#164: 5 Unexpected Triggers of the Abandonment Wound
In today's episode, we're talking all about the abandonment wound — and specifically, five scenarios that might unexpectedly trigger your fears and insecurities around abandonment. When we think about the fear of abandonment, we often imagine scenarios where someone physically leaves us—maybe a breakup or a loved one walking out the door. But the truth is, this fear can manifest in much more subtle and unexpected ways, especially for those of us with anxious attachment patterns.
We'll cover:
How periods of grief or loss can trigger abandonment fears
Illness and wanting to be cared for
Dealing with unexpected life challenges
Periods of transition or major life changes
Emotional overwhelm and the need for support
5 Unexpected Triggers of the Abandonment Wound
The abandonment wound often lies at the heart of anxious attachment. Many may assume abandonment solely refers to physical desertion, but more frequently, the fear surfaces as emotional neglect. While some scenarios that trigger abandonment fears are straightforward, others are less conspicuous and can catch individuals off guard. Understanding these hidden triggers can be tremendously beneficial in managing the wound and nurturing healthier relationships.
Let's explore five unexpected scenarios that can trigger the abandonment wound.
Times of Grief or Loss
Experiencing grief or loss can be profoundly destabilising. Whether it's the death of a loved one, the end of a significant relationship, or even the loss of a pet, these periods of mourning make individuals vulnerable. One might become exceptionally sensitive to perceived emotional neglect during such times. Imagine feeling abandoned because a partner distracted themselves when they're needed most.
When grieving, it's beneficial to express needs explicitly. If a partner’s way of coping seems like neglect, communication can bridge the gap, fostering mutual understanding and support through tough times.
When You Are Sick
Illness can bring out the need for nurturing in everyone. When someone who is usually self-sufficient finds themselves unable to care for themselves, they might wish for their partner to step into a caretaking role. If a partner fails to meet these expectations or doesn’t show the level of care desired, it can feel like abandonment.
Consistent caretakers might sense a heightened resentment when their care isn't reciprocated during their own times of need. Communicating one's expectations and feelings about being cared for when ill can prevent misunderstandings and feelings of abandonment.
Unexpected Life Stressors
Unexpected misfortunes, such as car troubles, sudden travel delays, or other stress-inducing events, can make anyone feel helpless. During these times, there's often a surge of dependency on a partner for resolution and comfort. If the partner doesn't respond in the expected manner, it can elicit feelings of abandonment.
Recognise that every individual handles stress differently. Clarifying expectations and discussing potential responses to unexpected stressors can reduce the sense of abandonment and foster a collaborative effort to manage crises.
Major Life Changes and Transitions
Exciting life changes, such as a new job, moving cities, or becoming a parent, can be as stressful as they are thrilling. These transitions often create a need for additional support, attention, and care from a partner. When this support isn't forthcoming, feelings of abandonment can arise.
During significant transitions, clear and open communication about the support needed is crucial. This helps partners to understand how they can best support each other and ensures that no one feels neglected during critical life changes.
Emotional Overwhelm
Emotional overwhelm is a broad trigger encompassing many scenarios, such as conflicts in a relationship or challenges in other areas of life. In these moments, individuals with an abandonment wound might want their partner to 'fix' their emotional state. When the partner doesn't know how to do this, it can feel like a betrayal of trust and support.
Recognising that it’s often unfair to expect someone else to fix our emotions can be enlightening. Instead, asking for specific support—a hug, a listening ear, or even just presence—can be more productive and prevent the feeling of abandonment.
Strategies for Managing Abandonment Triggers
Managing these unexpected triggers requires self-awareness and proactive communication. Here's how to start:
Self-awareness
Developing self-awareness about one’s triggers and emotional responses is the first step. Journaling, therapy, or mindfulness practices can help individuals understand what situations heighten their abandonment fears.
