126. How to heal a fear of abandonment

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Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast, Near listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here. Back for another episode. Today, we're tackling a topic that I think many of us are struggling with and maybe wouldn't even know it, and yet it really does impact a lot of our relationships in such insidious, often invisible ways. It is a very deep belief system and anxiety that can really disturb our ability to form meaningful connection, to love deeply, and to trust others. And that is a fear of abandonment. I think all of us feel that instinctual drive to avoid emotionally painful experiences like being rejected or heartbroken or feeling forgotten about, and naturally these events, the way people treat us or leave us is quite devastating and it can leave some very long lasting emotional scars. But it's also somewhat part of life, right. We have to kind of come to peace with the reality that not every relationship is going to last, that people are going to leave, people are going to pass away. So there is no way of controlling how your relationships kind of pan out. But we can decide a how we want to treat ourselves and be how we respond to these unfortunate kind of events. For some of us, though, we are so pa petrified of losing the ones we love or feeling abandoned that we really cannot allow ourselves to get close to other people. And for many of us who are experiencing this, we know it only comes from these experiences that we had in childhood or even early in our romantic relationships, right when we were eighteen nineteen dating for the first time, where we developed almost an insecurity based on our experiences that everyone that we love will leave us. And this feeling can really influence how we approach not only our romantic connections, particularly the people we're dating or even married to, but also our interactions with people like friends, like family, like coworkers. There's a few ways that this manifest that we're going to speak about in this episode. I think if we have developed this really intense fear of being abandoned by those we love, and what the emotional consequences of that would be. We can respond by becoming incredibly avoidant or self sabotaging our relationships, becoming really emotionally numb to the world and to opportunities for love and intimacy and connection. But then on the flip side, a fear of abandonment is also really closely linked to things like intense people pleasing tendencies and clinginess and self abandonment, whereby we end up sacrificing our own needs for others because we think that that will keep them closer, that this will prevent our worst fears from being realized, or confirming this really deep insecurity that we are correct. People we love cannot be trusted, We cannot trust them, they will inevitably leave us, and we know that that is not true. We know that there are so many people out there who stay in the people's lives for decades. I feel like everyone has at least someone like that, whether it is a parent or a friend, or a family member or even a partner. So I really want to break down where this unfortunate, negative but also false belief system comes from and how it's especially relevant for our twenties, because I think it's often during this decade that we become a lot more aware of how our past and certain events or in some cases trauma, continue to influence us or manifest in unhealthy relationship patterns, and that doesn't have to be our reality. Often we engage in a lot of self blame for what are very deeply ingrained emotional reactions that have emerged from a lot of things that were beyond our control. You know, we wonder why we can never let people get close, or we always feel the need to start a fight or sabotage our relationships when they begin to feel too comfortable. So I really also want to provide an explanation for why that is. You know, sometimes it's really subtle things, or sometimes it's big things like witnessing a divorce or having BPD early romantic experiences. But also I think it's important that we acknowledge this anxiety, where it comes from, and how to integrate it, how to manage it. It is something that we can all definitely heal from, So there is so much to discuss. If you are someone who has been struggling with this and you're trying to find a reason why you find it so hard to trust others and connect with them. Hopefully this episode provides you with an explanation, with some answers, with somewhere to go. So without further ado, let's get into it. Okay, So, first of all, as we do, we need to get our basics down pat before we jump into the theories and ideas that make up a fear of abandonment. I think typical of psychology terms that gain very general societal notoriety and popularity. Sometimes the truth about ideas like a fear of abandonment can become misconstrued and leading to people becoming also somewhat misinformed or at times confused or excluded from a definition or from a narrative around a certain issue. And that's really not ideal because I think there are so many of us, especially in our twenties, as we enter into our first really serious long term relationships, or where we start to encounter things like death for a lot of us, or friendship groups falling apart. Often what we do is we question some of our past experiences. We are undergoing this very real emotional battle at times between our primary instinct for love and security and a much deeper fear of being hurt or discarded by someone we feel really connected to. So firstly, it's important to note that a fear of abandonment, it's not a recognized mental health condition. You know, your doctor unfortunately is not going to be able to give you a diagnosis and a cure and send you on your way, because it's a lot more nuanced than that. Instead, psychology has kind of come to see this as a type of anxiety in which we feel this