Abandonment

For the longest time I have struggled with feeling abandoned by my biological father.  He left when I was young and I heard him telling my mom that he never wanted my brother and I.  That is a terrible thing to hear as a 5 year old.  Those words are what stuck with me all these years and has caused me so much pain.  Pain that still affects me today, and is becoming a problem and interrupting my daily life and thinking.  I have been feeling like, if my father didn’t want me or find value in me, how can anyone else?  How can I matter to someone when I didn’t to one of the people that I should have?

Because I have been feeling like that other feelings have been arising like I am not important, I am not worth anything, I have nothing special to offer someone I love.  That sooner or later the people in my life now will all leave me.  It has happened before.  When I was diagnosed with cancer I had friends who left and stopped talking to me, I even had a boyfriend leave.  Because of all this abandonment I have had in the past, I am terrified I will lose the people I love and cherish now, my best friends, my boyfriend (who I want to marry).  It is so hard not to fear that.  And because of that fear my mind is making up scenarios that don’t exist and make it so real that I actually believe it, even though deep in my heart I know it isn’t true.  It is making me react in ways that I normally don’t react.  I get jealous faster, I get hurt easier, I lash out and push away the person I love the most.

I read something that said to ask myself “What am I afraid of”…so I am going to answer this:

I am afraid of feeling helpless and alone as I did during all those times I was abandoned.

I am afraid of losing the ones I love.

I am afraid of being rejected as my father, ex boyfriend, and others have rejected me in the past.

Those are the main focuses of my fears.  Fears that have a way of controlling how I react and act.  I finally have a great relationship and all my fears are doing is to put a wedge between us and cause him pain as well.  He is not like all the others, my friends I have are not like all the people who left me.  I matter to my friends, I matter to my boyfriend.  I have value to them or else they wouldn’t be in my life now.  We have been together for 2 years, almost 2 and a half.  If I didn’t have something to offer him, if I wasn’t special to him or important to him, then he wouldn’t be with me.  I have no reason to fear that he would reject me because he has already accepted me…He has already accepted me.