Clear Communication
Expressing needs and expectations transparently can prevent misunderstandings. Whether it's requesting specific support during grief or conveying how one prefers to be cared for when ill, clear communication is essential.
Emotional Self-reliance
Building emotional self-reliance does not mean isolating oneself. It means cultivating the inner strength and skills to manage emotional upheavals without always seeking external validation or rescue. Practices like mindfulness, self-soothing techniques, and emotional regulation can be highly beneficial.
Understanding Partner's Perspective
Recognising and understanding how a partner deals with grief, stress, or emotional overwhelm is also crucial. This understanding fosters empathy and smoother collaboration during challenging times, reducing the likelihood of feeling abandoned.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Do you find yourself experiencing a strong fear of emotional abandonment? In what situations does this fear tend to show up most intensely for you?
How do you typically respond to feelings of abandonment or emotional neglect in relationships? What patterns or behaviours do you notice in yourself?
Reflect on a time when you felt abandoned or unsupported during a period of grief or loss. How did you communicate your needs to your partner, and how did they respond?
When you're feeling unwell or vulnerable, do you often expect your partner to take care of you in specific ways? How do you react if they don't meet those expectations?
Can you identify any major life changes or transitions that have triggered your abandonment wound in the past? How did you navigate these periods, and what support did you seek or need?
Think about a recent situation where you experienced emotional overwhelm. How did you seek support from your partner, and what was the outcome of that interaction?
Are there times when you project your way of handling stress or emotions onto your partner and expect them to respond in the same way? How does this impact your relationship?
Do you have difficulty asking for help or support? What fears or beliefs do you hold around vulnerability and the ability to rely on others?
Reflect on a moment when you felt emotionally abandoned. What stories or narratives did you tell yourself about your partner and their intentions? How did this affect your perception of the situation?
How can you practice more self-awareness and self-compassion in moments of emotional vulnerability? What steps can you take to communicate your needs more effectively and seek support in a healthy manner?
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Byron Bay Retreat - Apply now! 🏝️
Sydney Workshop (November) - Buy tickets
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, we are talking about 5 unexpected triggers of the abandonment wound. So this was actually an email newsletter I sent out a couple of months ago, and I got so much feedback from it, people saying that it really hit the spot for them in terms of being very relatable and that they learned a lot about themselves. And so I thought to spin it into a podcast episode so that I can share it with all of you in case it also has that effect on you. So the abandonment wound is nothing new around here.
[00:01:04]:
We've talked about it a number of times on the podcast, and you can go back through all the episodes and dive into that in a little more detail in terms of the foundations of the abandonment wound, but I will give a quick recap of it here for those who are maybe less familiar or could use a refresher. You know, the fear of abandonment the abandonment wound is really at the heart of anxious attachment. It is the core wound of anxious attachment. And, you know, that can be strange to hear for a lot of people because while some of us may have some literal abandonment in our history, I would say most of us don't have a story of physical, literal abandonment in our childhood or our early life, such as would justify this intense fear of abandonment that we experience in our adult romantic relationships. And so, it can leave a lot of people wondering, Where did this come from and why me? Why do I struggle in this way? Why am I so afraid of abandonment? And I think, you know, the other kind of confusing part or the bit that catches people is that while there can be a fear of, again, physical abandonment, someone leaving us, oftentimes maybe the more pronounced fear or the thing that we experience more acutely is that fear of emotional abandonment. So this idea of you're not going to be there when I need you, and I'm going to be left alone with these big feelings that I don't know how to deal with. And so I think a lot of that can come up for us, and we can be kind of overly dependent on a partner to fix things, to make it all go away, to make it all better, in much the same way as a child would, you know, expect that of a parent. And we can really regress in those moments.
