Are you the type of person who is always trying to make other people happy even at the cost of your own happiness, needs, or feelings? Are you someone who says “Yes,” even though you really want to say “No.” Are you a person that does things that you actually don’t agree with?
I was taught by my mother, that my feelings didn’t matter. I had to go a long with whatever everyone else wanted. To say yes when I wanted to say no. This is called self-abandonment. I lived this way for many years because that’s what I was taught to do. The problem is that this type of living, drains you of happiness. You get exhausted and weary.
Self-abandonment refers to a set of self-destructive behaviors. It’s a rejection of your own thoughts, feelings and desires in favor of the ones of other people. They are usually learned behaviors that stem from childhood and negatively affect your mental health. It leads to anxiety, depression, and self-esteem issues.
There are some common signs and characteristics of self-abandonment.
1. Dismissing your needs
The first sign is if you constantly dismiss your own needs. People who self-abandon tend to distrust their own instincts. When something does not sit well with you, or does not feel good, you tend to dismiss your gut feeling and go along with someone else needs or priorities. You probably second-guess yourself, overthink, and tend to reframe things at your own cost and detriment.
2. Seeking external validation
As a person who self-abandons you probably seek external validation. You do not think that you are enough, important, successful, smart, or lovable, and you ask for validation from others. It is important for you that other people approve of you. But, of course, as you might already know, any external approval, if it is not accompanied by internal acceptance and approval does not stay long with you. It just stays temporarily and then you keep seeking approval over and over.
3. Hiding yourself
Another thing that you might be doing is hiding some part of yourself. This means that even though you might like or dislike something if it does not resonate with the people around you, you hide it. So, you are essentially living in a relationship with your fake self or with only part of yourself, and not with your true authentic self. You give up hobbies, interests, goals, dreams, passions, feelings, and needs. All the while making space for those of another person not for the ones that you truly and authentically connected with.
4. Being a perfectionist
Being a perfectionist with yourself, and holding yourself up to high standards that you can never meet. You might think that you are never enough for other people and you always need to try more. This eventually leads to exhaustion or to feeling resentful. A person to self-abandons themselves make extreme sacrifices for other people, but in many cases, the people around might not appreciate or even see your efforts and sacrifices you make for them.
5. Sup pressing your feelings
The last sign of self-abandonment is suppressing your feelings, especially the uncomfortable feelings. This happens because you probably think that there is no space in a relationship or in the moment for these feelings, so you hide them under the rug. You might feel like you are asking too much from others, that you will be a burden, hurt someone, or bring them into an uncomfortable situation. So, you decide to put all these emotions in a box and hide them somewhere deep within you. You decide to only show a happy and positive facade because you think this is what other people want or need. As you neglect and abandon a big part of your feelings you forget how important these feeling are at your core.
Self-abandonment did start yesterday. It stems from childhood. It usually begins the moment we realize that there is no space for us, our needs, and our feelings. It starts when you reach our to a person from the family and did not get support. When we don’t receive validation in some cases it returns with abuse., or rejection. That’s the moment we realize that our needs are not important. So, we start giving more space to others and suffocate or emotional needs.
Self-abandonment becomes a way of surviving. But as adults it is a way of attracting toxic relationships or developing codependency and other unhealthy patterns that are undesirable for mental wellbeing.
We must learn how to untangle these unhealthy patterns and stop self-abandoning ourselves.
Learning to reconnect our needs and feelings, practicing self-compassion and learning to say no are good practices to master.
From Pity to Praise 