overwhelming yet often unwanted and unwarranted fear that the people we love will leave us, and so we react in somewhat irrational ways, perhaps sabotaging our relationships, pulling away so that people don't have the chance to hurt us, or feeling a really intense need to be close to people at all times, perhaps sometimes also transforming into codependency. Actually, the thing is that a fear of abandonment, although it's not a recognized mental health condition, it's really really closely linked to a bunch of other concepts that we have discussed on the show, things like emotional unavailability and hyperindependence, even a social phobia. But it differs in that it's primary function on an emotional level. The primary function of this fear of abandonment is to help us avoid the pain of being rejected, dismissed, or let down. And it's not so much a fear of general social interaction or even intimacy, but a fear of what will happen when these things we deeply value are taken away, What is going to occur in their absence. Another distinction is that this fear of abandonment it shows up in all of our relations, not just our romantic ones. I think we typically think about abandonment issues when it comes to dating, but people will experience this type of anxiety and worry for their friendships as well. They'll worry that their friends will leave them, they worry about what will happen if their family members, something happens to their family members or even co workers or acquaintances, or being rejected or abandoned by entire social circles, which we know is quite irrational. But I would say the reason that we think about it a lot in terms of romantic connections is because for many of us, these fears of being abandoned aren't really fully realized until we enter into our first or second romantic relationship. That's because I think, unlike friendships or family, romantic relationships really take on this whole new level of of emotional closeness and expected intimacy and vulnerability. The stakes are a lot higher. The risk of being hurt really increases with each kind of moment and memory where you get closer. Typically also because we often have more than one friend or more than one family member, but we only have one partner, and we are often naturally incredibly bonded to the people who fill this role in our life. And so I think everyone is going to experience this fear on some level that one day they may find this person they love drifting away or outright, you know, leaving them having to mend a broken heart. And as humans, like I mentioned before, one of our primary instinctual drives is to avoid pain, and often we think of that selectively to just mean physical pain or injury. But we know from countless countless study is that certain emotional experiences can also manifest in the body. And it's a concept known as psychogenic pain, whereby when we are exposed to psychological distress or emotional distress that can actually manifest in very real physical discomfort and suffering. So I think that reason is why a lot of us do relate to having a heightened anxiety over the possibility of being abandoned or left by someone. And I think if you don't have that anxiety at times, if you're someone who you know kind of approaches your relationships like everyone is replaceable, no one can ever hurt me, that is equally as unhealthy. I also want to say that this reaction, especially when it gets to a really intense fear of abandonment, it is neither intentional, nor is it voluntary. It is not an opt in situation. No one is looking to experience. It's more anxiety than they already are. But also it almost consistently emerges from situations that are outside of our control, that have influenced us on a somewhat unconscious level, and then begin to manifest in certain behaviors and tendencies that really interrupt our ability to connect people with abandonment issues, fears, whatever we want to call them, They're not going to experience that in the same way. It's not always going to be identical. So there are actually four different types of profiles or archetypes of people who are experiencing abandonment wounds, or who are fearful of abandonment. So there's the saboteur, the needy, the avoidance, and the serial data. And sometimes all of these can operate within one person, but let's break them down one by one. So the saboteur is someone who undermines their own relationships to try and identify faults and push people away before they get hurt. Often when that happens, they'll blame the other person. They'll blame their friends or their string of partners. They'll say that they're toxic or problematic, rather than really closely examining what this pattern of behavior says about their own emotional wounds. Right that they're actually sabotaging these relationships, perhaps subconsciously, because that way these people can never leave them if they leave first. So the next is the needy or the clingy, and this is someone who often displays behavior that is very similar to someone in the early stages of codependency. Right, so getting close to someone incredibly quickly, perhaps sharing too many intimate details about themselves too soon, or really wanting to reach certain milestones like exclusivity or applying labels really early on. And they do this in hopes of kind of fast tracking a relationship to provide them with the sense of security before they truly do actually start to trust this person. It's kind of like the false pretense of okay, well, if we have this label, if they have reassured me that we're exclusive, if they're not sleeping with other people, they're not going to leave me. And this will provide me kind of with the structure in which I can actually start to build a relationship with this person after they've already provided me the reassurance that we are in that point. The next is the avoidant, and the avoidant will almost abstain, particularly from intimate, vulnerable relationships, or close friendships entirely. They may pull away from family members or certain social circles because they are so fearful of being hurt or disappointed. If they pull away first, much like the saboteur, then they will have the power and agency. That's kind of what they're telling themselves. Basically, they're saying, what you know, very similar to the saboteur, I cannot be abandoned if I make the decision first. So therefore, although it's going to leave me in the same position of not having these people around or feeling lonely. At least I'm in control here. At least I'm not going to be surprised. And finally we have the serial data. Also similar to the saboteur, this person will cycle through relationships friendships quite quickly, but they'll find themselves not really getting attached in the same way that the saboteur does. Instead, what they're really choosing to do is soothe their abandonment wound with new people, right, so they might fall in love pretty quickly. The relationship ends, perhaps because of sabotage, perhaps because of something else, and instead of really acknowledging that that really hurts, instead of acknowledging that perhaps this is really unfortunate and really deeply painful, they will find someone else to heal them rather than really acknowledging why they find this so particularly distressing. So I would say that something that's really important is that none of these types of individuals associated with abandonment issues are bad people. It's really important to remember that there should be really no shame in admitting that perhaps you have historically approach relationships like this, or that this is how you continue to approach relationships. Because I would say A, so much of why you are this person is out of our control, which we'll discuss in a second. But B I think if you're afraid to correctly identify ways in which your actions are perhaps maladaptive, you'll actually just prolong these experiences and it's not going to lead to any changes. Outside of these very high level archetypes, there are some other core behaviors that I just want to quickly dive into a little bit deeper. So we spoke about cycling through relationships. Some of us who are facing a fear of abandonment may want to engage in numerous, consistent, shallow relationships. We're afraid to ever let someone truly see the ugly, vulnerable, scared side of us, so we protect this part of us. We never let anyone see that, because if they do leave us, we can always comfort ourselves with the knowledge that this person really never really knew us that deeply. So that is very similar to a fear of intimacy. And often the reason we cycle through relationships, particularly shallow ones, is because we find a reason to leave them before the other person can leave us. We talked about sabotaging relationships, but there's this other interesting term called emotional baiting. So this is where we attempt to create situations that elicit a particular emotional reaction from a partner, either positive or negative. So, in psychology, emotional baiting is actually used to describe certain narcissistic tendencies that are inherently very manipulative and attention seeking. But in this case that is not accurate, right, That is not why people are beating their partners or beating someone in their life. This behavior actually represents something a lot more vulnerable. It reveals a part of us that really needs love. So what we're doing when we emotionally bait people in our lives, you know, by starting fights, by withdrawing, by saying things we don't mean, is we're really testing them to see if they will leave us. So for people with the fear of abandonment, this is a slightly counterintuitive way of building trust. It's interesting because in these moments, we're not trying to endanger our relationship, right, It's not all about self sabotage. In fact, I think these behaviors are almost a sign of how much we want these relationships to last. Hence why we're really subconsciously testing them to see if the other person is genuine and if they will stay, and if what they're saying is true. We really want to entrench ourselves further and feel that deeper level of vulnerability and intimacy. But before we can do that, we need to be like one hundred percent short that this is not going to end badly, that this person is not going to withdraw from us. So we kind of become our worst selves to test them, to really push them and then closely watch their response. The next thing is clinging to unhealthy relationships. Some people with abandonment issues, there's been research to show that they might stay in relationships that aren't good for them even when they have a desire to leave. I think that's because the fear of being alone is a lot more powerful, and they often perceive it to be safer to pursue someone who cannot provide them the emotional connection that they need, because instinctually they know that they'll never get too close. I would say that this is actually really it's kind of a way that our brain, or our fear of abandonment tricks us because we know, based on principles of attachment and familiarity and proximity. That the more time we spend with someone, even if we are trying our hardest, the more bonded we will become. So it's actually quite dangerous, I think, to pursue relationships with people you think won't hurt you in order to protect yourself, because that might actually really backfire and further entrench your fear around abandonment. Finally, we have needing constant reassurance. This is what I've experienced a lot, especially in my current relationship who and you know, my partner is incredible, he is beautiful. But no matter how much I think love and attention you give someone, especially someone who's maybe had past experiences where they've been let down, you kind of always have this fear that they're lying to you or that they're going to change their mind. So you really consistently regularly require them to confirm and