Rejection And Abandonment

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The trauma of the rejected and the trauma of the abandoned are formed in childhood, when the child experienced the fear of being unloved or abandoned by his or her parents or a parent. These injuries often go hand in hand.

The trauma of the rejected person is expressed in the fact that a person is afraid of not living up to the expectations of a significant other, is afraid to hear a refusal, words of dislike, to face indifference, neglect, ridicule, aggression, to experience jealousy, disappointment, that a significant other will prefer someone else to him and this will cause pain, will hit self-esteem.

The trauma of the abandoned person is expressed in the person's fear that a significant other will sooner or later leave him, no matter for what reasons (separation, conflict, betrayal, duty, death).

We may not remember the very event of rejection or abandonment from childhood, but our memory captures the feelings we once experienced associated with this, which revive when we find ourselves in a similar situation, plunging into sadness, a feeling of emptiness and loneliness, into a state "pinching anguish in the soul."

Rejection in childhood can be clothed in the words of the mother: "You are no longer my daughter", "Petya is a good boy, and you are a fool, and why did I give birth to you", "you have only problems", etc. Also, the child may understand that his brother / sister is loved more or one of the relatives "out of the kindness of his soul" told the child that his parents did not love him or his mother wanted to have an abortion, being pregnant with him, and refused to breastfeed him.

The child could experience the fear of leaving when he was left with his grandmother for a long time and he was not sure whether they would take him back, when he was separated from his mother, staying in the hospital or in kindergarten with strangers, when his mother did not come to sleep or the child was afraid that she will die.

Mom left and a feeling of uselessness, insecurity came, as if they knocked out the support from under their feet, took a part of you, something important for life, like air, and in the place of this emptiness came total anxiety and a feeling of enduring loneliness.

Such feelings resurrect when we immerse ourselves in these perceptions, find ourselves in similar situations (separation from a partner, from a child), watch similar episodes in a movie, listen to music, catch familiar smells, images, voices, phrases. That is, a certain anchor comes to life, which activates the mechanism of immersion in a childish state of melancholy, the experience of loneliness, abandonment, helplessness.

Both of these injuries affect a person's life and the nature of his relationship. The more intensely the trauma was experienced, the thicker the scar on the soul and the degree of psychological defenses.

A person with a rejected / abandoned trauma evaluates their relationship through the prism of their own projection. He lives in anticipation of betrayal, does not allow himself to relax, always on guard, shielding his soul from new pain, avoids close relationships or withdraws in response to the slightest, even seeming, rejection - it is enough that the loved one stayed at work, did not call, said something harsh, etc.

An individual with paranoid features may fall into a rage at the first sign of rejection and even pursue the object of love, revenge.

A person with such a trauma either grows up to be a rebel, or is afraid to be real, putting on a mask of social desirability, playing the roles that others expect from him. Thus, his psyche splits and the person lives in a state of internal conflict and blurred identity, not understanding who he really is. Such a person easily becomes dependent on someone else's opinion, mood, because he "merges" with a significant other and experiences difficulties with autonomy, gets stuck in his thoughts about another person, projects his state onto him, temporarily losing touch with reality.

Probably, everyone had situations in life when we liked a certain person or we felt envy towards him, and tried to adapt to him, borrow his habits, his way of thinking, the way he looks, says. And this is normal when people under 30 are looking for themselves. If even after 30 years a person experiences difficulties with self-identification and is inclined to merge with significant others, to lose himself, his individuality, then he needs help in finding his true Self. Diffuse identity is a source of constant internal conflict. A person, like a chameleon, will always look for an object of merging as a point of support and security, dooming himself to a dependent state and new experiences of an identity crisis when this support is lost.

The unprocessed trauma of rejection / abandonment always plunges a person into regression under a certain set of circumstances, making him look like an offended or angry child who demands love from others, punishes his "parent" for lack of attention, or simply avoids relationships that a priori can become painful, threaten self-esteem and safety.

The film "Where the Motherland Begins" has something in common with the film "17 Moments of Spring", is just as imbued with the feeling of abandonment and inevitable separation, and on the other hand, makes you think about the value of relationships.