Cptsd Diaries #6: A Life Of Abandonment Has Destroyed My Future.

All my life I've been abandoned in some way or another.

I wasn't a popular kid growing up, literally bullied within an inch of my life on more than one occasion. Friends came and went, and whilst my family were a good family, my parents were always stressed and poor. I didn't know which parent I was getting every day, the pissed off one who would rather I go hide in my room, or the loving encouraging one.

I feared my dad, that didn't help. He was so guilt-ridden about his poorly felt cards in life, he couldn't let me be, he saw every failing of mine as a learning opportunity to not be like him, to have a better life than he had. So rather than patience from him, I got constant feedback about how I could be going better in every aspect of my life.

And I wonder why I'm a goals driven burned out workaholic as an adult.

The trouble wasn't just in my childhood, university wasn't much better with a lack of friends and stable life. I entered into a long term relationship with a leech. They gaslit me and lied for five years as their life got worse. They depended on me for everything and every time life beat them down they stayed down and their problems got worse, which meant my life got worse.

That relationship filled with lies, abuse, and cheating lasted five years, a good chunk of my twenties gone, and then when it finally ended, I landed in another relationship within a fortnight.

The thing about abandoned people, is that they are programmed to be big investors in relationships. Some go the other way and become avoidant, but most of us turn to fawning.

So I rushed into a new relationship with someone who was, by every count, better than my ex, and thought I had solved my problem. I had someone new, ergo, couldn't be abandoned again.

Wrong.

It took a few years for the red flags to rise, but by the end of that relationship, all I could see was red. They turned out to be a childish, self-centred, alcoholic, drug addicted looser.

Everything I fell in love with, in the first few years, the reason I proposed to them, was gone by year five. It took me until year seven, when we were already married to see the truth.

Yet again I was in a relationship where my thoughts and feelings didn't matter, especially if it clashed with what they wanted to do. By year seven, I was a husk of a human, a mere passenger in my partners life. Every thing they did to break the relationship I just watched and cleaned it up. I became the house-maid, but I also earned the most so I also was the wallet. I was their secretary constantly nagging them to get out of bed, and be places at the times they wanted to see them. I had to guilt trip them into seeing their own family and changed my entire way of living just to make life easier for them, so that my life could also be easier.

I fawned for seven years whilst their boot was on my neck. They were constantly abandoning me, disappearing for days on end, not wanting to do anything with me, but always wanted to do something with their friends.

The addiction to booze and pills started to have consequences, every hungover morning, three times a week I would have to explain to them what they had done, how they had hurt me, hurt others, embarrassed themselves and damaged friendships. The lesson was never learned.

My anxiety increased and multiple times a week, whilst I chilled at home, they were out the house causing havoc and my heart was I my throat for hours on end. They once went away on a romantic weekend away with their friend, and I was so sick my stomach the whole time I chopped down an entire garden full of trees, went to the gym multiple times and did everything I could to distract and numb myself from the pain I was feeling and could not articulate.

Eleven years, and two relationships of full-time abandonment. After a childhood of no one being there for me, it should come as no surprise my adult relationships are weird. Im surprised I even have friends, because lords know I don't put enough effort in. I think my accomplishments and masking makes people think Im a great person and their attracted to me, when deep down I just use them as distractions from how painful my life is and to fill an empty slot in my calendar. Another task crossed off my to-do list.

Sadly I didn't learn my lesson and after my seven year relationship with my husband, yes I went through with the wedding despite all the flags, I was quickly in another relationship.

This time it's different, and yes I really mean it.

They are nice, they are kind, they look out for me and genuinely want to be with me.

But.

I'm so broken, I'm constantly looking for evidence that they are going to hurt me like the others did. Even if they have plans with a friend to go out, my brain starts acting like it's the end of the world. Acting like I'm in trouble again, every fibre of my being yelling run.

I can't live like this, I wish it was as simple as just focussing on this one issue and trying to solve it but my issues are many. My body is being bombarded with multiple issues like his every day and recovery is a horrible road.

And yet I'm a solitary creature most of the time, I like my time, I like playing games by myself, writing, drawing, doing things on my own, but it has to be on my terms to be happy with it, else my anxiety just starts sounding the alarm and I'm broken, defeated, my brain unable to think of anything but the perceived abandonment that's not happening.

I wish I could break this, it would make my life and my partners life so much easier.