leave me that I don’t think I can survive it again.