Discussion Severe attachment issues and fear of abandonment

[sgifeei]

I used to be super attached to this teacher in middle school, and she passed away from cancer, and It broke me. Now I am scared that everyone I love is gonna pass away or get sick or leave me because I feel like I am a horrible person.

Any idea what this might be and how to get better? Any advice or experiences with abandonment issues?

 

[hikaru13]

Hey, I just wanna let you know that you're not a horrible person. Death is an inevitable thing, it's something we can't just predict or control. I'm sorry that you had to deal with that experience and condolences to your teacher :(

As for getting better, if you could come to terms with it will help. I don't know how you cope with things but the way I'd handle really stressful situation is through writing it down in a journal or a piece of paper. One of my friend told me a saying that I couldn't remember much but it states that writing down your problems or anything you're troubled with could already help you solve 50% of it. It's not verbatim but you get the idea! You could also talk about it, understand why you're feeling that way and talking about it long enough could help you understand yourself and as well as feel comfortable with that topic. I, myself am still dealing with abandonment issues but I'm trying to work on it now.

I wish you the best of luck and sharing all love and hugs to you

 

[author]

It really depends on where your fears stem from. From what you described, it sounds like it comes from grief. Grief can do a lot of things, including make us super afraid of losing people. Clearly you care about the people around you enough to be afraid of losing them. Obviously I don't know you, but from that alone I think you're not a bad person. Bad people don't usually care about or grieve for others.

My fear of abandonment comes from a different place, so I'm not sure how much my experience will help, but I'll write it anyway. Basically what helped me was considering myself for once - I had bad people in my life that I was afraid to lose because I didn't want to be abandoned, and I was so preoccupied with keeping them happy so they'd "want to be around me" that I hadn't considered my own feelings. I met new people that made me far happier than the people I was so afraid to lose, and eventually I ended up leaving instead to pursue the new/healthier relationships.

Obviously it's good to care about the people around you and it's natural to not want to drive people away, but don't neglect yourself out of fear of losing others.

 

[Linda]

I used to be super attached to this teacher in middle school, and she passed away from cancer, and It broke me. Now I am scared that everyone I love is gonna pass away or get sick or leave me because I feel like I am a horrible person.

Any idea what this might be and how to get better? Any advice or experiences with abandonment issues?

You have (at least) two ways forward.

1. Use the rational part of your brain. Even if it was true that you are a horrible person - and I don't believe for a moment that you are - why would that cause people around you to die or get sick? There are many people in the world who really are horrible, but we don't see the people around them dropping like flies.

2. Find a professional therapist who can help you get to the bottom of why you feel this way, and who can help you find ways of dealing with it.