You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode we are talking about five 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. The abandonment wound is nothing new around here. We've talked about it a number of times on the podcast and you can go back.
through older 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.
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 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 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, I expect that of a parent and we can really regress in those moments. And so in today's episode, I'm going to be sharing less about the 101 of the abandonment wound, which as I said, you can go back and listen to older 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 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 six 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. 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 is 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&A responses. scripts for different conversations, like how to set a boundary in all of these specific instances, how to voice needs, how to navigate challenging conversations in anxious avoidant relationships with suggested scripts on how you could approach those things. There's a 20 page workbook on boundaries. There's
guided meditations. 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 your beautiful listeners from all over the world. Very, very excited to be able to go deeper with you and get to know you better. Okay, so let's talk about these five 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, some other. you may notice yourself being really sensitive to any sort of perceived abandonment. Again, usually emotional abandonment, but even 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's 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. 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.
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. 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 Z thing. And we get a little bit kind of righteous and uppity about it. 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 show that with that quiet babying almost behavior. And I say that. from a kind of humorous but loving place. I think we can all do that sometimes that we want to 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. 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. The next one is when something unexpected happens. So 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 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 I'm not important to you. 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 even an exciting change like getting a new job or becoming a parent or moving cities. These things that are exciting are also really destabilizing. 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 a big... things that we experience in our life be transitions. 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 two feet. Sometimes we don't feel like we have a strong enough foundation of self.
And so we can kind of 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 as 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. You're not doing enough. You don't understand a 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 xyz 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 criticizing 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, negotiating a new identity, all of those things. 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, 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, 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 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 detachment 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 tactic. 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 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, 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 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, 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. 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 really make your judgment 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 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? And 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 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'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. Thanks guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. and a five-star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope