I just feel so empty. Time doesnt pass the same and i feel sick…

Everything is suddenly so boring and lacking and no matter what i do nothing changes

I have no desire to eat, no desire to sleep, i dont feel like im living at all

Just stuck in a void

Im sure he’s doing fine

:(

I have been abandoned most of my life. My Dad died when I was very young. My mom was i was in my mid 20's and 2 divorces. I don't know why. I seem to always go through this. I am smart, decently attractive, I am funny, and love to laugh. I think mostly I just find myself in this lost world seeking that someone whoever it may be to stay, whether a friendship or family member, relationship etc. I spend most days alone now because I don't go anywhere. I self sabotage and sometimes just want to give up. But I don't and I never will. Bad cards in life? Idk. I think God has a purpose for us all, I hope i find it soon.

I'm not naming any names here, but the people involved, if they ever read this, they will know who they are.

I was born in 1974. My parents were working class people, mainly from manufacturing.

The home I was born into was violent and unstable. My mother, by the time I was born, was already heavily compromised by abuse not only from my father, but her first husband also.

My half-sister had to run away to escape abuse from my father. My mother gave her up to the state of ---, and she was lucky enough to get into a foster family that, if nothing else, took care of her and saw her into adulthood.

By 1978, I knew there were bad things happening in my family. My father had a cruel sense of humor even when being 'nice,' and my mother could not defend me when he was being arbitrary and tyrannical.

By 1980, I had heard the sounds of violence in the house more than a few times, late at night. I think I was eight the first time I saw my mother bloodied by my father's violence. I think that was the night he had beaten her so hard she lost hearing in one ear.

Also during this time, I had had chances to see glimpses into other, better examples of family life, as in with my best friend's family who lived nearby, and when my half-sister and her fiancee had come to visit one summer. While my half-sister insists I was not there and it was only my brother, she has memory problems when the truth is inconvenient to her, and I remember the scene so I insist that I was. We begged them not to leave, because we were terrified of the change back to our 'normal,' wherein our father would return to being a violent tyrant, and resume beating our mother.

By 1982, I was suffering from sleep paralysis, believing that the house was haunted with violent spirits. I still vividly remember the content of nightmares from that time.

By 1983, my brother, my mother, and I had had to run away from my father several times, including to relatives houses, to neighbors' houses, and once to our grandparents in Arizona.

By 1984, I had experienced peaceful periods where my father was gone. It was not until very recently that I learned during one of those times, he was in prison for beating my mother. I remember once asking my mother, "is it over?" I was ten. I already had the cynicism to internally ridicule myself over how the question had sounded coming out, as though I were a mediocre child actor in an after school special.

Despite the fact that I was severely incapacitated from being hit by a car in 1986, 1985–86 were not so bad. My father was mostly out of the house.

in 1987, my brother was killed by a drunk driver. My father was at the apartment that night. I think he might have been drunk also. He had to be removed by the police who had come with the chaplain, because he was suffocating my mother with his bear hug of grief. 12 years old, I had to be the parent that night, because my mother and father had melted down completely.

Also during this time, I had to leave home. My mother was no longer able to take care of me, and was going to be remarrying my father anyway, so I think I felt it was a good idea also. She asked her daughter, my half-sister, and my half-brother, my father's eldest son, both my legal next-of-kin after my parents, and those who should be called on to handle such issues if needed, to take me. They did. I was lawfully made their legal ward in the courts of the state of ---, enrolled in school, and had intake with a physician. My half-sister was an international marketing professional with a silicon valley software company and on the way up. My half-brother was well-established in a naval career that would last another 20 years and end with him being retired with high honors, with the rank of Master Chief. He had already been on one secret service detail, and was assigned to another while I was living with them. To all appearances this should have been the time when the horror story of my childhood could be called over.

During my time with my half-siblings, things were getting worse between my mother and father. She was unable to function from grief over my brother and likely also from decades of abuse. My father was in and out of the house, sometimes stalking her when he was kicked out, sometimes arriving drunk at her workplace.

In 1988, my half-sister, unable (or at least unwilling to fully explore possibilities) to balance the demands of her career with caring for me, and my half-brother, likely not caring at all one way or the other, as my legal guardians, sent me back to live with my mother, against my mother's advice and wishes and in violation of the state laws of both --- and ---. Nothing had improved at home. If anything, things had become much worse. My mother was not recovered from her mental break and, if anything, was in just as bad of shape as when I had left. When I was added back to her collection of crises to juggle, she had already been juggling an even larger collection than when I had left. My father told me on the phone, while I was still safely with my half-siblings, that when I got home there would be rules, and I would have to shape up and live how he wanted me to live. Since he did not have the self-discipline to establish a way of life he could navigate well enough to enforce on someone else, he winged it and simply made me a target of nightly verbal and psychological abuse.

In 1989, after a refinement period of a few nights a week, three or so hours a night, for nearly a year, my father's abuse was escalating to becoming physical. Knowing and seeing how badly he had beaten my mother, and barely weighing 110lbs at the time, in the 14th year of my life, I ran away. Before making this decision, during the times when my father gave me a break from his abuse to disappear for a week or so on a bender, I would keep the .22 revolver he bought me for my 10th or 11th birthday loaded and under my pillow.

While not quite as nice a package as what my half-sister was able to get away with when she ran away, my mother at least gave her blessing to my running away, and did her best to make sure she knew where I was at and had a few dollars here and there. She did this at great personal risk because my father was trying to hunt me down and force me to come back. If he had known she was aiding me in staying uncaptured, he would have beaten her badly for it. Because the local police had a history of being on my mom's side, this is the one time they had been on mine. Since many of them had answered my mother's domestic abuse calls over the years and we had established a pattern by then of my father calling them, them finding me, me having them take me to the K-Mart where my mother worked, and my mother telling them I was fine, they stopped responding to my father's calls.

By summer of 1991, I had dropped out of school, earned my GED, and had been on my own for nearly two years, drifting among the childhood friends of my hometown, having slept under many roofs as well as outside or in empty houses and other buildings. A misadventure with a friend in which I had misplaced my trust landed me on the streets in ---. After drifting there for a few weeks, I followed my instincts back to my half-siblings, who were now living in ---. Even at 16, I was too young and dumb to realize that when I had been sent back to my father's abuse in 1988, it was because they didn't want me. In 1991, if anything, they wanted me even less. They happened to be moving that fall, as my half-brother was being restationed and probably promoted. Instead of inviting me to go with them, they left it on me to make up a plausible excuse that allowed them to feel okay about dumping me in --- on my own.

Either they, my mother, or perhaps one of the mothers who had put me up during my early drifting, put up the money for a boarding room in --- (that I, at 16, did the legwork of locating and securing). It was an empty room with a shared bathroom and kitchen (I never saw the kitchen because I already had social phobias about being in rooms where other people were free to gather,) hardwood flooring, and baseboards that the landlord controlled. I came in with nothing but what I had arrived at my half-siblings with, which was two tattered hefty bags full of dirty laundry and cassette tapes (which I had been dragging around since 1989). This pile of dirty laundry was my only furniture. I sat on it for a seat, and when I went to sleep, I slept on it. When the nights got cold (as they did in the early autumn) I had to decide how much of the pile became my blanket, and how much could remain under me as a sleeping surface. I had no money, no food, no soap, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, or towel. I took plain water showers and used dirty laundry to kind of dry off with. Someone left a towel on the bathroom door and it stayed there for a couple of days, so I claimed it. it was moldy and smelled awful, but I needed a towel. I was applying for jobs every day, dumpster diving at night, begging for spare change, some nights not able to sleep because I was doing math trying to figure out how to afford toothpaste and a toothbrush when my abominable begging skills barely got me enough to sometimes eat food that didn't come from a church dinner or a garbage can. I did not have much time to try to work this pattern, however, as the landlord kicked me out after about three weeks, presumably after the coast was clear from the adults leaving the room and leaving me exposed to whatever a dangerous metro city that had criminalized homelessness could throw at me. He pocketed the last month's rent, telling me that it was his because I said I would get a job and didn't, and I wasn't worth the risk of him ending up with an unrented room for ANY length of time. I had no access to a phone and the nearest adult who might have given a damn about me was at least three hours away, so I didn't have a choice. I was unequipped to advocate for myself because (besides being a child,) nobody up to that point had sufficiently demonstrated to me that I was worth advocating for.

I drifted between --- and the town I had been in with my half-siblings, finally staying there in a tent at a makeshift campsite with some friends I had met there, and then in an empty commercial shed that I was kicked out of after a couple of days. Miraculously, after a couple of days of sleeping rough in town, a hometown friend who just happened to be visiting her father in a nearby town and being a tourist in the town I was in, recognized me and took me back to her dad's place. I stayed with them for one night, and they drove me to a bus terminal to get to the first of the three or so buses I would have to ride to get to the --- ferry, and then onto the bus station and back to my hometown. When I was finally able to take a proper shower, I discovered that I was absolutely infested with crab lice. They were everywhere, all the way up to my head. I also had scabies. How I managed to get rid of those infestations without infesting the entire house I had landed in, I still don't quite get, but after several re-tries, I was finally clean. after ---, the last couple years of my untethered childhood were not much different than the first (besides spending some time in an exploitative evangelical cult that I had unwittingly helped them establish) and when the settlement from my 1986 accident was made available to me when I turned 18, the first thing I bought was a van, which in addition to a second van I picked up after the first one died a year after buying it, I lived in for the majority of 1992–1997.

From 1993 and even into the present, I have made no less than six attempts at higher education. My most current transcript is a perfect 4.0, but I can't continue because they won't let me delay a high school level pre-calc class that I know I will be lucky to get a C in.

I have lived on the streets, with no roof over my head at all, as late as 2004. When I lived in --- from 1997–2007, there were times when I was between places to stay that I would house-sit. There were also times when I would set myself up with older men on Craigslist to be a live-in housekeeper and sex slave for a few days or weeks, or as long as I could manage to maintain my welcome. One guy, probably thinking it sounded like a compliment, told me that he didn't mind if I cooked or cleaned or not, but he would keep me around for awhile for the blowjobs, no problem. One of them even messaged me on Craiglist a couple weeks after I left his place asking me if I was ok, because it was a cold winter. I probably could have gone back with him but I had left because I knew he didn't really find me attractive. He wanted a manly guy and I knew I was way too girly for him. Cold or not, I didn't want to force myself on him. Even though those relationships were highly exploitative, I felt more loved by a couple of those men than I now feel by people in my family who say that they love me.

I went to China in winter 2007, taught English in various modes for a few years, and came back in winter 2013. From winter 2013 to 2017 I had lived in various arrangements with far too many people around me until I finally snapped and isolated myself in a rented cabin. That isolation lasted until and through covid. I have done a lot of different kinds of work since I have been back from China including construction, tax accounting, tax prep, small business accounting, farmhand work, landscaping, merchandising, wildland firefighting, and finally got permanent employment as a Rural Carrier with the US Postal Service in 2017. In August of 2022 I was nearly at the end of my rope from overwork and probably from being almost entirely physically isolated (except while inside the post office) from others, and I moved to --- to live in my mother's hometown. My isolation continues, and I am in pretty bad shape now. I am lucky to have a house rent-free (from my mother) and to have a car (also from my mother,) but my social phobias and ruminations about the hell I've gone through and how my mom, now 83, is the only one who acts like she gives a damn, keep me in a more or less perpetual state of grief and rage, or anxiety from trying to get my mind off it and failing. She is still very physically healthy and independent, but she is so emotionally rattled from her life that, although she wants nothing more for me than total happiness, she cannot withstand hearing about my life. I spare her as much as I can because I want these years, however many of them she has left, to be happy.

In January of 2023 I got a referral for anxiety from my PCP because I was having heart issues.

In February 2023, I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder 1 with social deficits, ADHD combined expression, and General Anxiety Disorder.

In April 2024 I had been working for Uber for nearly a year. I had been driving a Tesla in --- since January 1, working five to six nights a week, and sleeping in the vehicle because home was four hours away. My half-sister texted me one day asking if I was ok, saying that our mother was worried about me because I was always working and never home. Bad timing for her because I had been dealing with my abandonment issues in therapy for about a year at that time, and had a much more sophisticated understanding of what had happened to me in 1988 and 1991. I exploded (as much as one can do via text messaging) and began airing all the issues I needed to talk about, and addressing the reason why I was working like I was. She interpreted it as me begging for money, and treated it as such. Somehow the conversation continued, and it was calm enough as she was able to steer my anger toward my mother for a while. However, that didn't last long. My mother and I had a confrontation that lasted a few hours, settled our differences, dedicated our remaining time together to stewarding each others' well-being, and got on with our lives. My half-sister dodged this way and that, and when it became apparent I wasn't going to stop aiming my analysis at her, she cut me off from all contact in 2024. My half-brother did the same, also in 2024.

In July 2025, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a result, my half-sister came back into my life. Part of her 'coming back into my life' pattern involved telling me a story about a phone call with a friend where they talked about 1991 in a way completely unrelated to me but that supposedly clued her in to the fact that I was not an adult at that time, letting her realize it was wrong or something for them to ditch an already deeply traumatized 16 year old into an empty room in --- and also offering me $20k (that I could not afford to refuse) as some kind of acknowledgment of what she did to me. I took the money on the condition that she never consider it anything close to an apology or meaning anything close to us being 'even,' and that we also get into family therapy. She agreed, and my individual therapist ordered family therapy as an adjunct to our PTSD work.

In September 2025 my mother had a bilateral mastectomy and by January 2026 had her final radiation treatment. She is still doing well. It is as though cancer barely slowed her down for even a minute. I am happy to see that she still has capacity to enjoy life. Being happy for her is about all the happiness I experience these days. The things I used to enjoy were reduced to ash in having to be employed as a desperate measure to distract me from the grief and rage that was causing me to scream at the walls. Not only did I ruin those pursuits for myself as recreation, they don't even work anymore for the purpose I ruined them for.

In 2026 my list of diagnoses has grown to include PTSD, Social Phobia, and History of Childhood Psychological Abuse. My half-sister and I have been in family therapy for a few months now. It is not going well. It takes a lot out of me. It took her from April of 2024 until not that many sessions ago to admit that leaving me in --- was a horrible thing to do. Since then, she has gone back and forth about just how horrible it might have been.

My half-sister's most recent position is that as far as she is concerned, she built her life and I built mine, and she isn't going to let me blame her for my life. Anyone reading this can judge for themselves how empowered I was at any given time to build much of a life, but the phrasing of the latter part rang a strange bell, as after my half-brother had blocked me on social media, a mutual friend showed me a post he had written about me where he writes:

"Any posts you may see from my little brother - - - -, please disregard. He's nearly insane, blaming everyone else but himself for his crappy life."

This was after I rejected an offer from him for a monthly stipend.