[00:02:46]:
And so in today's episode, I'm going to be sharing less about, you know, the 101 of the abandonment wound, which, as I said, you can go back and listen to all the episodes on that, but more around some unexpected triggers, scenarios that aren't really obviously related to abandonment, that are likely quite triggering for you if you're someone with more anxious attachment or you otherwise identify with this abandonment wound. And, you know, in sharing these sets of circumstances or situations, I suppose my intention is for you to be able to connect the dots a little and understand why those situations might feel quite triggering for you, why you might have a seemingly disproportionate response, why it might really sting if your partner doesn't show up for you in the exact way that you would hope. And having that greater awareness will allow you to understand a little better how to support yourself and how to ask for what you need from a partner in a way that is grounded and self aware and mature rather than reactive and coming from a fear place, which I think is often what we do when we're on autopilot, or we lack the conscious awareness of what's really driving us in those moments. So that's what I'm going to be talking about today. Before I do, I wanted to share a very, very exciting announcement. If you listened to last week's episode, you would have heard me share that I have launched a brand new membership community called On Attachment Insiders. In the past 6 months or so, having run programs like Healing Anxious Attachment and the Secure Self Challenge that have had a community component, I get this resounding feedback that people really, really appreciate and value the opportunity to not only learn with feedback from me, as I'm obviously part of the community, but alongside others who are on the same path and who understand and can give feedback and offer wisdom of their own, and I think provides people with a lot of comfort. And the thing I keep hearing is it's so amazing to know that I'm not alone in all of the things that I struggle with and that I fear, and that really is so powerful.
[00:04:49]:
So if you're someone who loves the podcast, loves everything that I talk about here, and you're maybe wanting to dip your toe into working with me, the membership's a really great entry point into that because it's really affordable. At the moment, I'm running a promotion for founding members, which starts at $10 a month. So it's really, really affordable, and it's a cancel anytime thing, so you're not locked in. So if you're interested in diving a little deeper and accessing some more resources on this, having a channel via which you can seek support from me and connect with others, I really, really encourage you to check out the Insiders membership. The link is in the show notes to that. There's already a library of resources there with written q and a responses, scripts for different conversations, like how to set a boundary in all of these specific instances, you know, how to voice needs, how to navigate challenging conversations in anxious avoidant relationships with, you know, suggested scripts on how you could approach those things. There's, 20 page workbook on boundaries. There's guided meditations.
[00:05:57]:
There's videos on nervous system basics and somatic practices. All of that, you can access for as little as $10 a month, and that's not even going into the community aspect and the support that you can get from me. People have been asking questions in the community, and I'm able to share voice note responses. It really is extremely valuable and very, very reasonably priced in my opinion. So if that's something that you're interested in, definitely check it out. Grab one of those founding member spots before they are all snapped up. So looking forward to sharing that and growing that community with all of you beautiful listeners from all over the world. Very, very excited to be able to go deeper with you and and get to know you better.
[00:06:40]:
Okay. So let's talk about these 5 unexpected triggers of the abandonment wound. So the first one is during times of grief or loss. So if you are going through some sort of grief, maybe it's the loss of a family member, the loss of a pet, or some other grief or loss, you may notice yourself being really sensitive to any sort of perceived abandonment. Again, usually emotional abandonment, but even, you know, if your partner goes out rather than staying at home with you or they say the wrong thing or they maybe make a suggestion to try and cheer you up that doesn't quite land for you, it's likely that you're going to be more reactive and sensitive to those perceived moments of feeling kind of dropped by them in those times of grief or loss, and that really, you know, makes a lot of sense. It's vulnerable. You're probably feeling very, very tender and in need of emotional support, And so someone not being there in the way that you want them to be can feel like a form of emotional abandonment. And when you know that you've got some wounding around that, it can feed these stories of you're not there for me when I most need you.
