Coping with Feelings of Abandonment

“I was alone. I had no one. No mother, no father, no brothers, no sisters, no grandmas, no grandpas, no uncles, no aunties, no cousins, and no tribe. I’d seen the children at the orphanage laugh or cry when they received news about a family member. I would never receive such news and no family would laugh or cry for me. That day I understood with sharp clarity that I didn’t have a mother who wanted me.”
― Maria Nhambu, Africa’s Child

Some days as a social worker, I feel like I take in the evil of the whole world through the lives of the people that tell me their stories.

Some of the saddest stories I hear are about those who just didn’t feel loved, accepted, or included in their families. It’s no surprise then if they don’t have a sense of self, an ability to trust others, or they have such emptiness they turn to drugs or alcohol.

Often, when people are neglected or abandoned in some fashion during childhood, it can lead to damaged self-esteem and the inability to fully trust and love others out of fear of rejection. Some people may develop tough skin and become independent in their functioning and emotions, but may also struggle with forming intimate and close relationships. Others may desperately cling to any hope of an intimate relationship, driving people away. In any case, it can be difficult to let go of resentful feelings against people who’ve caused so much pain.

For those that can’t see a therapist, try the following:

• Find compassion for yourself. Forgive yourself, it’s not your fault what happens to you in your childhood. You are lovable. You are worthy. Find ways to remind yourself of this.
• Find forgiveness for others. Remember it’s not for them, it’s for you. Finding forgiveness means not accepting what they did, but not letting what they did control you. It means letting go of those feelings towards them. Do whatever you have to do to make this happen. Try to find any sliver of empathy for them. Sometimes it can even help to just pretend they were out of their mind with no ability to control their actions. Sometimes people are controlled by their past, their traumas, drugs, alcohol, and mental illness. They may have no idea the effects their actions would have on you. Sometimes when people are caught up in the moment they can only think of themselves. They may feel deep pain and regret so difficult they’ve denied and repressed it. If none of this is true, sometimes it could be helpful to entertain the idea they could be true. Remember, you are not making excuses, you are trying to find empathy, a reason to feel a sort of compassion. This connection with another person’s struggle can help you to see the difference in the context of what happened.
• Find Gratitude. Whatever the situation, journal how you’ve grown from it, and how you can help others because of it. Maybe there was a life purpose, maybe someone else in your shoes would feel better just hearing your story. Finding meaning and purpose behind traumatic things can greatly reduce the effects of the trauma on mental health.
• Find Support. Find Someone to relate to.
• Lastly, I recommend bibliotherapy; reading about characters that have been through similar circumstances and felt similar feelings of rejection.

Bibliotherapy is extremely useful in helping people to connect with characters and experience an emotional release of past pain through similar stories.

It can be easier than confronting the past directly and can be extremely fulfilling to understand that others have been through similar pain. It helps you realize you are not alone and helps you to be bolder with telling your own story.

You must be in the right headspace for bibliotherapy. Some people prefer to focus only on the positive, and forget the past. Some people are so deeply hurt by the past that they can’t focus on the future. Some also haven’t processed their feelings, which prevents them from feeling peace, often leading to anxiety. When emotions haven’t been processed, bibliotherapy can be effective for connecting the right and left brain, which is called integration.

When traumatic events occur, the brain can store memories and feelings in different areas of the brain outside of the hippocampus, which is the normal storage house for memories. These “hidden” memories can flare up as nightmares, unwanted thoughts, or dissociative reactions. Integration of memories, thoughts, and feelings can revive, combine, and release deeply held emotions, which capitulates their negative effects.

Finding characters in books to relate to and finding stories that help connect the emotional and thinking brain can help with integration by unveiling hidden emotions associated with the feelings experienced by characters in the novels. This can be extremely healing, similar to the feeling of hearing a song and feeling the emotions lift from the soul like a weight has been lifted.

The risks of bibliotherapy include being triggered by events and experiences in a novel. Good novels can make you feel like you’re there with the character, and experiencing trauma with a character can obviously bring up many scary and overwhelming emotions. This is why it’s important to understand if you’re ready to read about potentially triggering topics and if this would be helpful for where you’re at in your healing process.

It’s best to work with a therapist, as a therapist can help you process these overwhelming emotions properly. If you don’t have access to a therapist and do feel triggered while reading, it’s important to stop, connect with the emotion, and journal what you’re feeling. Keeping a notebook with you while you read is always a good idea, even if just to jot down a page number and an emotion.

