A Woman’s Grief of Abandoning Herself

There’s something especially heartbreaking about abandoning yourself. Knowing that even when it comes to your own desires, you come in last before everyone else. I bet this started long before now. I bet it shows up in your childhood too. 

The 12-year-old version of you that got up for school at 5 AM, so there's enough time to make sure your brother is up, dressed, and where he needs to be. No one else can do it, given that your father is passed out drunk on the couch and your mother left for her opening shift at 4:30.  As a result, you lost an hour and a half of sleep before you were even old enough to know you were giving anything away.

The grief that comes from constantly choosing others isn’t something that goes away on its own. It’s more like a little cut to yourself that you do over and over again until you realize that the wound is so big, it’s hard to close. 

I've lived this too

This is definitely something that I have struggled with in my life. I know it’s one of the large reasons I became a therapist. I’ve not only seen the hurt and damage this can create, I’ve felt it too.

Therapists, social media, and people in the helping community often talk about how hard it is to deal with the death of a loved one. And yes, that’s true. It is hard, but what I don’t think is talked about enough is the grief that happens when you choose a life and a role that wasn’t meant for you. 

How the ache of having to contort yourself into the version that “other people like,” wears and tears on a piece of your soul that you are afraid won’t come back.

Or the grief of knowing that each time you read the room and respond accordingly, if you didn’t really want to do it, you’d be chipping off another piece of …. well.. you.  

I don’t want that life for you. I have been there.

Masking… day in and day out. Escaping into things just so you can breathe. But not really being present for your life.

Lying to the people closest to you because you don’t want to “burden them.” Yeah, that’s bullshit and we both know it. It’s not about burdening them, it’s about laying down the armor of pretending that you have it all together and know exactly what to do and you don’t need anyone’s help. And yet you are quietly, achingly…. imploding. You have never felt more alone than you do in those moments. Have never felt more desperate to connect, but there’s this block that you can’t seem to get past. 

Because the fear that someone could see you…. like really see you, is just too fucking big to let go of. 

You've tried everything

And it’s not like you haven’t tried your best. You have made so much effort in your relationships. You have effort-ed your little heart out. And you are tired. Let’s talk about all the different things you have tried.

Podcasts. Specifically the ones that talk about women and the “mental load” and then you come back to your husband and you explore it (ie. you talk and he pretends to listen 😂) and then he pretends to do the work, but everything “goes back to normal” within a week or so.

Next is therapy. Therapy for you. Therapy for him. Therapy together. Therapy for the kid (s). 

But still. You are the one managing all of it. Reminding him of the appointments. Taking your child to therapy. There is so much managing from you: all the fuckin’ time.

And you are exhausted. And through the thick of it all you tell yourself that this is what you do for family. 

That the nights you’ve spent in the shower just trying to relax and breathe and not bawl your eyes out are worth it…but you don’t really know. And the worst part of it is that you have been doing this your entire life so you don’t really know a different way. And you’re afraid. So afraid that this is what it will be, forever and always. 

And that’s when the hopelessness starts to really kick in. 

You know your mother and father are getting up there in age. 

You know that at some point they are going to ask you for help.

You know at some point that promotion is coming at work or the business you’ve started and invested your blood, sweat, and tears into will expand and need even more from you, and your husband doesn’t always know what to do and so you find yourself picking up the slack… again. 

You know that they are going to ask you to be PTA President because you are so good at managing things. 

And you don’t want to. 

And you are tired. 

But you don’t know another way. 

There is another way

I’m here to tell you that there is another way, and I can show you how. If self-abandonment is a problem for you, that sounds more like a trauma response than a personality quirk, and that is treatable. 

Abandoning yourself doesn’t have to be your story. 

So let’s talk about it, and figure out what that looks like. 

Where I’d Start

Below are 5 strategies that I have personally used to start to get my life on the track that I want it to be. Don’t think of these as a be all end all type thing. More like a starting point.

1. Going to my own therapy for the last 5 years. Yes, I am a therapist that goes to her own therapy. Let me explain why. I have my own complex trauma. Part of the reason why I became a therapist is because I wanted to help a younger version of me that was emotionally abused and neglected by my parents. My parents did the best they could. I know that, but there are still things that happened that were not okay and never will be, and I needed a space to explore those.

What is a way that you can honor that younger version of yourself that didn’t get what she needed?

2. Writing. Writing has always been a creative outlet for me. I don’t often not have words. Words are important to me. Maybe not in the creative, effervescent ways that I hear with some writers, but translating my feelings onto paper has always been something that reaches deep inside me in a way nothing else ever could. 

I feel completely myself when I write. Not every time of course, but that is the goal. 

Writing doesn’t have to be your thing, but what is one space or outlet where you feel completely unmasked and you can show up exactly as you are? 

3. Thinking about if I really want to say yes to something. I used to offer myself up to do things before some even asked. Now, I let them ask, and I think to myself, “Do I want to do this? Why do I want to say yes? Is it because I’m afraid of disappointing them or because I genuinely want to?” 

What has been your strategy for learning to say no? 

4. Reading. Doesn’t matter if it’s fiction or non-fiction. Reading is reading, and I love it. Doesn’t matter if it’s a physical book, on my ipad, or an audio version. It takes me out of my head, and into a world where I can meet someone that may be like me. Where if I have gone through something similar that a character is going through, I feel seen and taken care of. 

Do you have a healthy strategy for feeling less alone?

5. Reminding myself that discomfort and dysregulation are not the same. I have anxiety, and that’s okay. I do things all the time that activate me in a way that my nervous system doesn’t like! And it’s good for me. I can still breathe and move through the moment and be safe even if I am uncomfortable.

Is there a strategy you use so that you can do hard things? 

I hope this blog left you in a better place than when you first started. 

If the exhaustion of carrying everyone has become more than you can manage on your own, you don’t have to anymore. I am here to help.