Fear of Abandonment - Fear of abandonment and irrational jealousy is a phobia, sometimes exhibited by people with personality disorders, that they are in imminent danger of being rejected, discarded or replaced at the whim of a person who is close to them.
Description:
Fear of abandonment is often partnered with an exaggerated sense of dependency on another individual. People who suffer from borderline personality disorder often live in a chronic sense of fear that their world is about to collapse through the abandonment of those closest to them.
Lack of Object Constancy and Separation Anxiety
Lack of Object Constancy - Object Constancy is a psychological term used to describe the ability to think of other people or objects as "still there", even when they are out of your immediate field of vision. Object constancy is a developmental skill which most children develop at about age 2-3. A lack of object constancy is a symptom of some personality disorders.
Infants often experience separation anxiety whenever they are separated from a parent, even for a second. They may begin crying unless they are held or unless they can see their parent close by, terrified that they have "lost" their parent. This is known as separation anxiety.
When toddlers become mobile and begin to explore their world, they often begin to take short excursions to explore their environment, turning their attention to an interesting object and checking back with mom or dad every few minutes to feel safe again. As the child develops, the time between "check in's" tends to extend longer. By the time a child is 4 or 5 years old, most children can spend several hours at pre-school or school away from their parents without experiencing significant separation anxiety.
The ability to recognize that although they can not see their parent, that their parent is still "there" and that they are still safe is sometimes referred to as Object Constancy.
Object Constancy is the ability to understand that some things remain constant - even when we can't see them or verify that they are still "there". Object constancy can apply to objects or to relationships. People who suffer from personality disorders sometimes experience a lack or a deficiency in object constancy. This can be at the root of fear of abandonment episodes, as well as dissociative memories, selective amnesia and false accusations.
The irony of the fear of abandonment is that those who act on it often behave in ways that frighten their victims and push them further away.
Examples of Fear of Abandonment
A spouse who assumes their partner is having an affair without any objective evidence.
A mother who does not allow her teenage child to form romantic or peer relationships.
A boyfriend who calls or texts repeatedly - more than 15 or times in a single day.
A girlfriend who shows up at an office function to which she has not been invited.
A divorcee who stalks his ex-wife after the dissolution of the relationship.
Some examples of statements from people who have a fear of abandonment include:
"You've never loved me."
"I know you are having an affair"
"You prefer <-----> to me."
"You never want to spend time with me."
"I know you want to leave me"
"If you loved me you would <--->"
What it feels like
While these types of beliefs may seem to do the most harm to the person who is expressing them, what makes the fear of abandonment particularly threatening to those on the receiving end is when the person suffering from the disorder begins to act on the false belief that you are going to abandon them. This can result in sabotage of your other relationships, punishment in the form of retribution (I'll leave you before you leave me or I'll cheat on you before you cheat on me), jealous fits of rage (such as destroying property, hitting, threatening even homicide) emotional withdrawal and self harm (including suicide attempts).
Fear of abandonment often manifests itself as an irrational form of jealousy. The abuser accuses the victim of being unfaithful or of loving other people in an unbalanced or inappropriate way. Pressure is then applied to the victim to cut off contact with the competing family member, friend or "lover".
Coping with Fear of Abandonment
When faced with abandonment it can be tempting to try to address the root cause by addressing the person's feelings and trying to convince them that they are not accurate. However, when you tell someone that their feelings are inaccurate they generally find it very invalidating, feel like their feelings are unimportant to you and it pours fuel on the fire of their desperation.
Abandonment is one situation where trying to address the root cause of the problem is ineffective. Centuries of genocide and religious persecution have all demonstrated that you can't control what a person believes - or chooses to believe. You can't make a person feel differently and you will live to regret it if you try. Instead, it is generally better to deal with the symptoms - that is the behaviors.
What NOT to do:
Don't try to argue or reason with a person who is experiencing fear of abandonment. Fear of abandonment is a primal emotion they are expressing, like a hungry baby crying for milk. You would have as much success trying to persuade a baby that crying doesn't help.
Don't go out of your way to try to prove you aren't having an affair, or plotting to leave a person who has a fear of abandonment. Their fear is irrational and is unlikely to be resolved by a rational argument.