One thing that’s important in therapy is to get in touch with your emotions and understand what does trigger you. Then learning how to respond to triggers is a major goal of therapy, so journaling emotions is a great way to process feelings onto the paper and integrate thoughts and emotions. Ultimately, this will help to reduce unwanted thoughts and distressing emotions over time. It can also help bring feeling back into individuals who feel numb, shut down, and hopeless. Most of all, it’s important to accept the feeling for what it is- a passing emotion. This is called mindfulness. Accepting the feelings you have (not feeling guilty or rejecting them) is a major milestone to good mental health as it also reduces anxiety and feelings of worthlessness/shame.

If you are in a place where you only want to focus on the positive and uplifting, please see the “positivity and uplifting” book list on my website. Reading positive, heartwarming stories can be effective if you’ve already processed emotions associated with abandonment and want to solely focus on staying positive. Sometimes it’s helpful to revisit the past, and sometimes it’s better to focus on the future. Again, I recommend scheduling a face-to-face licensed therapist if you are suffering from severe trauma and abandonment issues to understand where you’re at in your process, and whether you would benefit from revisiting the past or pressing on with the future.

All disclaimers aside, here is a list of books that are filled with sadness and tragedy, but also have hope, joy, and gratitude mixed in.

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate.

4.37 avg rating on Goodreads

“For the hundreds who vanished

and for the thousands who didn’t.

May your stories

not be forgotten.

For those who help today’s orphans

find forever homes.

May you always know the value

of your work

and your love.“

This book was recommended to me by a friend with an MFA in creative writing, and who has a spectacular taste in good writing. She recommended this book just for the reading experience alone. The book begins “ Baltimore Maryland. August 3, 1939. My story begins on a sweltering August night, in a place I will never set eyes upon. The room takes life only in my imaginings. It is large most days when I conjure it.” Unlike the others on this list, this book is not a memoir but still told in memoir style; gripping and engaging first-person perspective. It is also more of historical fiction following siblings who are thrown into a Tennessee orphanage. Described as “a poignant, engrossing tale about sibling love and the toll of secrets,” this book is about self-discovery and sibling relationships. It’s also based on a real-life event scandal involving an adoption agency that kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country. These children were malnourished and raped among other things. Some of the lower reviews of this book were because some people did not connect with the characters, and others did not like the dual timeline. Although this book overall has the best review rating, it also deals with a lot of difficult topics and is not for the faint of heart. If you’re looking for something a little more personal and less triggering, see below.

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

4.28 avg rating on Goodreads

Chapter 1

“I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster…..”

Glass Castle spent three years on the NY Times bestseller list, and has even been recommended by psychiatric patients themselves who have suffered from childhood trauma. The first chapter of this book explores a daughter’s complex feelings of love and shame as she secretly watches her mother root through a dumpster in New York City. Written with wonderful and witty prose, this book is an amazing experience. Another chapter begins “I never believed in Santa Clause. None of us kids did.” The writing of specific memories and conversations makes you feel like you’re right there at the dinner table. This book explores the complex nature of people, and the complex layers that make them not good, not bad, but somewhere in between on any given day. When it comes to changing your perspective, finding empathy, and considering forgiveness, this book is the one.

Three Little Words by Ashley RhodesCourter

4.17 average rating on Goodreads

Chapter 1: The day they stole my mother from me

“Two days compete for the worst in my life: The first is the day I was taken from my mother; the second is the day I arrived at the Mosses’ foster home four years later.”

Three Little Words offers a broader perspective on the social services system as a whole and mother-daughter connections. This novel is described as an “inspiring, unforgettable memoir.”

“Sunshine, you’re my baby and I’m your only mother. You must mind the one taking care of you, but she’s not your mama.”

Ashley clings to an unpredictable, dissolving relationship with her mother while traversing 14 different foster homes throughout this novel. Heartbreaking and insightful, this novel will tug at your heartstrings and force you to assess the importance of mothers, mentors, and family. Some have said the writing style isn’t as emotionally moving as other memoirs, so if you are picky on prose, and looking for the most emotionally engaging writing, this may not be the book for you. But if you’re wanting to experience the foster system from a first person perspective, this will be a good choice. The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok

The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok

3.50 avg rating on Goodreads

Chapter One

“Even now, when the phone rings late at night, I think it’s her.”

The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok is described as “a breathtaking literary memoir about the complex meaning of love, truth, and the capacity for forgiveness among family.” The mother in this book suffers from Schizophrenia, forcing her daughters to feel so unsafe they were forced to change their names. This story has more of a focus on the daughter’s success as an adult and is more about finding meaning in adversity. This book has an average rating of 3.50 stars, as some reviewers thought the writing and the memories presented were a little disjointed. If you don’t mind the story jumping around in a timeline and relate to a character with a severely mentally ill parent, this book might be a good choice.