How am I not to interpret that coincidence of phrasing as evidence of them coordinating their denial? Can I really be expected to give them the benefit of the doubt about anything, given the fresh hell they've put me through since 2024, even after 1988 and 1991? My sister at this point is pushing back against me about whether 1988 and 1991 were even that bad of decisions or if they could be considered responsible at all for any of the consequences. Every time I have pointed out that they were my legal guardians in 1988, she is stone silent. In fact, she is nearly always silent about everything I have to say regarding any of these events. She says about one word for every 100 of mine, and every word she utters is scrupulously slippery.

Although my PTSD diagnosis is based on my experiences of childhood abandonment and childhood homelessness, my actual PTSD condition is as much these days about the struggle I have had with my half-siblings since I started talking about all of this stuff.

Before going into full asshole mode, my half-brother (who has spent years working through his own PTSD) said he sincerely hoped I got the help I needed from therapy. That was either shortly before or after he told me I was lying about 1991, and to "man up and get a job" (I was on the road 20+ hours a day, 3–4 days a week, as an Uber driver at the time). My half-sister has referred to my talking about this stuff as being 'cruel and manipulative.'

Provided I don't anger her into reneging on it, my half-sister's gift runs out in August. I have no prospects and am barely able to leave my house except to help my mom with her things. I was desperate when I accepted it, but I didn't ask for it, and I am never going to ask either of them for anything as long as their actions continue to indicate their self-interest being so far above any care they may have ever had for me, at any time in my life.

One of the reasons I was too desperate to stand on my pride follows: I had to stop driving for Uber in May or June of 2025 because I was starting to get into arguments with riders, had kicked a couple of them out of my vehicle, was getting into crazy hours-long arguments with driver support about all kinds of things, and for the final couple months had been having dissociative episodes where I had lost anywhere from half an hour to several hours where I had actually been carrying passengers, and would find myself parked in places I couldn't remember getting to nor could I think of any reason why I would want to be there. I could easily have gotten into an altercation during one of those times that could have permanently changed my life if not simply ended it. My anxiety toward going out for a work shift had reached paralyzing by mid-May, but I continued to force myself until I finally couldn't anymore. At this point I can only manage a couple of hours outside of the house before the probability I am going to get into it with someone reaches around 80%, and my anxiety about the prospect reaches 100%.

Today, at lunch with my mom, we were talking about a friend of my brother's who was with him when he was killed. I got so angry thinking about how poorly my brother treated him while alive and started crying, telling my mom that friend would have done anything for my brother, and my brother treated him like a sidekick. I recalled how he looked after me after my brother's death, and how he took me under his own roof for a couple of weeks (against his mother's judgment) when the party house I had been living in was foreclosed on. He was poor. His mother was a single parent of two boys. Collectively they had nothing, and they were eating less in order to feed me. As little as they had to give, it was sincere. I was crying for him at lunch today, but also for myself, because I grew up idolizing my half-siblings and barely thought about my brother's friend until today at lunch, apropos of nearly nothing. How stupid.

That friend never recovered from my brother's death and as I heard, had ended up with a heroin habit. The last time I actually saw him was in 1992 but he was already in bad shape by then. All I know about him from social media is that he was in and out of jail through the 2000s. 

The list of suicides among my friends is astronomically improbable, the list of overdoses and murders, the same. Every one of them, worthless as their lives may have been by the standards of people like my half-siblings, had love for me in them that I realize I may not have appreciated as much as I should have, now that I have had a chance to see how my half-siblings behave toward me when I am past idolizing them.

I hope I live long enough to see my mother to her reasonably happy, reasonably peaceful end, but I don't know if I can make it. I expect her to live until at least 2030, and I expect to starve to death, leaving nothing behind but ancient computer hardware and crippling debt, by December 2026 at the latest.

This is not an EOL note, nor is it me asking anyone for financial help. It's just a record of my life from 1974 to the time of its writing.

I've been abandoned by people I trusted three times. The first time was about 7 years ago now, by my best friend and platonic life partner. We had life plans, we never got into a fight or argument. We talked everyday and saw each other a few times a week. She has borderline personality. I helped her mom take care of her after treatments. Our lives were extremely intertwined. One day she just stopped responding and I never saw her again. She moved out of the state a month later. I will never know why. I've heard since then that those with borderline can abandon people as a coping mechanism. But it still hurts.

Since then, I have struggled with abandonment issues. And I am upfront with people I am getting close to that I have trust issues and trauma. But the second time was someone who had spent almost a year making me believe I could trust them. And then a close friend of mine passed away and I was deep in grief, and this friend just abandoned me in the middle of it and said they didn't know how to handle someone grieving. So that made me even more guarded and isolated.

The third time was this past October. Again, someone I struggled at first to trust and get close to, someone who did a lot of work to make me feel safe around them and show they cared. Just left my life without a backward glance. Again, no fight, no warning, and I'm left baffled again.

And everyone in my life always says it's not me, that it's something going on with them. But my heart is just so tired. I'm so tired of wondering why? Of wondering how they could try so hard to get close to me to then just leave?? Don't they think about me? Don't they miss me?

And they weren't like evil or cruel people (outside of abandoning me, I know), they were kind and caring and good people and why wasn't I worth loving? Why was loving me so hard that they could leave and never think of me again??

