How abandonment affects a child

The Long-Term Effects of Abandonment

One of the most egregious behaviors a parent or other caregiver can do to a child is to abandon them, allowing them to suffer alone. The damages done to the child when grown are significant and should not be ignored.

In this article, we shall examine together what childhood abandonment is, how it affects adults, and ways to mitigate the power it has over our lives.

What is Abandonment?

All children are entirely dependent upon parents or caregivers for their safety in their environment. When these caretakers fail to offer support and meet the child’s needs, emotionally and physically, they are said to have abandoned their child.

When parents abandon their children, their kids grow up feeling unsafe in the world and feeling people cannot be trusted. These unsafe feelings lead to the child experiencing emotions where they feel they do not deserve positive attention or adequate care.

For many children, abandonment is physical and may include:

Lack of supervision
Physical or sexual abuse
Narcissistic abuse
The inappropriate offering of nutrition
Inadequate clothes, heat, shelter, or housing

For other children, abandonment takes the form of emotional neglect and abuse when parents do not give to their children emotional conditions and environments that are necessary for their healthy development.

The child is left feeling inadequate, rejected, and damaged, needing to hide themselves away from others knowing who they are on the inside. Abandoned children are left believing it is not okay to make mistakes, that it is not okay to show their genuine emotions, that they should not have needs, and that it is not okay to be successful.

Fear of Abandonment in Adulthood

Because they were neglected and abused as children, many adults grow up having internalized all the messages they received from their parents when they were young. Also, because they craved attention from their abusive parents, many adults grow up fearing losing the love of those they have in their lives.

Fear of abandonment is not a mental illness by itself but rather a form of anxiety that can negatively affect those who experience it. Adults experiencing abandonment issues often experience problems in their relationships because they fear the other person will leave them.

It is vital to recognize the signs of abandonment issues so that these issues may be tackled head-on. They include:

They fear giving too much in a relationship.
They push people away to avoid rejection.
They are often people pleasers.
They experience codependency.
They feel insecure in intimate relationships and friendships.
They require repeated reassurances that they are loved.
They feel the need to control others.
They jump from one relationship to another.
They often will sabotage their relationships.

Other symptoms that may challenge a survivor of abandonment’s life include the following:

Constant worry
Panic or anxiety
Fear of being alone
Isolation
Frequent physical illnesses
Low self-esteem
Addiction
Disordered eating
Self-harm

Knowing the signs and symptoms can help you fight abandonment issues.

The Long-Term Effects of Abandonment and Neglect

People who have experienced abandonment might be more likely to have long-term mental health disorders, often based on the fear the abandonment will happen again in their adult relationships. Mood swings and anger issues later in life can often be traced to abandonment in infancy due to the lack of emotional and other support from parents.

Some of the mental health conditions thought to be heavily influenced by abandonment include:

Anxiety
Depression
Codependency
Attachment anxiety
Borderline personality disorder

For someone who lacks self-esteem due to childhood abandonment, the fear of being abandoned again becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as their clinginess, and other negative behaviors tend to push away potential life partners and friends.

Other long-term consequences affect future generations of those who experienced abandonment as a child. A recent study, published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging found that the offspring of the abandoned and neglected inherit brain abnormalities from their mothers show up as functional dysconnectivity between the amygdala and medial prefrontal regions of their children’s brains shortly after birth.

The Treatments for Childhood Abandonment in Adults

The treatment of abandonment issues focuses mainly on establishing healthy emotional boundaries and building a plethora of new responses when old thought patterns of fear begin to emerge or reemerge.

There are two primary treatments for abandonment that work tightly together to treat abandonment and neglect issues, including the following.

Psychotherapy. While psychotherapy is not for everyone, seeking out a mental health professional’s help can help those who were the victims of childhood abandonment and neglect. They can learn to overcome their fears of being abandoned again. Therapists work with their clients to understand where the fear originates and how it affects their relationships.

Self-Care. Self-care includes making sure the survivor healthily meets their emotional needs by forming friendships and relationships and allowing themselves to trust.

Should you love someone who has abandonment issues, there are ways you can support them while they heal.

Validate their fears. This means that you should acknowledge their feelings of abandonment without judgment. This move is vital to maintaining open communication. Validating a loved one’s fears doesn’t mean agreeing with them, but instead, supporting their feelings to further build on trust and compassion.

You can do this by following the six-level approach mentioned in Psychology Today.

Be present and actively listen to their concerns.
Reflect and summarize your loved one’s feelings verbally and without judgment.
Become a mind-reader, and by listening to what they say help them identify their emotions.
Understand their history so you can openly state that you understand when circumstances trigger their past history of abandonment.
“Normalize” their fears by acknowledging the fact that others with their history have fears of abandonment and that their feelings are understandable.
Use radical genuineness to deeply validate your loved one and share your loved one’s fears as your own.