reassure you that they're not going anywhere, that yes, they still love you, No, they're not annoyed, they're not mad at you, they're not going to leave you. It kind of also can sometimes result in what we call fawning behavior, right, So that's also really closely related to people pleasing tendencies where when we fawn. When we try and please someone, what we're doing is constantly trying to make this person happy, sometimes at our own expense, by being really excessively generous, affectionate, or passive or agreeable as do not give them a reason to leave us, and that can often result in us actually neglecting our own needs or becoming really hyper sensitive to things like conflict or criticisms, small disagreements that are really natural in any relationship, but we see them as a thread because they undermine our sense of security. Small things like that if you are someone who has previously been in relationships where people have given a taken love very inconsistently, or you've been raised with very inconsistent parents, small things like arguments, like little disagreements, they trigger an alarm in our brain, one that has a very low threshold, because we have become hypervigilant towards anything that may indicate that the other person has a reason to disappear. That is why we need that reassurance. That is why we may become quite passive, because we want to keep the peace. We really want to make sure that they have no reason to need to walk away, and if they do that would be our fault. One thing that's really interesting to me is how some of these behaviors that are very deeply associated with a fear of abandonment have become kind of romanticized in society, especially around pop culture and places like TikTok or Instagram. Particularly. What we're seeing is this like idealization of a very avoidant, detached approach to romantic connection. So trends around being heartless or how to stay detached and cold in the early stages of relationship, how to get people obsessed with you, to appear emotionless and untouchable, you know. The heartless one in particular, really really worries me because when we examine that deeper, I don't actually think that having no emotion towards people at all is a particularly healthy thing. It also, in some ways is very thinly veiled abandonment issues. I think that if you've been through an experience where you've been left really like absolutely demolished and heartbroken or just so hurt and betrayed by someone, we kind of go the complete opposite way, and we like to appear emotionless or in some ways convince ourselves that this is a person we can be when really what it is manifesting is our fear of abandonment. Subconsciously, our minds want to avoid another situation like that, so they take the experience and they reverse all the behaviors that perhaps put you in that previous situation, so that you act differently, and sometimes you act in a way that's really counter to your desires or even your overwell well being. This really links to where a fear of abandonment comes from, which is what I want to discuss next. So generally psychologists attribute a fear of abandonment to the experiences and beliefs that we have internalized as children. So as a child, if you are denied really basic fundamental comforts like physical affection, emotional connection, and safety, we learn not to trust the permanence of these things in adulthood, and what that results in is a very dysfunctional and insecure attachment style. In this case, often it's an avoidant or anxious attachment style. We're worried people will withdraw their love, so we become extremely stressed and panicked either drawing them in and really wanting to hold onto them or completely removing ourselves. First traumatic events in childhood as well can really disrupt this sense that our relationships with people will be sustained even if there's distance. That is something that a child has to learn. It's called object constancy. Basically, what that means is that even if your parent leaves you at daycare or leaves you at school for the afternoon, they are a going to come back and be the relationship is going to be the same. But you know, events like a divorce or injury, or the death of a parent or a caregiver, they're really significant and they really disrupt the development of this really fundamental cognition. So although we know that this person didn't intentionally leave us or mean to hurt us, we still really feel the intensity of their absence, and we rationalize that if we'd just been a lot less closer to them, if we had loved them less, we would be in less pain. And so the logic follows that to avoid future pain, avoid future connection. So that's one of the origins because as we know, healthy human development really requires those physical and emotional needs being met, and during childhood that often comes from our parents, but during adulthood it can come from a broader range of personal and romantic relationships. I say this all the time, but something that I think psychology as a field really needs to investigate more is the impact of early romantic experiences on later romantic and emotional wellbeing and also dating specifically, how do we go on to form healthy relationships and seek out the right people based on what we were kind of taught that love was. I think often the research and attachment style really only goes one way. But I also think that it's really important to acknowledge that, you know, although maybe your first relationship was when you were young, maybe seventeen eighteen, even younger, that's still going to have a really, really foundational impact. That is because, as these cognitive scientists at MIT have explained, we experience peak mental processing and memory power at around eighteen to nineteen, and that kind of tapers off the older we get, but it is around that time I'm going to say, like a bracket of seventeen to twenty one, that we experience a lot of first you know, our first