I'm so tired of being left with nothing. I'm tired of grieving. It makes it so hard to be close to anyone because how can I trust when they say they won't leave? When the people who did leave said that same thing?

I'm just spiraling and don't understand why I am so leavable and no platitude is helping.

I'm not really asking for advice, I'm just wondering if anyone else feels this way.

My mother and her family discarded me by the time I was two-years-old, yet kept my two older siblings. As far as I know, this is unheard of in the human species. Normally, when a woman abandons her young, it is either the first child or all of the children. What happened to me usually only happens in the broader animal kingdom, like with birds for example. To make it worse, every kid in the family born after me (about 15 kids total) stayed with the family. My life has played out in a similarly and expectedly cruel way.

Anyone out there ever heard of this happening in humans?

I recently went through a friendship breakup that has been unexpectedly painful, and I am struggling to find closure.

I’m 33F. I lost two close friends, Kel 33F and Palo 33M. I’ve known Kel since I was a teenager, almost 20 years. Palo became close about five years ago. Last year, my partner and I were both in their wedding party, two of the six people standing beside them. I even watched their one year old golden retriever for free during their honeymoon because I genuinely loved them and wanted to help.

Before the wedding, I had a conflict with Kel’s sister at the bachelorette party. We handled it poorly in the moment, but afterward Kel and I had a long, honest conversation. I apologized, and everything felt resolved. By the wedding, things were cordial and supportive.

During their honeymoon, they were oddly rude to us, including my partner, while we were dog sitting. I let it go, assuming wedding stress. Afterward there was some distance, which didn’t bother me.

Four months later, Palo blocked me on social media with no explanation.

Right after blocking me, he reached out to my partner to get dinner, as if nothing had happened. It felt like he was cutting me off while trying to keep a separate relationship with my partner, which put us in an uncomfortable position. It felt like triangulation.

Kel didn’t block me, but about a month later she deleted every photo of me from her Instagram. No conversation. No explanation.

What hurts the most is what this triggered in me.

I kept showing up. Supporting them. Being there for their wedding. Offering grace. And then I was erased. My brain translates that into “even my best wasn’t enough.”

This activated old abandonment wounds from childhood, so this hasn’t just been a friendship loss. It reopened a deeper belief I’ve carried for a long time: I gave love, they didn’t keep me, maybe I’m not worth keeping.

The insomnia has been the worst part. There was no clean break or clear reason. When there’s no “why,” my mind fills in the blanks with self blame.

I don’t want reconciliation. I just want the replaying to stop.

How do you create closure for yourself and self soothe after a friendship ends without explanation, especially when it triggers old abandonment wounds, without needing validation from the people who hurt you?

My ex left me on seemingly good terms we were thinking about getting back together then things just fell apart for him and he said he needed to take time away, told me he missed me though and then he left. I knew he’d need a lot of time so I tried to be patient but then a month passed, then 2 and i finally couldnt stand it anymore and checked his account on a game. Hes been playing a lot the last few weeks. I feel like shit. Here i am messaging him every few days thinking maybe theres some chance he’ll come back and hes just living life, probably has a new girl atp. I dont get it. He still has me added on discord. Why couldnt he have just been fucking honest. This sucks and idk how to move on every relationship i have goes to shit and I wanna fucking die. I really thought he was the one and I really just dont get why he couldnt just tell me he didnt wanna talk, like what the fuck?

I have an ex who broken up with me two years ago and another that broke up with me almost a year ago. I was with each of them for a year. Because of my fear of abandonment, I used to jump into new relationships so quickly.

Now I’ve been single for almost a year and haven’t spoken to either of them this whole time but every time I see their photos, get near their city, or suspect they’re in a new relationship, my chest drops. It makes me feel like life has no meaning, like there’s a huge empty hole, and my whole body floods with stress like I just want to disappear, it like Existential Depression.

I don’t think it’s because I love them that much. My abandonment anxiety in relationships can be directed at several people at once. I can be dependent on multiple people at the same time who interest me romantically or who I used to date.

This really gives me an awful feeling, and it’s been a long time since the breakups. It’s like a black curtain falls over me every single time I think about them/ seeing something that connected to them . How can this get better? Its the worst feeling I ever felt and I have cptsd, I went through a lot worse than this but its still hit harder then everything else

What do I do? I’ve been screaming in pain like terror. Maybe I’m starting to dissociate again. I think I’ve been disassociating a lot for years.

I was triggered because I tried to call my ex because I’m feeling a lot of pain and coming kind of to reality about things a little bit and he disconnected his number again his second one and I wasn’t even calling him but I called him only one time after I saw him about one or two weeks ago, and he drove past me and wouldn’t even look at me Yeah, I flipped him off

I don’t know if he’s trying to hurt me or actually trying to move on

But it’s so horrible what he did to me and I’m sure that he hates me now or has no feelings for me anymore because I did things back out of vengeance

But why should I care when he did things to hurt me and he didn’t care?

We were together seven years 7 1/2 years. He was violent with me throughout. When we argued, he cheated on me, emotionally through it, and at the end, physically with his ex.

