BPD: Fear Of Abandonment

Hi everyone! Today I’m going to start talking more in depth about the symptoms of borderline personality disorder and how each one has affected me specifically. Today we will be talking about efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. 

This is one of the core criteria of Borderline Personality Disorder. When someone tells us that they’re leaving for an extended period of time, it can cause us to be very anxious. Things such as break ups are especially difficult for people with BPD. Even short term things like going away on trips for an extended period of time are difficult. Even as short term as canceling plans makes us feel anxious. We also get anxious over imagined abandonment. This means that if someone says something that causes us to think that they’re leaving, but they don’t outright say that they’re leaving, we overthink about what they said and assume that they mean that they’re leaving us and it causes anxiety. 

Our fear of abandonment, whether it’s real or imagined, causes us to think that it’s something about us that’s making the person leave. Whether it’s something to do with our personality or something to do with our tendency to be very clingy. Even if someone confirms that it has nothing to do with us,  we can’t help but think that we had something to do with them leaving. Sometimes we think that there are external forces, such as another person, causing them to leave us, which causes us to feel that we have no control over the situation. Whenever we feel a loss of control is when we engage in dangerous, impulsive behaviors to gain control again. 

I will give two examples from my life, one involving canceled plans and another involving imagined abandonment. 

This was very recent, probably a month or two ago. I had plans with my best friend to hang out and go out to lunch. The morning of our plans, he told me that he had to pick up his brother, so he was unable to hang out with me that day. Even though he had a legitimate reason, I began to have some negative thoughts and anxiety in my head. Questions like, “Why am I not good enough to hang out with you?” “What’s wrong with me?” etc. I didn’t spiral into a panic attack, but I went ahead and found some healthy distractions to get my mind off of it. 

This other example involves imagined abandonment which turned into real abandonment. 

About a year and a half ago, I had been dating this guy for about two months. All of a sudden, he stopped messaging me. Even when I asked him some questions, he would read my texts but not answer them. So obviously, I started getting anxious. The fact that he wasn’t saying anything was causing me to think that he wanted to break up with me. And I kept messaging him and telling him that my anxiety was overwhelming me and the fact that he wasn’t answering me was fueling that fire. I told him that I just wanted to know what was going on and what I could do for him, if he needed space, I would give him space, I just wanted him to communicate with me. Still nothing. 

One day when I was working, he came in with another girl that we worked with. We worked at the same place, by the way. They were just hanging out. But of course, my mind began to race. “Why won’t he hang out with me?” “Am I not good enough for him?” “Is he leaving me for her?” “Is he cheating on me?” “Why won’t he talk to me?” My mind raced like crazy. After they left, I could not get myself out of this panic attack. I ended up throwing up from the anxiety and I ended up going home early because I could not get myself out of it. 

In the end, I confronted him at work a few days later. He refused to answer me because he was working. He got really mad at me and broke up with me over Facebook. So imagined abandonment ended up turning into real abandonment. And of course, I beat myself up about it for months before I finally moved on from it.

So that is basically what having a fear of abandonment is like. Of course, it’s different for everyone, but this is my experience with that. I hope this was informative, and like I said, if you think that you have a mental illness, please seek help. It’s the best thing that you can do for yourself.