The treatment of abandonment anxiety can be very successful, but it requires commitment and self-care. Many people with abandonment issues do not see how destructive their behaviors have been to their relationships until it is pointed out to them and they begin to heal.

However, treatment can teach new ways of thinking and coping to end the overarching and debilitating power of abandonment in childhood.

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” ~Elbert Hubbard

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage. ” ~ Lao Tzu

References

20 signs someone has abandonment issues. (2017, September 8). Retrieved from https://www.aconsciousrethink.com/6064/signs-abandonment-issues

Abandonment & attachment-related trauma treatment & rehab center. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.therefuge-ahealingplace.com/ptsd-treatment/abandonment

Hendrix, C. L., Dilks, D. D., McKenna, B. G., Dunlop, A. L., Corwin, E. J., & Brennan, P. A. (2020). Maternal childhood adversity associates with frontalamygdala connectivity in neonates. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.

Megase, K. (2016, March 3). How fear of abandonment affects relationships. Retrieved from https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellor-articles/how-fear-of-abandonment-affects-relationships

Schoenfelder, E. N., Sandler, I. N., Wolchik, S., & MacKinnon, D. (2011). Quality of social relationships and the development of depression in parentally-bereaved youth. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40(1), 85-96. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/821697890?accountid=1229

Wade, B. (1995, 04). Fear of abandonment. Essence, 25(79). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/223174140?accountid=1229

Rescuing My Inner Child

A Compassionate Guide to Talking about LBGTQ Issues

The Human Autonomic Nervous System and Emotional Flashbacks

Shirley Davis

My name is Shirley Davis and I am a freelance writer with over 40-years- experience writing short stories and poetry. Living as I do among the corn and bean fields of Illinois (USA), working from home using the Internet has become the best way to communicate with the world. My interests are wide and varied. I love any kind of science and read several research papers per week to satisfy my curiosity. I have earned an Associate Degree in Psychology and enjoy writing books on the subjects that most interest me.

19 Lasting Effects of Abandoning or Emotionally Unavailable Parents

Conditions
- Featured
  - Addictions
  - Anxiety Disorder
  - ADHD
  - Bipolar Disorder
  - Depression
  - PTSD
  - Schizophrenia
- Articles
  - Adjustment Disorder
  - Agoraphobia
  - Borderline Personality Disorder
  - Childhood ADHD
  - Dissociative Identity Disorder
  - Narcissistic Personality Disorder
  - Narcolepsy
  - Oppositional Defiant Disorder
  - Panic Attack
  - Postpartum Depression
  - Schizoaffective Disorder
  - Seasonal Affective Disorder
  - Sex Addiction
  - Specific Phobias
  - Teenage Depression
  - Trauma
Discover
- Wellness Topics
  - Black Mental Health
  - Grief
  - Emotional Health
  - Sex & Relationships
  - Trauma
  - Understanding Therapy
  - Workplace Mental Health
- Original Series
  - My Life with OCD
  - Caregivers Chronicles
  - Empathy at Work
  - Sex, Love & All of the Above
  - Parent Central
  - Mindful Moment
- News & Events
  - Mental Health News
  - COVID-19
  - Live Town Hall: Mental Health in Focus
- Podcasts
  - Inside Mental Health
  - Inside Schizophrenia
  - Inside Bipolar
Quizzes
- Conditions
  - ADHD Symptoms Quiz
  - Anxiety Symptoms Quiz
  - Autism Quiz: Family & Friends
  - Autism Symptoms Quiz
  - Bipolar Disorder Quiz
  - Borderline Personality Test
  - Childhood ADHD Quiz
  - Depression Symptoms Quiz
  - Eating Disorder Quiz
  - Narcissim Symptoms Test
  - OCD Symptoms Quiz
  - Psychopathy Test
  - PTSD Symptoms Quiz
  - Schizophrenia Quiz
- Lifestyle
  - Attachment Style Quiz
  - Career Test
  - Do I Need Therapy Quiz?
  - Domestic Violence Screening Quiz
  - Emotional Type Quiz
  - Loneliness Quiz
  - Parenting Style Quiz
  - Personality Test
  - Relationship Quiz
  - Stress Test
  - What's Your Sleep Like?
Resources
- Treatment & Support
  - Find Support
  - Suicide Prevention
  - Drugs & Medications
  - Find a Therapist

By Audrey Sherman, Ph. D. on July 22, 2017

Dysfunctional families and parents come in many styles and carry out many different dynamics. One of the most damaging styles or dynamic is one where as a child you are abandoned or you live in fear of abandonment. This can be actual physical abandonment or emotional abandonment. Threats of abandonment are damaging also and are also common in these families. You may have lived in fear of being abandoned if you did not please your parent or caregiver.