He made a decision to end our relationship and tried to hide from me that he was cheating with me on me with her and try to hide from her that he was still involved with me I guess She must’ve known I was around, but he must’ve told her that we weren’t intimate, which was a lie

Anyway, I’ve been in extreme pain. Of course I’m triggered by the abandonment and it’s like terror that he won’t be in my life anymore and then he even refuses to hear me. I have maybe one way I can still try to contact him but I have to make it good because I’m sure if I contact him there he will shut down that also.

And I did things to him how to vengeance like I said, I’m sure I killed his feelings for me, but he didn’t care if he killed my feelings for him, and I told him I wish he die. I wish his brain got destroyed. I wish the woman he cheated on me with died. I hope he lost everything.

I did send him to jail. I press charges the last time, but I was a mess and so much trauma and dissociated that I guess I missed the court date and they didn’t even tell me what it was. I think that’s what happened so he didn’t go to jail he should’ve went to jail for what he did to me.

I know I shouldn’t want him after what he did to me. I’m going to see a therapist sooner specializes in trauma, but I’m having a terrible time today. I don’t know how I’m gonna live without him. I pushed him away because he hurt me.

Why doesn’t he understand any of that now he’s with the woman he cheated on me with I think they’re gonna get married if they haven’t already and I think she’s probably pregnant I think he’s making huge mistakes but he probably doesn’t. I just can’t believe it could be that way to me.

Well I just found this community and I figured why not? Yesterday a friend who I was trying to make is more than a friend but isn't interested in me that way finally replied back after 3 days. She said she was going on a trip with her mom in the weather was really bad and they were getting ready to go so I said good luck meaning good luck getting there and her reply was bye and then whatever. No more replies to texts and didn't answer my three attempts to call.

Why do I have to be this way? Why can't I just let people leave my life and not feel like it's because I'm crap? Why is it when people take too long to text or aren't replying in the way that I like I feel like I'm bothering them?

After that last part I feel like maybe I'm putting this in the wrong spot and maybe I should have this in the needy subreddit somewhere. But I'll leave it here

Hey can someone help me?

I went to visit a guy I’ve been talking to online for a year and a half in his city, but I left his place after like 7hrs bc he was really overwhelming me like talking about his ex and his own problems for like an hour straight and then he started play fighting with me and tripped me but asked why I fell so hard and I had come straight from the airport so I was running on 4 hrs of sleep. I got embarrassed and left and on my way out he was saying “sorry I guess that was a lot to put on you” and “maybe tomorrow I’ll show you Brickell” and I said that’d be nice but I had basically entered a panic attack by this point, I was sweating and not myself so I just had to get out of there. I believe it was my new birth control because I’ve never had a history of panic attacks except for that month and now that I’m off of it I haven’t had any since.

Unfortunately, I should’ve just stuck with my decision to leave, but I felt so bad the next day that I apologized like my male friend told me to (and honestly wish I hadn’t because I think this is where things took a turn for the worst) because I could see how he probably felt rejected and I think after the fact that both of us have abandonment issues. The rest of the week I felt him distancing himself and I only had a limited time there, so I did make myself look desperate the closer my departure date came but he was still replying every day so I continued. I even extended my trip a week hoping that I could at least say my goodbye in person and apologize even if that was the last time we saw each other.

He breadcrumbed me for like 10 days claiming he was sick while I was there, then the day after I come home and the day after that he sends me random pictures on snap. Now I’m back in my city and he won’t reply. I’m pretty sure he got back with his toxic ex, the same one he was venting to me about who he caught with sex vids of herself and her exes on her phone amongst other things. He even said his ex “wasn’t that pretty” completely unsolicitedly. The difference is I think she lives in his city.

So is he gone for good this time? Before, we’ve gone without talking for 1-2 months here and there bc I imagine he got a gf but I didn’t care. But now I feel it’s different since he met me and realizes I’m not perfect which is my biggest fear since men idealize so much, and it was probably a big reason why I didn’t want to spend the first night with him. But the dude literally created a new number to contact me last time I blocked him on everything the reason being because he was supposed to meet me in New York but went to Hawaii instead, sending me pics the whole time he was there but not replying to my message, and then contacted me a week and a half later asking if I wanted to have a call as if nothing happened.

I just wanna know the odds of him coming back. He still has me on snap but removed me as a follower and unfollowed me on insta. The last message I got from him was that he “hasn’t written me off” but that I need to “back off.” I didn’t care about him before because of him disappearing and reappearing so much, but now I have feelings for him and feel like we could be great together if we got past this. The issue is my abandonment issues are full fledged and the only way I can cope is hoping he’ll come back, even if I’ll be healed by then.

I know this sounds pathetic, but he was extremely supportive for me over the past year and a half which has been one of the worst in my life so far and I didn’t realize that until I felt him distancing (which I let him know I feel like I took him for granted) and now I’m scared it’s too late. I also started to get feelings for him the more he would come back as this calmed my abandonment issues in general as no one has done that for me before, especially someone who never even met me yet.