love, our first breakup, our first kiss, and that's all occurring during a period where we are still developing but also absorbing information and memories at a crazy pace. So for some people, a particularly painful relationship. Perhaps you dated someone who cheated on you or treated you poorly, or lied or left suddenly. That is going to be a core experience that makes you really fearful of situations that could recreate that pain in the future. And from that we see abandonment issues being born, and they're really maintained by that cycle we spoke about before of hypervigilance of self sabotage of avoidance. Abandonment issues can also stem from a really intense fear of loneliness. But also it's quite closely linked to borderline personality disorder. Now, this podcast is not a place for self diagnosing mental health conditions, so I just want to make that really really clear. But I think that we cannot talk about abandonment issues without talking about BPD because they are so closely aligned in a lot of people's minds. So BPD, if you haven't heard about it before, it's a mental health disorder characterized by a lot of symptoms, mainly really chronic challenges with maintaining healthy relationships, feelings of low self worth, impulsivity, really volatile moods. This disorder is often really hallmarked by a pattern of very unstable personal relationships, and what that means is that a fear of abandonment is also often a really big part of the lives of those who are impacted by BPD. It's also really one of the most common symptoms that we will see. There's really no kind of solid explanation that can be given as to why this is, but according to a number of psychologists and psychiatrists, the fear of being abandoned often causes people with BPD to form unhealthy attachments. Sometimes they can abruptly cut off these relationships, effectively abandoning their partners, and other times they make really frantic attempts to hold onto the relationship. And it's this overly, I think it's quite intense or erratic behavior that is what causes them to push loved ones away, makes it harder to have those stable relationships like we talked about, but also heightens that fear around abandonment because there is a cycle of perhaps very difficult interpersonal connections, interactions and experiences. Everyone with abandonment issues, though, has BPD. Let's really make sure that's quite clear. BPD is a separate condition that just has some overlap with this unique type of anxiety, and like we said, before fearing abandonment. It's going to show up very differently. It's going to come from very different experiences. But what I want to talk about is what is kind of the long term prognosis here, and how can we push past our fear of being rejected or disappointed or abandoned. How can we kind of break out of our self sabotaging patterns or our avoidant behaviors to really trust and to really love people. So we're going to talk about all of that and more after this short break. I think a lot of us are struggling with this in very invisible ways, often because I really don't think we want to admit this very vulnerable in security, this really vulnerable belief that we don't think anyone will ever stay, or anyone will ever love us enough to not abandon us. I think the reason we don't want to admit that is because we think that that says something about us, And we also are worried that what if we continue to be proven right? What if we admit this to someone, maybe a friend or a partner, whoever it may be, and they still leave. The thing is something I really want to make quite clear. A fear of abandonment has nothing to do with your quality and beauty as a human or the kind of depth of your soul of what you bring to other people. It really has no correlation with how people choose to treat you or have treated you in the past. Often, I think if we've experienced a number of really painful events or instances of withdrawal or where someone we thought would love us forever has abandoned us, we convince ourselves that we must be the common denominator, that there is something that we are doing wrong, and that can become like we've explored a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy, whereby the behaviors we adopt to seemingly protect us, or the ones that we use as defense mechanisms, have an opposite effect of actually further removing us from situations in which someone could maybe prove you wrong. A fear of abandonment in that way is so subconscious, and so it's going to continue to operate unless we a acknowledge it and be really get to the root cause or address this pattern so that we don't see that typical repeated timeline in relationships. This cycle, this timeline it's characterized by a few major things right that inability to fully commit. The heightened emotions and anxiety is the relationship becomes more serious. Sometimes we have that emotional baiting or testing and finally self sabotage or withdrawal. There was this really good example that I found which I think some this up really well, and I think a typical relationship of involving someone with abandonment issues might go through some of the following stages. So you start off in the early days. At this point, it's all really fun, you feel really safe, You're not really emotionally invested yet, so you kind of continue to live your life whilst also really enjoying time with them. I think at this point we're not worried about abandonment, we're not really in that mind frame yet. Then we have a honeymoon phase, and this is where you choose to commit. You kind of maybe overlook some of your anxiety, You overlook some of the red flags. You suppress some of those emotional wounds because you feel embarrassed by them. You don't want to admit them to your new partner, your new boyfriend or girlfriend, and you do in some ways feel really secure because this person has offered you exclusivity or a commitment, and you're not yet so emotionally invested that