Healing from the trauma of parental abandonment

Living with the ghost of a father who was once there, but left you and abandoned you is a traumatic experience. With shame and guilt, many boys and girls believe abandonment is their fault. Because they did not measure up, because they failed or because they do not deserve to be loved, victims of abandonment become adults who are likely to develop symptoms of depression, anxiety and low self-esteem which, if left unchecked, persist throughout life. Detecting the consequences of abandonment is not always easy. Although it is a long and painful process that involves re-inhabiting situations of abandonment, it can help heal, experts say.

Paz (36) remembers the first time she felt truly abandoned by her father. The day he experienced one of the most traumatic situations of his life, he was nine years old and in the care of Charlie, his biological father. “He took me to some of his friends and then went for a drink with them. He left me at the house where they were initially with a friend I had made from that family. That night, this boyfriend’s uncle abused me. Charlie had to come back from the reel to get me. When we arrived at my grandmother’s house, it was very clear: I couldn’t say anything to my mother. I remember that night after experiencing the abuse, I was lying on the bed and while my father slept, I cried next to him. There, I felt a first breakup because I really felt abandoned. “I was left alone in a house, they took me away, they mistreated me and after that I no longer felt their protection.” account.

There American Psychological Society defines abandonment – ​​or neglect – of a child as “the denial of attention, care or affection considered essential to the normal development of a child’s physical, emotional and intellectual qualities, usually due to indifference, disregard or deterioration of the child’s guardians “. Negligence is the way most common abuse which happens in most cases when the child is 7 years old or younger.

In Chile, we can count the abandonments. According to the latest figures from the National Register of Maintenance Debtors, there are more than 147,000 defaulters, 96% of whom are men. Parents who, in addition to having abandoned their children emotionally, being present and available during their education, have abandoned them economically. And this, says Guila Sosman, academic specialist in traumatology at Diego Portales University and director of the Acompañar Psychotherapy Center (@psicoterapia.accompany ), is doubly violent.

“Physically or emotionally, we often see abandonment reflected in parents who, although they are physically with their children, do not have the emotional availability to raise them. The most serious is that this type of violence by omission or neglect causes numerous effects on children, which then they enter adult life if the wound is still open. Because there is a lot of guilt and shame, abandonment is often associated with anxiety disorders, depression, low self-esteem, and distrust. “, explains Sosman.

According to them, the younger children are at the time of abuse, the more likely they are to develop symptoms of anxiety and depression. research . When there is emotional abandonment, says the traumatologist, These symptoms become part of the personality of boys and girls who do not feel loved or worthy of the affection of the adults in their care. “It has an impact on their self-esteem and the vision they have of themselves and if at that time there is no repair, a personality is formed with all these problems,” says -he.

Before Paz was abused, her relationship with her father was already disappointing. “Since my parents separated when I was 7, the interactions I had with Charlie, my biological father, were quite limited. On weekends, when it was his turn to visit me, he always left me standing, he didn’t come pick me up. He was a person who made me very uncomfortable. I was very disoriented, I spoke loudly, I drank on the bus, on the bus and I put myself in dangerous situations. He was irresponsible towards fatherhood. He wasn’t interested in me and it made me feel worthless and inadequate, like I didn’t deserve his love. “, says Paz.

After the weekend abuse and walks alone with her father ended, as did regular contact with him. “When I was 18, he suddenly appeared one summer, we saw each other a lot, we tried to talk, go for walks together and while I was fighting with all the anger I felt for him, I forgave him in hopes of having a dad again, but summer passed, March came and he disappeared again. abandoned me again “, says. After years of therapy, Paz was able to give new meaning to the abuse she had suffered. “I realized how much the abuse had affected my life. I was able to see how much the thinking that I’m not worth enough or that I have to behave a certain way to be loved permeated my romantic and friendly relationships,” she says.

The magnitude of the effects that parental abandonment can have on children depends on several protective factors, such as other family networks, the quality of care provided by their primary caregiver, their personality, their environment and their resources, explains Sosman . “The abandonment of one of the caregivers undoubtedly impacts their self-esteem and the rejection that the child feels towards himself. And very often, children think that their father’s abandonment is their fault. They think they did or didn’t do something that caused their father to abandon them or stop loving them. », assures the psychologist.

The most complicated thing is when these negative thoughts and emotions are internalized and permeate your personality. “After They are people who are more suspicious, who live with resentment or who perceive themselves in a negative way. “They have difficulty regulating their emotions and impulses, they have difficulty in interpersonal relationships because in general they are unstable relationships, which in the long term can generate adjustment disorders, post-traumatic stress or depression. depression,” says Sosman.

On his path to recovery, Paz tried to see him as an adult, with his lights and shadows. “The work has been very conscious and loving towards myself. With compassion, I managed to feel relief in understanding that I am not guilty, that I should have been cared for and loved, that I am worthy of someone to fight for me. . I felt compassion for this girl that I bring with me every day because with each progress I manage to heal her, to take care of her. The way I found to be able to continue without it taking me to the bottom is to constantly verbalize it, to talk about this non-relationship and to understand that these vulnerabilities, this guilt, these feelings of abandonment and of inadequacy have everything to do with him. Even though I don’t forgive him for what he did, I am able to see that the human who abandoned me was a very hurt and broken human from childhood. “I didn’t go back to justify it, but to understand it and be able to get rid of the feeling that it was me who was wrong, that it was my fault that they abandoned me “, he said. Paz.

To begin to heal, it is very important to be able to elaborate and redefine this parental abandonment, explains traumatologist Guila Sosman. “It is a question of reconstructing, from reconciliation with the father figure, all the ideas and relational patterns that the person constructed from abandonment. This involves understanding its history. Cyrulnik, the author who talks about resilience, says that our story is not destiny. Just because someone has a history of parental abandonment does not mean they are destined to live with the negative effects of that abandonment. You can rework what abandonment meant in your life and understand what effects it had. Beginning the path to healing involves opening the wound of trauma and revisiting it with all the compassion and patience it requires. Although it can be a painful process, it can help us finally heal,” concludes Sosman.

Although contact between Paz and his biological father is almost non-existent, he reappears from time to time via a chat with a “Hello daughter, how are you?” I love you very much, I hope everything is going well. When Paz answers him, she disappears and he no longer answers.