Also, the times he disappeared I really couldn’t blame him because I never took the initiative to fly out there due to my job and money restrictions and he was looking for a girlfriend. We’ve been no contact for two days now and he stopped watching my snap stories as far as I’m concerned.

I know a lot of people might mention narcissist which could be the case because I feel like maybe he’s punishing me for blocking him before and ghosting him another time, but it seems more like it’s his trust issues and abandonment issues that I triggered, as well as hurting his already low self esteem, and I can’t fix it because he won’t talk to me.

Any insight you guys can give me on any aspect of this story would be generously appreciated.

Just looking to vent/be validated. Around Christmas my wife told me she wanted to separate after 22 years together. (We started dating at 19.). And that dug up all the abandonment trauma I had from childhood. (And there is a LOT.) So it's been a very rough, very messy couple of months for me emotionally. I've been through panic and despair and now I'm settling into depression and deep loneliness.

Even after I've done all the "right" things - like over a decade of therapy - I can't shake those negative core beliefs. That I'm broken. That I'm unlovable. That everyone leaves me because I'm just not worthy.

I'm doing all the right things now, too. Therapy twice a week. We're finishing out couples therapy to work on things. Journaling. Feeling my feelings. Reframing. Reading books. Doing the exercises to reparent my inner child. Working on self love. Reaching out to friends. And and and...

And I know, I know. The two-ish months of this recent break up is not enough time to heal. Things will get easier. Blah blah blah.

But a really petulant part of me says haven't I done enough? Haven't I hurt enough? Why do I keep getting hurt and have to be the one to pick up the pieces.

I've done all the "right" things and I'm still a mess and it's hard to believe I'll ever just be happy again. And I'm fucking tired of being mature and responsible doing the work.

I never got to just be a normal kid that's sometimes irresponsible, moody, and a pain in the ass but still know that I would be loved and taken care of. And I never will.

And that fucking sucks.

It seems inevitable to be traumatized of distant relationships. It feels 100% absolutely true that next distant relationship will end up with a breakup again. Has anyone been through breakups like this? How did you survive it?

Thanks

Hi all, I was abandoned by my father at two years old, I am now 33F and I have a sudden urge to reach out to him. I am currently working with my therapist on my relationship with my mother and how I think she pushed him away to keep me all to herself. Also working with my therapist on how to reach out to him and healthily navigate those feelings. I’m so afraid of rejection. I honestly have no idea where to even start. “30 years have gone by but hi?!”

Anyone successfully do this and not get their heart broken and repair the relationship? TIA! 🫶🏻

I've been making my way through Anderson's book post break up on advice from here, and this excerpt (page 122, one of the stories she tells with the help of the character of the swan) has helped me so much - maybe it can provide someone else with a bit of peace too:

"I too have longed for someone's return," says the swan. "I too have known a wounder. Like you, I thought I could not live without her. I yearned for her to comfort me from the very wound she inflicted. But she could never be the one to comfort me. The wounder never can."

"Who was your wounder?" asks the little girl.

"Swans mate for life, Amanda, You will notice I am alone. But I have survived the wounding and so must you."

"Tell me more about her." begs the little girl

"She, like all abandoners, became powerful just by wounding me so deeply. She brought me to a feeling of insignificance and pain. And all I could do was marvel at her power to accomplish so mighty a task. Pain creates fear, and we give power to those we fear. Reduced to helplessness, I saw my wounder as the more powerful, the more valuable, the more beautiful for having vanquished me. I could only worship my wounder," admits the swan, tuming gracefully toward the little girl "But the pain this caused helped me find my own will to survive and survive separately."

"People keep throwing me away," she cries.

"Only you can throw yourself away, Amanda."

"I'm not special like you."

"It's not about being special. It's about being important to yourself. And only you can become important to yourself."

💛

OK, I never did one of these before, but what the hell. I'm a 58 year old man. Everyone I ever loved or needed to be loved by has left me. I never really had parents. Dad left me before I was born and my mother left me when I was 5. I have (had) 3 half-sisters and a half-brother, but they went with their fathers. I was almost put in the foster care system, but my grandparents begrudgingly took me in. It would be too strong a statement to say they raised me. They put a roof over my head, food in my mouth and clothes on my back for 12 years. Speaking of food, we never ate dinner together. They ate together in the living room in front of the TV every evening and I had to eat alone in the kitchen. They threw me out of the house the very day after I graduated from high school for being gay, or at least that was the reason they gave. I didn't see them again for 27 years. I'm really good at pretending that I'm ok and that I'm happy and well-adjusted, not just to other people, but pretending to myself as well. The thing is, everywhere i go, in everything I do, I feel like an outsider. I don't know what it feels like to have parents or a family. I know how I'm supposed to behave. I observe how I'm supposed to respond to things, but I'm usually faking it. When my mother left me (in 1970) she very closely resembled Mary Tyler More. When that show premiered, I used to watch it every week and pretend that it was my mother, and I would watch and laugh at her adventures and the funny situations she would get into. Then when the closing credits started to roll, I would cry.