[00:08:00]:
And I think that bigger story can feel really, really painful and scary, particularly when we're going through grief or loss. So I think that's a really common one, and as will be the case in all of these examples that I'm going to share, if you're with a more avoidant partner who maybe grieves differently to you, who their preference when it comes to something like grief might be distraction or avoidance or numbing, and that's not what you would prefer or what you need. Or maybe they like to grieve in isolation, whereas you like to grieve in connection. All of those things can really exacerbate the sense of being emotionally abandoned if they are defaulting to their way of grieving rather than being attuned to what yours is. So that is one of the key triggers, of the abandonment wound, is during times of grief or loss. Okay. The second unexpected trigger of the abandonment wound is when you are sick and in need of care. So if you're experiencing some sort of illness, whether that's just a flu and you're feeling rubbish for a few days or you've broken your ankle or something, and you're feeling really unable to take care of yourself.
[00:09:10]:
I think particularly if you're someone who's usually the caretaker of others, you're usually the one tending to other people's needs and giving, and you sort of take care of yourself without much fuss behind the scenes. Being sort of debilitated by illness can make you feel really vulnerable and you might feel almost resentful of all of the ways in which you care for someone else and now they're not there to care for you in the way that you would like or maybe the way that you would care for them if the roles were reversed. I think that's always very telling when we have the inner dialogue of, if I were in your position, I would do x, y, and zed thing, and we get a little bit kind of righteous and uppity about, our way versus their way. So I think that when we are feeling sick or unwell, again, there's this part of us that just wants almost that parent energy, someone to come and take care of us and cook for us and pat us on the head or whatever it might be. When we're feeling a little bit kind of sad and pathetic and feeling sorry for ourselves, oftentimes we want someone to feel sorry for us as well and to really you know, show that with that quiet babying almost behavior. And I I say that from a kind of humorous but loving place. I think we can all do that sometimes, that we wanna be cared for in that way. And if our partner doesn't get that or they don't immediately understand that that's what we're wanting, that we're wanting that kind of care or we're wanting them to take on a caring role for us, even if usually we're pretty self sufficient, we can spin that around and be upset with them, judge them, blame them for abandoning us.
[00:10:51]:
Whether we realize it or not, oftentimes it is coming from that place of, you're meant to be taking care of me and you're not. Does that mean that you don't love me, or that I'm not important to you, we maybe don't feel prioritized. Maybe if we're feeling sick and we had plans, you know, to go out to a party or something with a partner, and we say that we can't go because we're unwell, and a part of us wants our partner to not go as well and to stay, but they say, Oh, I'll just go without you. Something like that might feel really, really triggering. You might feel very abandoned in that kind of situation. If they carry on with life as per usual, particularly social things that you were meant to be included in, but they leave you at home alone. That kind of thing is likely to be pretty triggering. Okay.
[00:11:35]:
The next one is when something unexpected happens. Obviously, that's a little broad, but the things I'm thinking of here are misfortunes, like a burst tire or you're on the way to the airport and there's really bad traffic or you miss a flight or something like that. Just stressful, unexpected things in life. I think a lot of the time when things like that happen, we can have this impulse of, You need to fix it, do something, take care of me. Again, we almost regress into this helpless child that doesn't know what to do, and we get stressed and overwhelmed, and we just want someone to fix it all for us. And so if your partner doesn't really jump into that rescuing role that maybe is what you would do in the opposite situation, then you can feel a little bit like you don't care about me because obviously I want you to do whatever. Right? Again, it's this thing of we project our own way of doing things, and we have that expectation of our partner. And so when they don't automatically do that, or their efforts don't land in terms of what we are secretly hoping they would just know to do, we can be really judgmental and kind of harsh in our reaction because we're crafting this whole bigger story of, like, you're abandoning me, you don't care about me, I'm not important to you.
