Abandon Abandoned

There may be a fear of being left or losing someone, perhaps arising from an actual experience of loss in the past. You need to consider whether your feelings of abandonment are also feelings of dependence.

Nearly always such feelings offer opportunities to meet ones fears and learn greater independence. Difficulties surrounding this are often linked with what we frequently call love, but might, for greater clarity, be called dependence. For instance, if a partner leaves us and we experience great pain, much of that pain and anxiety comes about because we have depended upon our partner to supply, or help supply, such needs as money, a place to live, social standing, sexual satisfaction, a sense of being wanted, companionship and support in crises.

Longer  Explanation

Although, as an adult, you might now be capable of gaining your needs, such powerful feelings of helplessness, anxiety or sense of abandonment, can be stimulated by any situation reminiscent of the childhood situation that first called them into play. Therefore, it can help to carefully look at your life situation to see what changes are producing these feelings. You also need to decide whether there is real cause for fear, or whether you are suffering anxiety due to past experience.

Example: I was in a very loving relationship in which I had developed powerful emotional links with D. We communicated many times each day while apart at work, etc. But one day there was no communication. I felt tremendous anxiety and emotional pain and shock, really frightened that she had dropped me. In fact she hadn’t, but my fears were very real and difficult to deal with. A real shock.

In a certain sense, the pain arising from abandonment, and feelings attending it, can arise from other losses, such as termination of employment or loss of status. This can be seen as a confrontation with one’s own internal poverty. If this can be accepted, then the situation becomes an opportunity to gradually transform old pains and dependencies. The roots of these frequently become revealed if we accept the pain as a signpost to its source and understanding. Awareness of the part such pain has played in your life is a tremendous means of transformation.

In general the dream might link with a sense of how others, particularly our parents, felt about us while we were a child. This feeling of not being wanted may have become habitual. It may not be true that we were not wanted, but our feelings are saying it is. A sense of abandonment powerfully influences our relationships as an adult, and can lead to feelings of being unloved in the midst of what is really a happy and caring relationship; sometimes carries an element of self pity. The feeling if abandonment can represent big changes in your life such as leaving home, or travelling and living in another country, and so feeling abandoned by all ones friends and usual sources of support.

Dreaming of abandonment may also link with feeling life has no meaning or purpose. They may occur after going through sepa­ration or divorce, or even the death of a loved one, especially a parent or spouse.

Such dreams can reveal grief, anger, resentment and despair that has not been face or dealt with. Meeting such feelings is way Facing and working through these feelings is important and may show emotional block­ages.

If by a friend or relative: Suggests either anxiety about losing friendship, or of illness creating a loss. It can also suggest that you feel unloved and unwanted.

Being abandoned in the sense of allowing sexual and emotional liberty: Finding a new

freedom; dropping usual social codes and unashamedly expressing ourselves.

An abandoned building, project etc: Something that you were involved in and had life for you at some time, but is now either in the past, or that you have withdrawn energy or enthusiasm from, or perhaps given up on.

Also: It can be an example of one of the functions of dreams, which is to release held back sexuality and emotion. See: alone; functions of dreams; hero/ine.

Example: ‘My Mother asked me to go and buy some butter for her. A chain on my left leg prevented me from going very far. I look down the road and see my Mum, Dad and my four brothers in the back of a car. I wave and call and they drive right past me, going over the chain I am wearing on my leg.’ Lorraine. LBC.

Lorraine’s dream illustrates not only her feelings of being left out of family life, but also the chain on her leg shows her not fully independent. We often feel ‘abandoned’ while we are trying to become more independent.

Useful questions:

Is the feeling in the dream one I have often?

If I look backwards through my life, when did this feelings start?

Because this feeling might deeply influence the way you feel in a relationship, it is helpful to recognise the difference between the history of this feeling as it has played in your life, and what is actually real in your present relationship?

What or who have I abandoned or been abandoned by?