those fears are starting to really bubble up. And then you become partners. As things get more serious, things get in the way. You know, relationships are sometimes quite hard. People have bad days, work gets really annoying, you have to cancel plans, you worry about money, and something really small might occur. And an example of this is, for example, an unanswered text message or an unreturned phone call. To most people, I think that this is really normal, right, they might find a different reason. They might give themselves a rational explanation for why this is happening. They're at work their phone instead, they just haven't gotten around to replying to me. They're busy. But if you're someone who already has that initial anxiety or bias that this person is going to leave you, you're probably really going to battle really hard internally about how to respond, because to you, in your state of hypervigilance, that is a really big sign that they might be going to leave you. That is a sign that they pulling away. And although quite rationally and objectively, someone else might look at that and say, well, that's ridiculous. You have this fear response that's become deeply ingrained. So some people handle that by becoming really clingy, really insistent and demanding, and other people also just withdraw at that first sign of difficulty or what they interpret to be a sign that they're about to be left or broken up with. They make the first move, but they're making the first move with false information, with information that is coming from a subjective bias or a place of fear. So how do we prevent our fear of abandonment from doing this from really interrupting these healthy, beautiful connections. I'm going to give you a few tips, both from personal experience and then some more clinical advice that you know a therapist or a psychologist might give you. Number one, and I think this is something everyone listening is already doing, but you kind of need to shake hands with who you are at this point and where you're at and acknowledge that this is something that you're dealing with. I think you need to approach it really objectively, so no self pity, try not to fear what this means, or look for blame or back in the past for something you could change. Sadly, that's one of the realities of time. We can't change what brought us here. However, I do believe in our ability to control how we interpret and deal with our fear. So if you have acknowledged that you may be dealing with this fear of abandonment, you've acknowledged that or looked back at past relationships and said, oh my god, I can clearly see now where I have self sabotaged, or where I have been avoidant, or where I have been fawning or people pleasing. That is really valuable information, and that is information that can only help you be better. So that first thing, acknowledge that this is where you're at, and then examine why you believe this. Where did you learn this belief? Where did you learn this idea that everyone who loves you will leave? So examining like the origin story, that's often a technique used in psychotherapy where it is really useful to talk through our current experiences and trace them back to where they may have began and how they're still influencing what is currently happening in your life. Maybe it was you witnessed a really terrible divorce between your parents and that's taught you that love does not last, or you found out that your partner was cheating, and now you can't trust people anymore. You're so fearful of this abandonment, whatever it is. What I want you to realize is that it is not your fault. You did not choose that experience and it doesn't say anything about you either. And more importantly, you get a decide where you go to next. And we do this by identifying why, when, and what triggers this reaction. In psychology, triggers are essentially events, situations, things in the environment that elicit a really intense or unexpected emotional response. So when we're talking about a fear of abandonment, one that is common is, as we spoke about before, a partner maybe not replying to your messages or perhaps asking for a lone time. So the reason that this triggers this anxiety around them leaving you is because your brain is searching for patterns that serve as warning signs based on past experiences and is telling you to react in a certain way. That is why this thing has so called triggered you to have this really unexpected response. This perhaps desire to run away or to pull this person in really closely and be really needy. In that moment, you really need to stop, pause, feel, and then rationalize is this really what's happening? Has this person really given me any other indicator that this is how they're feeling that they are going to leave me? And then ask for reassurance. Instead of testing your partner with emotional baiting, test them, I would say, through vulnerability and honesty. And maybe test isn't the right word, but I think asking for clarity and pursuing open communication seeing how you're a partner responds to that is going to tell you a whole lot more about the future of your relationship or whether they're going to leave you. Then withdrawing or starting a fight or pushing them away, just have a sit down and say, hey, it makes me really anxious when you don't reply during the day. Can you just check in with me every now and again? And maybe they can't do that for some reason, and they tell you why, And the thing is is that their reason, it's going to be much more valid and much more real than the one that you're probably making up on your head. So I think it's really important to just tell them, tell them how you're feeling Secondly, often a fear of abandonment can result in self abandonment. When you are afraid of being left or dismissed, you'll kind of do anything to make the relationship work no matter the cost, even if this person is bad for you. As a result, we can sometimes really neglect our own physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual needs when you meet someone. If you find you have abandonment issues, maybe you will stop taking care of yourself and doing the things that bring you joy and help you live to balance life because you're prioritizing them and making sure that you're not giving them any reason to back away. So some examples are, you stop spending time with your friends even if they're not asking you to do that. You give up on your hobbies or your free time for them. You neglect things like working out, or your sleep or your self care practices. Here's the thing, though, when you stop taking care of yourself or you engage in what we call self abandonment, that really just increases the stakes of your relationship and it makes you feel more insecure about what might happen if the relationship were to end, because you have nothing you care about to fall back on. If You've sacrificed it all for maintaining this connection. So I would say, try not to let a person or a new spark overwhelm what's important to you on an individual level. Make a really deliberate effort to maintain the life that you love. I think additionally, this also means that you just have less time to worry about what they might be thinking, or to ruminate unnecessarily on your relationship and all the things that might be scary or worrying. You think. Feeling secure in the relationship you have with yourself really allows you to feel more secure in the bonds and the connections that you have with others. Thirdly, remember that your feelings are not reality. They are just feelings. Your fear is just your mind trying to help help you out by avoiding a pain you've experienced in the past. But your brain, your mind, it can't predict the future. It's just serving as a guide. So although you might be scared, you might feel a lot of fear right now, Challenge those negative beliefs that no one will ever love you. Challenge that belief that everyone will leave you by changing the narrative and questioning the evidence. Where is that feeling coming from Why do I think this? Why do I think they don't love me? Have they told me something that has told me this? Has someone else told me? Have you seen it? If not, try and realize that it's not a problem until it is. And I know it's hard to lean into that discomfort and the reality of not knowing, But what I always say is that it's better to see what happens than to be left with the what if of pulling away before the relationship has had a chance to prove you wrong or really live out its storyline. I think the reality is is that you can't avoid being heard every now and again, no matter how much you might try and test people or practice avoidance or cling onto them for dear life. It's kind of just part of the journey. But I think you really need to let life surprise you sometimes and know that whatever happens, you gave it your best. You took a chance, you let yourself be vulnerable, and you felt the fear and did it anyways, And I think that is so worth it every single time. Finally, I'm going to give you one more tip because this is something that has really helped me. That is to over communicate. Often your perception of a situation or an event or something your partner or a friend has done is going to be really disturbed by your own cognitive biases and anxiety and so over communicating what you need. Telling people how you feel, how you interpreted a situation is really really important. And obviously you don't need to jump right into your past trauma on the first date, because we know that that is really your fear of abandonment being activated by oversharing. But what you should do is really reveal, with time, perhaps why you might react in a certain way, why you maybe need a little bit more reassurance than the average person, ways that your partner can make you feel safer, And if they're a good person, they will respond to that. I've seen it happen. It's beautiful. They'll understand, and they'll really want to give you that sense of security and safety. I really hope that this has helped you if you've been questioning this. There is also, I'm just going to say it, so much that therapy can do for integrating past trauma that might be manifesting in a fear of abandonment. I think that therapy is amazing because there is a third party there who can really be so valuable and interrupt that pattern of negative and harmful beliefs or assumptions. As someone who is not involved, as someone who is unbiased, so definitely something else to think about, but as someone who has dealt with this previously and has had really open discussions about this in my current relationship, I'm telling you now, it does get a lot easier, and there is someone out there who will stay, who will meet you in the middle, who will kind of prove that consistent love and companionship does exist. So I hope that that is a really solid, helpful, comforting reminder to finish off this episode. I think that that is all we have time for. But I really do hope that you enjoyed. It was a bit of a scientific one, a little bit of a roller coaster, but also so valuable. I think that this is something that I hope people can come back to if you're anxious or worried about these things, perhaps again in the future. As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening, Go and follow us at that Psychology podcast on Instagram if you want to see behind the scenes or have an episode suggestion, and you can follow me at Jemma speG if you just want to see more personal content. We also have a Patreon. It's linked in the episode description. It's a lot of work doing this podcast, and I really do appreciate all the support. If you do get value from these episodes, and you're not already paying for it or contributing or showing your support in other ways, it's just a small way to help me out if you feel cool to do so. So thank you so much for tuning into this episode, and we will be back next week with another one.