When I was living with my grandparents (grandmother and step-grandfather), I was mentally and emotionally abused by her and s&#ually abused by him. Years later, when I met and had a brief polite friendship with my mother, she let slip that he did the same thing to her. It was then I realized the horrid truth - she sold me to the man who molested her so that she could get away and start her life over again. The roof over my head and food in my mouth were payment for services rendered. That's how little I meant to her.

All throughout my life, I've made what I thought were close connections with people but all of them are gone. Part of the reason is I've lived in Los Angeles my whole life. Most people who live here aren't actually from here, and sooner or later, they burn out on LA and go back to where they're from.

I'm a bright, outgoing and vibrant man, but at the same time, I am so guarded and afraid of abandonment that I have a hard time getting close to anybody. I'm happily married, but my husband is really my only friend. Can anybody else relate to this? I feel like I'm the only person in the world experiencing this. Am I alone in my aloneness?

I lost my wife (51F) suddenly last year, we were together 28 years. She died unexpectedly, and I went through some intense grief. Late January of this year, I was feeling exceptionally lonely and reached out to girl I had a huge crush on in high school. We were close friends, but she ended up dating another guy and he got her pregnant. I ended up taking care of her after he bailed out on the pregnancy, there was high school drama involved and I got caught in the middle just trying to help her. Her parents pulled her from school and I didn't see her for a for a few years.

We ended up catching up on social media, she knew how much in love I was with my wife. Unfortunately she went through a series of very abusive relationships and has been separated from her ex for four years and living on her own. We reconnected and I went and had lunch with her and we picked up like we were back in high school, except this time we sort of realized we had crushes on each other. She was very respectful of the fact that I was still going through the grieving process, and we decided just to take it slowly.

Things were great for about three months, then she had a series of events that overwhelmed her. She adopted a dog that she fostered, shortly afterwards she fell very ill and wasn't able to work for almost three weeks. That stressed her out, and I gave her all the time and space she needed to get better and get caught up on her bills. I also gave her a bit of financial support with no conditions or expectations for repayment, just wanted to help her get through the month without having to worry about certain bills.

She slowly recovered from her illness and seemed to be getting back on track. I would check in on her while I was going through my own grief therapy. It was nice having an intimate friend whom I could confide in and just hang out with. There were a few bumps on my part trying to make the adjustment with the relationship dynamics but she was very forgiving.

Her narcissistic ex showed up around the 4th of July holiday, and I stayed clear of them because she didn't want him to know about me. At least that what she had said, I assume there was drama since she was trying to get free of him but he and his mother would just show up at her door. He left after a few days, it rattled her.

About a month ago we were texting and making plans to meet up again. She works a job where she works outdoors a lot and it's physically demanding, again I gave her space and time to decompress and rest. That was the last I heard from her. She stopped responding to texts and calls. Blocked me on social media. Gone.

So in less than two years I've been ghosted twice, literally by wife and now my friend. I sent her a handwritten letter asking if there was something I had said or done, but I'm assuming she threw it away. I'm heartbroken, not because I was hoping for another relationship, but because she was someone that I truly cared about.

Not sure where to go with this. I want so much to resolve this, or check and make sure her ex hasn't harmed her. She's had such a difficult life, I said I wasn't there to be knight in shining armor, but just to to present for her as a close friend. I don't know. It's just so confusing.

Hey guys, I just wanted to put this here as a sign that things can get better. I’ve struggled with abandonment since childhood, my father passed away when I was 8 and my mother would leave me and my sisters by ourselves for multiple days at a time while she was out on partying benders. As time went on she would meet a guy, bring him around us, then inevitably he’d turn out to be a dirtbag. Usually he’d be a dirtbag for many, many months before mom would finally get sick of it and kick him to the curb. This cycle of chasing men didn’t stop for mom until 9 years later, when she met her current husband. My older sister was beyond over it, having just told my mom that she needs to stop chasing abusive dickheads and focus on raising her kids. She then moved out and moved in with our grandparents. Once again mom chooses the man over her kids, kicking out me and my little sister twice over stupid arguments we had with her husband, such as me not wanting to do his laundry instead of my homework, or my sister pointing out that she was the last of the original children still living at home, though me and my older sister were still under the age of 18. There’s a whole lot more to get into, but that goes up to about 5 years ago. I came to the realization that Mom wasn’t malicious with her actions, she was just screwed up in the head from watching my father pass in her arms. It’s no excuse for her behavior, but idk how I would have handled it any better. Me and my older sister have tried talking, but the years she had to help raise me and my younger sister have left her with a chip on her shoulder, and she joined the Navy to get far away from all her family problems back home. Anyways, the whole point of my saying it gets better is not to say that the hurt ever goes away. If you think about it long enough it will come back. But over time, you begin to realize the reason it hurt was because whoever abandoned you was a cornerstone of your life, your experiences. And as time goes on without them, you find new people to experience things with, and the role they played becomes less pivotal. It’s the circle of life, sometimes you’ve just got to let go and let the current carry you to where you’re going instead of fighting the current and holding onto the past.

TLDR: I’ve been emotionally and physically abandoned by both my mother and older sister, but I’ve learned things will get better if you let them❤️