I’ve been thinking a lot about abandonment and avoidance.

Yesterday morning, I got the eggs out of the fridge, set them on the counter, and felt a wave of emotion rise up from my gut into my throat. Tears welled up in my eyes. I couldn’t take a breath.

I walked out to the back deck where Pete and our houseguest were sitting and talking.

“Are you having a hot flash?” Pete asked.

“I’m having an emotional hot flash,” I said, hands on my forehead.

He got up and faced me, and immediately hugged me. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “except our houseguest is leaving and you’re leaving on a work trip and everyone is leaving me and I don’t know what to do.” And I started sobbing.

Abandonment Issues Don’t Care About Logic

I’ve been thinking a lot about this 20-minute segment of my life, in between cleaning up pee puddles that I find around the house. (Surprise! Puppy urine!)

I knew – logically – that everyone was not leaving me. I knew that my abandonment trigger had been jumpstarted. I knew that Pete would return from his trip and this wouldn’t be the last time our houseguest – or anyone – would visit and that our kids haven’t disappeared just because they are living their lives.

Old attachment and abandonment issues do not care about logic.

I have felt often throughout the last 20 years of recovery that if I start crying, I might never be able to stop. That I might littlelarry drown in my own tears, and I may be the first on record to do so.

Today I made the connection that I feel that way about feelings, which is ironic because I am all about feelings. What if I start feeling something, and it kills me? What if I start feeling something and it never stops?

And today my trauma recovery coach asked me – seriously – what if this happens? What if you littlelarry cannot stop crying? What if the feelings are so intense and they never stop? Then what?

It’s all a way to avoid. And avoid at all costs was what I was taught. We don’t feel, we don’t think, we don’t talk. We escape, we avoid, we isolate. My father was in the military, so we moved several times when I was growing up. Move somewhere, make friends, leave – no goodbyes or transition or rituals or even conversations about the inherent loss of constantly moving away from a community. Nothing about what it means to attach and detach in a healthy ways. Just avoid.

When I avoid, I abandon myself.

Who’s Abandoning Me?

I need to repeat this. When I avoid, I abandon myself.

When I avoid, I am not trusting myself to bring me back from wherever I go with feelings.

Because other people aren’t abandoning me, not anymore. I have built a life where I am safe to be myself and learn how to be in relationships in healthy ways.

I am abandoning myself.

And the good news? I can stop. I can change my brain. I can turn this boat around.

I can cultivate the security that I have always needed.

The kinda funny part is that I can do this by turning *toward* others instead of away from them. Like I did yesterday morning, after I set the eggs on the counter and felt awash in emotion.

I did not escape. I did not avoid. I did not isolate.

I did not run *from* people, I ran *to* them.

We all met in the kitchen awhile later – my husband, our houseguest, and me – and talked about what was going on. How we came together, and talked, and cried. How we all had varying degrees of trauma backgrounds and abandonment and avoidance.

How we were all afraid and sad to say goodbye. But you know what? We did it. We attached and detached in a healthy way.

This whole thing – it felt like a miracle.

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