Don't cave in to the demands of a person who is expressing fear of abandonment, when what they are demanding is not healthy for you or them. Just as a parent has to say no to a crying child, as uncomfortable as that feels, you may sometimes have to say "no" to an unreasonable demand from a person who is experiencing fear of abandonment.
Don't stay in the same room with anyone who threatens to hurt you, any children or themselves. Call the police immediately. You can go back to worry about the psychology once you know everybody is safe.
don't allow yourself to become isolated, or sacrifice things which are god for you in order to try to "prove" your love to someone else. Someone who truly loves you will never require you to prove your love for them. Keep your friends, your job and your support network intact.
What TO do:
You must address safety first - for children yourself, property and for the person with the abandonment issues.
Next, it is important to take stock of the truth and separate what is real from what is not. You will have t do this for yourself as it will not be easy to convince the person expressing abandonment. remember that even people with personality disorders get it right some of the time so don't always discard their concerns just because they have cried wolf too often in the past - but think with clarity - if you can.
Third - you have to consider what is good and healthy for all parties concerned. It does no good to sacrifice your own needs to serve another persons abandonment - specially if it is not based on reality. You need to consider what is good for you AND what is good for the person with the disorder. For example, it isn't good for you to give up your friends or family relationships to try to convince a person with abandonment that you love them. It won't work and it will intensely annoy your friends and family. Neither is it good for you to retaliate in anger - you will just find yourself in a position of having to apologize later and you will just have handed the accusing person evidence that supports their abandonment theory. Consider what is best for both of you - if you can.
Fourth - act on it. You won't get any accolades for following through on what is good judgment from a person who is experiencing abandonment issues - but you will have the satisfaction of knowing you are picking your battles and fixing what you can fix and leaving alone what you can't. You can't fix other peoples feelings. You shouldn't try. You can make good choices for your own life and your children's lives - if you have children - and you will reap the long term rewards of doing that.
Fifth - if you can do all that buy yourself some ice cream and give yourself a bi pat on the back. It's not easy to deal with abandonment and all it's ugly step-sisters. Reward yourself when you have the courage to do the right thing. Tell a trusted friend about it. Take a hot bath, melt a chocolate bar and pour it over a favorite dessert.
For More Information & Support
If you suspect you may be related to - or in a relationship with - someone who suffers from a personality disorder, we encourage you to learn all you can about personality disorders and get support.
Visit our Support Forum to discover real life stories and discuss your own situation.
Feb 10, 2010 - The American Psychiatric Association today released their first draft of the 5th revision of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual (DSM-V) which regroups personality disorder diagnoses into 5 categories:
Antisocial/Psychopathic Type
Avoidant Type
Borderline Type
Obsessive-Compulsive Type
Schizotypal Type
There is also a proposed mechanism for scoring the severity and the match of each of the diagnostic traits.
The proposals are not final and the APA has a comment period starting today and ending April 20th 2010. The DSM-V is scheduled for release in May 2013.
Dec 30 2009 - Those of you who use the "stay logged in" feature of the Out of the FOG support forum will notice that you unexpectedly had to log in again today. Please don't be alarmed. This was caused by some updates to the board behind the scenes. Please excuse the inconvenience.
Nov 1 2009 - Out of the FOG is celebrating 2 years in bringing information and support to family members and loved-ones of people who suffer from personality disorders. In the two years since we launched, our traffic has grown exponentially and we are rapidly becoming one of the internet's premier sources of information on coping with personality disorders. Happy birthday OOTF and thanks to all our members and supporters around the world.
Out of the FOG Support Forum Zetaboards Upgrade
June 15 2009 - Please excuse our appearance while the Out of the FOG Support Forum upgrades to run on the new Zetaboards software platform. The new software contains a number of new features and improvements over our existing system which should become evident after the conversion is completed.
This upgrade will convert all our existing forums, posts, PM's, memberships and profiles. There should be very little interruption in service or loss of data. The only thing you will notice is changes to the appearance of the graphical interface. It will take 1-2 weeks to complete the conversion.
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Please excuse any inconvenience you may experience as we perform the upgrade.
June 3 2009 - BPD author A.J. Mahari has launched a new version of her website called BPD INFO which has a section which invites members to submit website articles about BPD. Our own gary submitted an article to her site this week.