[00:12:56]:
So I think that, you know, when those misfortunes happen, when those life stresses happen, it can bring up our big fears around not being supported, which on a day to day basis, we might manage those fears by just over functioning, but when something happens that is so far outside of our control that our over functioning can't solve it, we can all of a sudden be thrust into that vulnerability of feeling helpless and feeling overwhelmed, and that can really bring up our abandonment wound. Okay. The next one is when you're facing a major life change or transition. So I think that even an exciting change like getting a new job or becoming a parent or moving cities, these things that are exciting are also really destabilising. And again, we might feel ourselves wanting extra support or attention or care for our partner to make themselves more available to us in those times of transition. And if they don't automatically do that, we might experience a big abandonment kind of response. Whether it's that they're not supporting us or maybe they're not celebrating us enough, if we do get a promotion or something, or something really exciting is happening for us, and they're not as involved in that as we would like them to be, that can be kind of triggering of this abandonment thing that, like, again, you don't care about me. Why aren't you more present here as I navigate this? And I think that, in part, I think there's validity to that, that we want our partner to be involved in big things that we experience in our life, big transitions.
[00:14:33]:
It's much easier to navigate that with a trusted, secure partner. But I think another part of it, if you have more anxious attachment patterns, is maybe not trusting yourself to be able to navigate that thing alone or standing on your own 2 feet. Sometimes we don't feel like we have a strong enough foundation of self, and so we can reach for someone else to be our crutch through those more challenging periods. As I said, I don't think that's always unhealthy. I think that that's part of what partners are for, relationships are for, is to be our safety net sometimes in challenging periods. But I think also we can be honest and go, some of us probably swing too far in terms of not trusting in our own capability and agency and falling back onto a partner to rescue us as soon as things feel hard. And, you know, the other example I gave, a big life transition like, you know, becoming a parent, very understandable that you would feel abandoned if, for example, if you're a woman and you've just had a baby, and that's very stressful, and the nature of that transition is such that the bulk of the caring work is falling on your shoulders, I think it's very easy to go into that. You're abandoning me.
[00:15:46]:
You're not doing enough. You don't understand kind of mindset when you're in the nitty gritty, when you're in the depths of that. And again, if we're not very good at asking for what we need specifically, if historically, we've been pretty good at just taking care of our own needs and not having to ask, then when we're in these more vulnerable situations and we just have to ask because we really do need more support, It can be easier to blame the other person for not doing the thing that we need, not supporting us well enough. That can be less vulnerable than actually asking and saying, I'm not coping, or I'm having a really hard time and I need more from you. I need you to do x, y, zed. That is really hard for people who are not used to asking for support, who have a hard time with receiving support. And so just judging and blaming and criticising from that wounded place is sometimes more comfortable than doing the vulnerable thing. So I think that's very normal in times of transition when we're feeling a little wobbly, but negotiating a new identity, all of those things.
[00:16:53]:
It's easy to feel emotionally abandoned in that and kind of blame our partner, rather than taking responsibility and asking for the support that we need. And last but not least, so this one isn't so much an event as it is when you are feeling emotionally overwhelmed, and again, that's pretty broad. That could be any manner of things. It could be in the midst of conflict with a partner. It could be as a result of some other thing that is going on in your life. But there's this sense of feeling emotionally overwhelmed and wanting your partner to know what to do about it, wanting them to be able to fix it, wanting them to be able to make it all okay. Again, as anxiously attached people, we tend to not have a great deal of self trust about our ability to be with difficult emotions, and so when we feel those coming up, we look outside of us for some sort of fix or solution, or some way to make it all stop, make it go away, because we don't really trust in our ability to hold it. And so when we're feeling emotionally overwhelmed, we really can look to our partner to fix it.
