Manifestations of Abandonment

I am a product of abandonment. Not my choice, but it is what it is. I am a product of several things, not at all nice to discuss, yet I am still kicking. I am not sure what people’s intentions are when they do something, but I am guessing selfishness is at the root of it all. I was abandoned. Correction, my sister and I were abandoned by our mother when I was around two years old.

I won’t bore you with the details of what we had to work through, at least not in this piece, but I want to discuss what happens to a child and even an adult who suffers abandonment by an immediate family member. This is the opening to a few small vignettes about internal pain with external evidence. These evidentiary tales do not register with many people; sometimes not even with the ones closest to you. I am still unraveling what the things I did as a child and became as an adult meant. I am always on the journey of becoming. Wisdom takes so long.

My earliest recollection of symptoms of abandonment issues dates to age 6. I used to bring home living creatures in need of salvation from life's cruelty. My drug of choice was kittens. It was not my only affinity, however. Anything a little cute and abandoned was subject to my compassionate acquisition. Puppies and dogs, salamanders and turtles, they were all not on my radar. I didn’t look for them; they always seemed to find me. Does it call out to like? I think, in some respects, it does. I’ll touch on that one in a different series.

Fostering living victims of nature’s abandonment was not the only manifestation of my inner struggles with abandonment. I collected things my whole life, too. I was a worrywart and clingy. My clinging came as an adult, when I held on tight to things, or rather people, that were not good for me. No one seemed to connect the abandonment to the way I empathized with other living things, identified with them, and wanted for them what I did not have: close parental love and nurturing, and a familial identity.

I lived that out my entire life. Still do on many levels, though I am more aware of why I do it. These are not the only ways I lived out my inner feelings.

I have always loved to cook. I am pretty great at it, and I managed to turn that into a way to earn the love of the people I cooked for. I did the proverbial getting to a person’s heart through their stomach.

I am also someone who does as much as I can for others. I don’t even have to know someone to offer help. I just do it. At the very core of that is the need for acceptance and the desire to end others’ suffering. Those are not bad things, don’t get me wrong. I believe in giving back. I still do it. But now I understand where that innate need comes from for me.

None of the things I have listed here is bad. I would not change any of them. I love who I am. I love what I am and how I am. I just recognized the role abandonment played in my life and how it altered its trajectory.

Even my jobs and careers were closely tied to this issue. I worked in the hospitality industry in my younger years. I started my first job in a restaurant as a dishwasher and fast-tracked to chef's assistant at age 17. I needed acceptance, and I earned it by becoming invaluable to him. I worked hard, learned quickly, and used it to fill the little holes in my soul.

As a child, I wanted to be in the medical field. I wanted to become a surgeon. I bet you can guess why. Yes, I wanted to help the sick and ailing. I wanted to ease their pain and suffering. I did not become a doctor, not for lack of ability, but because of the life choices I made because of the abandonment. There are not always good consequences. Some consequences were not so good, even bad, appearing along the path to realization. I own them. I am not ashamed, because I am here now. Whole. At peace.

I believe that sometimes we have to analyze why we do certain things and the underlying causes. For me, the aha moments helped me accept my idiosyncrasies. That acceptance gave me the freedom to be the unadulterated me. I am good with that.

(Published by Illumination on Medium, June 2026)

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