This fear often manifests itself as depression as you feel helpless to control the impending abandonment. You may have suffered stomachaches or headaches as a child, signs of anxiety. You may not have known if the threats were real or if your parents were using these threats as a disciplinary technique. As a child you really shouldn’t have to think about that. You ideally would be in a safe and nurturing environment where your behavior was corrected in a constructive manner.

This parenting dynamic can be carried out by one parent or both. When parents fight with each other and one then threatens to leave all the time it creates fear and uncertainty. When a parent storms out of the house in anger you wonder if they are coming back.

If you are adopted or are from a step family or divorced family where one of your parents did not uphold contact or care with you after leaving you may suffer from attachment disorders or other emotional difficulties having to do with abandonment. You may have blamed yourself for the parent not sticking around. You feel if you had been “better” your parent would still be there.

Even the death of a parent can trigger symptoms, as well as the loss of a parent who is hospitalized for long periods. Even though this situation was not deliberate by your the parent, it may have felt like you had been abandoned. If everyone in the family was focused on the ill person, your emotional needs and fears may not have been addressed.

When actually abandoned, the idea or core belief is established that you are unlovable or unwanted.

If your parents used this technique to discipline it is likely that they suffered from an attachment disorder or other emotional difficulty themselves, starting in their own childhood. It was imprinted on them also that if you dont please the parent, love may be withheld. A belief that they then passed on to you.

If you grew up under these conditions you may not handle separation well, as you expect to be abandoned. That pending abandonment feeling can be fueled by very subtle things, like your partner being distracted or non-attentive. When in relationships, there is a pervasive feeling and belief that the other person will eventually be gone. These trust issues tend to hang on for life if not addressed.

Here are some examples of the kinds of statements heard in these dysfunctional households:

I am going to call the orphanage and give you away if you dont behave
I am going to call the snake farm and see if theyre hungry today.
I dont care what you do; I give up on you.
Do you want me to stop this car and put you out?
You can all stay here, I am leaving. Fend for yourselves.

Below are 19 emotional difficulties commonly experienced by adult children of abandoning/emotionally unavailable parents:

Abusive relationship
Anxiety Disorders or symptoms
Attachment Disorders
Borderline Personality Disorder
Care-taking and Codependency
Chaotic Lifestyle
Clingy/needy behavior
Compulsive behaviors may develop
Depression
Desperate relationships/relationships that happen too fast
Disturbances of mood, cannot self-regulate and experiences emotions in extreme
Extreme jealousy and possessiveness
Lack of confidence, self-esteem issue
May be poor at self-soothing
People-pleasing behaviors to detriment of self.
Poor coping strategies
Promiscuity
Relationship problems
Trust issues

If any of these describe you or if you have been diagnosed with any of these conditions it is likely that you feel bad about yourself. You may be being treated for a biochemical disorder or feel you have a mental illness. The sad part is that given what you experienced, how your brain dealt with it is normal. That is the way anyone would feel when abandoned. It does not mean something is wrong with you. It means something was wrong with your caregivers care-taking abilities and it created emotional distress for you.

Your brain developed coping mechanisms designed to protect you. It developed distrust in order to not be hurt again. It developed anxiety to be watchful for the same reasons and so on. It told you to develop strategies for hanging on to people so you wouldn’t be left alone. Even if those strategies might not be great for you in the long run. Remember, the underlying powerful emotion driving these developments is fear. Fear can make us do funny things. Not funny ha ha but funny as in hard to explain.

Understanding this is critical to your well-being. It does not mean you have to reject, confront, blame or punish your parents in some way. It just means you have to gain insight into what was the true starting point of your current emotional difficulties in order to develop a clear path to feeling better. As a child you couldn’t do much to escape your distress but as an adult you can conquer it by understanding its roots and putting it in it’s place.

FEEDBACK:

By Audrey Sherman, Ph.D. on July 22, 2017

Consequences of childhood rejection | Mothers today

When a child is abandoned, this leads to indelible consequences, especially if they occur in the early stages of their development. Lack of care and displays of affection is considered a rejection. What happens in the early years of our lives will reflect our beliefs, memories, memories and how we interpret reality. d. Whether the child is still very small or not, the information is stored even if she is unconscious. Let's see what the consequences of childhood rejection are.

Index

1 How does child abandonment affect children?
2 Trace trauma

How does child abandonment affect children?

