5 Concrete Signs You’re A Chronic Self-Abandoner
Self-abandonment is a cycle of pushing away your own needs, wants, feelings, and values, usually in favor of others’ needs, wants, feelings, and values.
Self-abandonment negatively impacts your relationships and also the relationship you hold with yourself. Not to mention, chronic self-abandonment can lead to a slew of mental health problems and impact your overall quality of life.
Here are five concrete signs you’re a chronic self-abandoner.
1. You feel utterly disconnected from yourself.
You have lost sight of who you are. You have forgotten what makes you happy, sad, angry, or honestly feel anything at all because you have been too busy catering to everyone else’s feelings and needs. You no longer recognize yourself or your life. It is almost as if you are a stranger in your own skin.
2. You second guess yourself on everything.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), self-abandonment is usually because of low or absent self-trust. And, boy, do you not trust yourself. At all. You second guess every single one of your decisions. You have the compulsive need to double check your perception of things with others.
3. You’re absolutely terrified of being disliked.
And this fear usually presents itself in the form of relentless people pleasing. You’re so caught up in making sure that everyone else is content and likes you that you forget to remember it also matters whether you’re content and whether you like yourself. And, if you’re being totally honest, you’re definitely unhappy and don’t like yourself very much at all.
4. You’re a perfectionist.
And not because someone or something else is making you feel this way. Nope, it’s all self-imposed. You operate on the assumption that if you’re not a perfect employee, friend, partner, daughter, etc., you have failed.
5. You struggle to stand up for yourself.
Because you put everyone else before yourself, you tolerate a fair amount of disrespect in your relationships. You think that bringing up your feelings will cause inconvenience for the other person. Or worse, conflict within the relationship. So, you stay quiet. And it’s sucking the lifeblood out of you. You’re sick of being hurt but don’t have it in you to stick up for yourself. It’s exhausting.
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Chronic self-abandonment can lead to various issues including anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and unhealthy relationships. If you have been chronically abandoning yourself, please know you can heal and learn to show up for yourself. It will take time and hard work to change your self-abandoning mindset and behaviors but it’s worth it. You’re worth it.