Getting over my Mental Illness

Understanding: Abandonment issues

Way back when I went to therapy, I told my therapist about my life as well as my childhood. After some back and forth discussion she told me that I had abandonment issues which I wrote off because it didn't make sense to me.

How is it possible to feel abandoned by someone you don't even know?

But the more I thought about it, it slowly started to make sense. Your mother is a very important figure in your life, so my mom not being a part of the first 6 years of my life impacted me significantly without me realizing it.

After I took notice, I did more research on abandonment issues, what causes them, common symptoms of those suffering from this anxiety disorder and ways to heal from it.

The first step was to understand where it came from. There were a few factors that impacted me growing up. I think the biggest impact was that I never had a mother until I was 6. 3 months after my mom gave  birth to me, she moved from the Philippines to Canada since that was part of her life plan, to move to Canada and live with family there as she studied there. I was never part of that plan and was an accident so the moment I came out into the world, my mom left. She visited a few times throughout those 6 years, not a lot though since flights to the Philippines were expensive.

Growing up I didnt even know I had a mom, my dad would force me to speak with her over Skype from time to time but I didnt even know who I was talking to. I grew up living with my dad's side of the family, my grandparents, aunt, uncle and I also had a caretaker who was with me almost everyday. My dad's side of the family were very close with one another as well so I was always seeing my great aunts almost every weekend. I also had alot of friends as well so my life growing up in the Philippines was great. I was happy and a little bit spoiled as well since I was the first grandchild and my grandparents were quite wealthy because they were still working.

Then I was forced to move to canada when I was 6. My mom was able to bring me and my dad to canada. When we were at the airport, I didnt realize that this was going to be the last time I saw my family for a long time. I assumed that this was a vacation and I was pretty excited.

From what I remember it was hard adjusting at first, I had trouble sleeping at night because of the time difference and there were so many drastic changes to my lifestyle that I went through a culture shock.

I also met a few other family members that were also living in canada but I rarely saw them so I would often forget who they were.

The amount of family I had surrounding me significantly dropped down to just my mom and my dad. It was weird because I was so used to being surrounded with more people so I felt pretty lonely. The only person I played with was myself or when my dad would play videogames with me.

When i started school, i was welcomed and had no trouble making friends but for some odd reason even as a child I was quite controlling and hung out with one person I called my best friend and I never let anyone talk to her or try to take her away from me.

Looking back at it I remembered that back in the Philippines when I went to school I had these girls that would always bully me, which I didnt care about because I knew my family was richer than theirs but my best friend at the time never really acted like a friend at all, one day she'll act like my friend then the next she would be friends with the ones that were bullying me and even joining in, so already from a young age I had developed trust issues that were never addressed.

I genuinely feel bad for how controlling I was of my first friend here in canada, I should've been a better friend for her but at the same time I also didnt know better back then.

My mom had a different childhood than my dad, she had stricter parents. Her expectations for me were a lot different from my dad, she was very strict on me as well, getting angry at all the little things which never made sense to me.

I remember coming home from school one day with cuts on my hand because I fell and when my mom saw it she started yelling at me for no reason, it made me upset because I didnt understand what I did wrong. I fell down, it happens to everyone.

There were so many little things throughout my childhood that she would yell or get angry about that I harbored very strong resentment towards her. I blamed her for a lot of my anger like taking me away from my, what I called "real" family.

On one occasion I was so upset with her that I threatened to kill myself and I often thought about runing away from home.

Eventually, the older I got the more I pushed her away, so i never really had a "mother".

Those were some examples from my past that explains the stem of my abandonment issues, of course as I grew up I went through other experiences like losing trust in friends or losing important people in my life.

Now that I am aware of it, I plan on learning more and discovering ways to help me overcome this anxiety disorder.