[00:17:56]:
And I think that, again, if you've got a more avoidant leaning partner, that can really unravel very quickly because chances are they are even less equipped to deal with your big emotions than you are. Someone with avoidant attachment probably doesn't have a lot of experience in dealing with big emotions in a healthy way, because a part of their blueprint around relationships, and their relationship to self, is that emotions are not safe, they're not desirable, and so they've, you know, oftentimes really switched off that part of themselves that is connected to their inner world and knows how to respond to an emotion in a healthy way, and so when they're confronted with someone else's big emotions and someone else's emotional overwhelm, they're probably going to draw on the same tactics for you in trying to help that they do with themselves. Again, I spoke about this earlier. They're probably going to try and crack a joke or distract you or, you know, you might be crying and upset and they might say, you know, why don't we go and grab an ice cream? And that might be coming from a really good place, and it might be the last thing that you want, and you might, you know, be sort of angry at them of, like, how could you get it so wrong? Do you not even know me at all if you think that I want to go and get an ice cream right now when I'm, like, red faced and crying? It can just be a bit of a mismatch, and we can feel really emotionally abandoned by them not knowing what to do. And so I think that it's good to have a bit of compassion here, and again, the common thread is that we can regress into this place of, like, helpless and in need of rescuing, and oftentimes the energy from that place, because we're feeling so desperate and panicked and, you know, scared and overwhelmed, it's really easy to blame our partner or to see them as the problem or the enemy, as the one that is making us feel unsupported when really oftentimes it's the situation that's leading us to feel that way, and our wounded parts are making that a lot bigger. And then maybe on top of that, our partner hasn't exactly nailed the response, or they've kind of missed the mark a little, or they've been a little insensitive, and it blows up into something much bigger as a result. So having the awareness of all of these things and being able to tune in and go, what's really going on for me here? What are the stories that I'm telling myself? I did an episode a few weeks ago on how to work through a trigger, and there's a cheat sheet that you can download on my website or in the show notes that's free, and it just walks you through these steps. What am I telling myself? Right? What am I making this mean? Because I think that you'll notice in if you relate to any of these situations or similar ones, that almost invariably you're telling yourself that your partner doesn't care, that if they loved you, that they would know what to do, that it's always going to be like this, why do I even bother, I do so much for you and you can't even show up for me when I need you most.
[00:20:47]:
All of those sorts of stories are really, really painful, and they tend to kind of compound on each other and spiral and make you feel a lot worse and and really make your judgement kind of infused with all of those feelings that are likely to come with that self pity, blame, you know, unfairness. And all of those are very real feelings, but we also have to watch the stories that might be exacerbating them. So, you know, having a process that you can walk yourself through and getting really brave about asking for help when you need it, not in a way that's attacking or blaming, but in a way that's vulnerable and, you know, saying, I am feeling overwhelmed. Would you be able to? Something like that. That will feel hard for a lot of people, but that's really where the work is. And that's how we really equip ourselves with the tools and the self belief to manage these situations better going forward, because we don't have these experiences that then reinforce that we are all alone. Because if we kind of create a rupture when we react from a wounded place, and our partner does pull away in response to that, then that's confirmation of the fact that we're all alone and no one cares. Right? It's really easy to clock that as evidence of that story.
[00:22:01]:
Whereas, if we do the brave thing, if we identify what we need, if we ask for it vulnerably, and then we open ourselves to receiving that support, it creates a new experience, and that is really powerful. So there's lots of magic in this, even though these situations are hard and there are so many others like them that will challenge us. There is an opportunity for real growth there and for rewiring and having those new experiences that can be a really positive upward spiral. So I hope that that's been helpful. If any of those examples resonate with you, be sure to let me know. Leave a comment or a review. But otherwise, thanks so much for joining me. I look forward to seeing you again next week.
[00:22:42]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna go deeper on all things attachment, love, and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
On Attachment, attachment styles, relationships, insecurity, abandonment wound, anxious attachment, emotional abandonment, fear of abandonment, triggers of abandonment wound, relationship coach, Stephanie Rigg, podcast episode, mental health, emotional support, Healing Anxious Attachment, Secure Self Challenge, membership community, On Attachment Insiders, self awareness, self trust, major life transitions, emotional overwhelm, seeking support, partner support, somatic practices, nervous system basics, setting boundaries, voicing needs, navigating challenging conversations, guided meditations, relationship advice.