Manifestations of Abandonment

Not Pink Floyd, though I know you’re humming it. You’re welcome.

As a victim of parental abandonment, I built a very tall, thick wall. My wall was impenetrable. It was a tower of Babylon. If that was not enough, I kept it locked down like Fort Knox and built the walls from 10-foot-thick tungsten. No one was getting in this sucker or past my defenses. No one.

Abandonment left me far more damaged than even I knew. Oh, I understood I had some issues. I did. I had severe trust issues. I kept my thoughts to myself. No one was permitted to get into my head. Not trusting people formed the bulk of my protective barrier, but it was not perfect, so I built a wall around me. For added measure, I greased the wall so no one could climb it.

Why? Because I was never going to allow anyone to abandon me again and cause me the kind of pain a parent inflicts on a child. It was not very difficult. I made friends, but I did not let them get too close to me. I was not intimately close to any of my friends. By intimate, I mean the bond that BFFs or bros share when they know and tell each other everything. I am referring to the friends you have who have stuff on you and you on them, which could cause you problems with a parent.

I was pretty stoic as a child, actually. As the eldest of two girls, with no mother, I had a lot of responsibilities fall on my shoulders. I had to take charge of my sister most of the time, keep house, and even cook once I knew how. I was always very serious about everything and not apt to have fun. I grew up way too fast, and really, I didn’t experience youth the way others did.

My sister was the fun-loving one of us. She was the social butterfly, the easygoing one. Not I. I was the rule keeper, the guardian at the gate, obedient to a fault, and the straight-laced, straight-A student. That was my internal strategy throughout life.

I made no waves. I was agreeable. I always did the right thing. There was no way on earth I would give anyone else a reason to leave me. I carried that boulder into adulthood, too. It was exhausting, let me tell you. There was no way to change it, either.

You cannot change what you are unaware you are doing or why you are doing it. It has taken a lifetime to reach the point where I can recognize what I was living in my psyche all these years. I am still not there, the proverbial emotionally healed. I don’t know if anyone ever reaches the pot of gold. I may or may not. It’s okay, though. I am on the path.

During my youth and adolescence, I kept the walls pretty high. It wasn’t foolproof, however. It cost me deep relationships and strong friendships, and it sometimes even caused a rift between my sister and me. She had a hard time understanding why I was the way I was. She called me cold and distant. She said I didn’t know how to have fun and didn’t laugh. And she was right. I was all of those things.

I didn’t understand why I was. She didn’t either. How could she, if I didn’t? We survived and are still close. Our understanding of each other and our own makeups has grown, and we are on the same page.

You never fully heal, but you are always healing. We have each other’s backs. That matters. You need that special person in life who will love you no matter what and see all your ugliness. The one or two people who see that ugliness and still see the beautiful imperfections within. That is my sister to me. That is my husband to me.

Over the years, I had relationships that added bricks to my walls. I made mistakes because I did not recognize cause and effect. Those mistakes added bricks and mortar. They were new wounds on top of old scars. That kind is harder to heal from. But you can, and you do. As I said, those special people come along to help you heal.

There are patient and kind people in the world. Not the usual patience, but the kind a victim of abandonment needs. Someone who takes their time to dig out mortar from your damaged wall. Someone who makes it okay to remove a brick and peek over the gap. They are in limited supply, but they are out there. My husband is one, and my sister the other, as I have said.

So, what kind of person helps heal an abandonment-scarred person? Ironically, for me at least, it takes a passive, consistent, and trustworthy person.

Ah, yes, I said I had trust issues. When I say trustworthy, I mean the kind of person who shows, through every action, that they are not going anywhere. A person who sees your flaws, your ugly, and still hangs around. It takes a long time to reach the point where you trust someone.

Decades have come and gone. I don’t remember the exact moment I began to trust my husband. Maybe it was intuitive, and I trusted him from the beginning. Maybe it came later, after some time in the relationship. I can’t even say whether my walls were dismantled one brick at a time or in entire sections. I just know they have come down for these two people in my life. That’s something.

I feel at ease around them both. I can be myself and still know they won’t leave me. I know that even if I have moments when my guard goes back on duty, they will wait it out while my subconscious comes off its ledge. They get me. Not all the time, but they are willing to see me through my insecurities and are ready, willing, and able to bandage any cuts that open up.

For those of you who have experienced abandonment, know that there are people like that out there. You don’t need many. One or two is more than enough to show you they can be trusted, and you can take down your walls, or at least put a door in a wall and let them in, until you learn to trust them and they have earned it from you.

There are people out there who don’t cut and run. People who aren’t concerned only with themselves and their wants. Be patient. They will come.

Most of all, be patient with yourself. Healing takes a long time. It is a process, both difficult and simple. Give yourself the grace to understand that one act can trigger a landslide of consequences, and the climb out is steep. It’s exhausting. But you will heal, scars and all.

Don’t let it get into your head that you were somehow at fault. You were not. Parental abandonment is never the child’s fault. You were not the cause of your own abandonment. If you can accept that, you are on your way. At some point, forgiveness will come into play.

I say this because most of the weights and burdens we carry stem from holding on to anger and bitterness. The only way to unload most of those burdens is to forgive the people who hurt you by letting go. I know. I know. You can’t even imagine doing that. But you can do it.

You may think it gives them a pass for the pain they caused you. It doesn’t. It gives you the freedom not to give that injury any more power. Forgiving them dumps that load back on their shoulders. It gives you the freedom to begin healing yourself without grudges.

You don’t know the circumstances under which a person makes a decision that drastic. I didn’t know what made my mom leave. She was young. Young people make a lot of bad choices.

When we are young, we do not see things as we do in maturity. Every detail in life feels dramatic. Maybe they had a reasonable rationale.

I spent my life angry at my mother for leaving us. It was not until I was a grown woman, with no one influencing me, that I came to understand why she had made the choice she did. I understood the reasons. It was not okay, but I understood the fear she had of my dad, which made her believe it was her only way out. I forgave her, and I am all the more whole for it.

Today, I only have a little wall left. It’s mostly gone. I know it won’t ever be completely destroyed. That’s okay. It’s okay to be broken and healing. Stained glass is colored shards of a whole that make a beautiful piece of art. You are art in the making.

(Published by Illumination on Medium, June 2026)

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