The rejection of life affects many areas of development in the smallest p. It's not just about physical rejection on the part of a parent, but that he may feel abandoned by being physically but oblivious to their needs. An authoritarian father, a mother who doesn't listen to her son's needs, a demanding father, or a mother who puts the relationship ahead of her son. This is a heartbreaking situation for any child. The psychological consequences associated with abandoning children are very serious. Let's see what they are:

This affects their social and emotional development. The pain of abandonment affects relationships with others. If the person who is supposed to give us their unconditional love leaves us, establishing a healthy relationship will tell us more. There will be 90,005 insecure adults with guilt and low self-esteem 90,006. The fear of being abandoned will be present and this gap will be very difficult to fill.
Fear of rejection . Just as there is a fear of abandonment, the fear of rejection will affect your relationships throughout your life. In order not to repeat the feeling of abandonment of your childhood you will find it difficult to establish a stable relationship with when he becomes an adult, so as not to feel vulnerable. It will be difficult for you to trust others, you will feel insecure, and you will also make decisions.
Sense of responsibility . Children do not understand what is happening and blame themselves for the departure of their father's or mother's referent. They feel they are responsible for what they did wrong and feel responsible.
Dependent person . They need the approval and recognition of others and seek them out. They can choose the role of tyrant not to show off and have control, or they can also choose the role of victim . They tend to give a lot to get a lot, and when they don't get it, they get frustrated.
Feeling unworthy of love. When you do not feel entitled to be loved, you usually boycott relationships where may seem otherwise. They will not know how to manage the feelings they receive and will perceive them as a vulnerability to future rejection.
Psychomotor retardation . In studies involving children who were in orphanages with no physical and emotional support, a higher proportion of cases of autism were found in these children and psychomotor retardation in children and adolescents aged 6 to 15 years. This delay was compensated by an adult, but instead had more emotional problems.
Influences your idea of a family . Although we are too young to remember it, everything we experience remains in our memory. From our experience and experience, they will shape our beliefs and the way we interpret situations.

A trace of trauma

Not all children abandoned by their father, mother, or both necessarily have all of these consequences. Not all of us express and bear pain in the same way although there will always be a trace of trauma.

Wounds of abandonment in children are difficult to heal . Through therapy with a specialist, you can heal damaged self-esteem, work on self-esteem, negative beliefs associated with it, release the past, express your feelings and emotions, and alleviate emotional damage. It won't undo all the damage caused by neglect, but you can learn to live with it.

Because remember... children need love and care from their parents or authority figures. If it is not received, the damage will be for life.

The content of the article complies with our principles of editorial ethics. To report a bug, click here.

Main reasons for denial of payment for children aged 8 to 17

PUBLISHED 05/24/2022 05:09 PM UPDATED 05/25/2022 05:05 PM

You must apply to receive the new allowance for children aged 8 to 17. But positive decisions do not always come the first time - sometimes parents do not pay attention to the rules for assigning payments or inattentively fill out an application. Larisa Mironova, Deputy Head of the Department for Establishing Pensions and Social Payments, spoke about the main reasons why payments may be refused.

- How is the average per capita family income taken into account?

- Income information is taken into account for 12 months, but this period starts 4 months before the date of application. This means that if you apply for a payment in May 2022, then income from January to December 2021 will be taken into account, and if in June 2022, then from February 2021 to January 2022. This should be taken into account when applying.

- Does the presence of property in excess of the established list affect?

- In addition to calculating the average per capita income of a family, a comprehensive assessment of family property also plays an important role. For example, a family has two cars or the interest received by the family on deposits is more than the subsistence minimum per capita in the whole of the Russian Federation.

- In connection with this reason for refusal, some parents have the following question: if a payment is denied because of property, which in fact does not exist, what should I do?

- In this case, you need to contact the PFR client service or an organization that can document the absence of property owned by the family, for example, Rosreestr or the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Since it is such organizations that inform the Pension Fund about the presence of a family of this or that property. The document issued by the organization must be submitted to the PFR client service at the place of residence. Pre-registration is not required for this. After confirming that the property does not contain the property due to which the refusal was made, or, for example, this property is under arrest, the decision will be reviewed.

- What are the most common mistakes applicants make?

- Before sending the application, you should carefully make sure that all personal data (name, SNILS, document numbers, etc.) are filled out correctly. Especially when it comes to names with the letter "ё".

- What happens if I don't submit the revised application or documents within 5 business days?

- In this case, the payment will be denied and you will need to reapply.
You can provide all the necessary documents on any working day. There is no need to register for this.

- What is the "zero income rule" and how does it affect the law?

- The zero income rule assumes that the allowance is granted in case of a justified lack of income due to objective life circumstances.

For example, the family has many children (i.e. one of the parents in a large family may have zero income for all 12 months, and the second parent must have income from work, entrepreneurship, creative activity or pension, scholarship), or the applicant is the only parent in relation to the children, etc.

- When will the refusal be known?

- The term for consideration of the application is up to 30 business days. Follow the notifications in your personal account on the State Services.

If the application was submitted in person at the client service of the Pension Fund of Russia or at the MFC, in case of a positive decision, the funds will be transferred within the period established by law without additional notice to the applicant.