(Tw)Is it more than just loneliness?

[Oz]

 In Pete Walkers Surviving to thriving page. 249 he says the abandonment depression is the bottom layer healing obstacle, does anybody have experience of this or know how it shows itself?
He says it's covered over by fear and shame both of which I have being trying my best to process, I am now in utter isolation with nobody and nothing. The isolation itself is constantly triggering deep despair and hopelessness, a feeling of being defeated with nowhere left to go and every day is so difficult. Is that abandonment depression?
Am I labelling abandonment depression as loneliness?
It's so confusing because if it's just that I've been isolating for too long I should try to get out there and do something about being so alone but if it's abandonment depression then surely it's something I should be sitting with and trying to integrate.
Trauma is such chaos.

[CrackedIce]

I think everyone experiences this a bit differently.  I have certainly had bouts of loneliness, often as a reaction to an emotional flashback or another trigger or the end of a shame spiral.  I could be in a crowded room of friends and family and feel utterly alone and misunderstood.  I don't know if the loneliness itself is one of the 'layers of dissociation' as Pete puts it in the book, or a core symptom of the abandonment itself, and it might be different for each of us.

I think if you want to spend some time with it it'll be good regardless - if you can try to dive into the feeling and discern where it's coming from, you may either identify that yes, it is the result of a chain reaction of shame / guilt / 4F response / etc. and you can explore that as far as you're willing to go.  Or, if there doesn't feel like there's anything behind it, maybe it's a good chance to grieve the abandonment loss?  Emote it out, in whatever way works for you, and see if it lifts the weight off your mind even a little bit.

Once I'm out of that mood I try to take time to list positive things that may counter the bad feelings in the future.  A list of good things that happened today, a list of people you can talk to (including us!) when needed, a list of things you're looking forward to (maybe a new tv series starting/restarting, a fancy meal, a particular activity).  I like writing those things down, just because it makes it easier for me to recall later, if the feeling does come back up and I'm able to catch it in time, thinking about that list can help.

Hoping some part of that helps, and you're able to get past this bump on the road

[milkandhoney11]

Oz,
I am so so sorry to hear how much you are struggling with your loneliness and isolation. It breaks my heart to hear this as I know all to well how much suffering this brings. I have felt lonely all my life but since losing my job this has only got worse as I am now sometimes spending several days in a row without speaking to anyone at all and it just feels so terrible, as if the whole world had abandoned me.
So, the first thing I want to say is that I am always here if you need someone. I understand what this despair and hopelessness feels like and I would never want to have anyone go through this alone.
I've also often wondered about this "abandonment depression" as I felt that the description in Walker's book wasn't really that clear or at least I was always puzzled when a feeling counts as abandonment depression and when it is just "normal loneliness".
I've since done a little bit of other reading on this topic and I think that it really is just a matter of degree. Abandonment depression includes a lot of the feelings we normally associate with loneliness and isolation but it is so strong that we start feeling hopeless and fear that we will never find any relief.
I've found this quote that I thought was quite good:

In the throes of abandonment depression, a person will feel that part of his very self is
lost or cut off from the supplies necessary to sustain life. Many patients describe this in
graphic physical terms, such as losing an arm or leg, being deprived of oxygen, or being
drained of blood.

So, from what you have described it might well be that you are experiencing abandonment depression, after all you have mentioned feeling deep hopelessness and defeated with nowhere left to go.
It seems like a difficult feeling to sit with and to try to integrate (I am trying to do the same but find that I am really struggling to accept all this despair as part of my experience) but I hope you can find a way to do so, maybe with the help of a therapist etc.
On the other hand, I also think that this doesn't have to step you from getting out there and making connections of that is something you want to do and feel ready for. Of course, it is important to address these feelings and to heal them but if you are really longing for connections than you can honour that, too. Us people with Complex PTSD tend to see everything in black and white but I guess it doesn't have to be either or. And if you want to care for yourself by finding ways to end your loneliness then this sounds like a very nice plan. After all, healing is relational and finding people to support you might make the trauma a little bit more bearable

[Papa Coco]

Hi Oz.

I resonate with MilkandHoney and CrackedIce, in that a feeling of abandonment is a common thread in those of us with C-PTSD. It seems pretty common that we were abandoned, emotionally, physically or mentally when we were small children. And today we each have a laundry list of symptoms that stem from feeling alone or "not as good as" everyone else on earth.  Experts say that the best thing we can do is try to really feel that abandonment and then ask ourselves when it began.

After many hours of self examination, I've come to learn that for me, it began very young, when I was in a family who only loved me when I was a "good boy" and who ignored me (as a punishment) when I was a "creative" or "self-expressive" naughty little problem for them.  In other words, they drilled it into my head that I was bad if I was myself. I was good if I was their servant. They literally taught me to join them in their opinion that I needed to abandon my true self so I could be their family pet instead.

That's the root of the loneliness I feel today. I am terrified of exposing who I really am to myself or others, because I was taught that my self needed to be ignored. I think this was what had driven 50 years of Naked-in-public dreams. Exposing myself for being myself was forbidden. For most of my life I couldn't look in a mirror or at a photo of myself unless I was alone. Mirrors in the shopping malls showed me someone I hated, and I couldn't be seen looking at him in public places.  This is why I believe Walker is saying that the fear of abandonment is the foundation that many of our secondary behaviors are built upon.

I work with my therapist a lot with my abandonment issues, which, like with MilkandHoney, I often call it deep, deep loneliness. He helps me to find that little child, still living inside myself. Then he helps me talk with him. Ask him what he needs. Envision myself and my caring therapist sitting with him, hugging him, telling him that being expressive and creative are not bad things. Telling him that I AM THE ADULT now and I'm NOT abandoning him or ignoring him for being self-expressive or creative.

It's a slow healing process. My therapist and I have gone into these quiet moments of finding that lonely child several times, but, I like to think that my healing is measured by the year, not the day. So I often look back and say "WOW! I am a lot quicker to come out of my lonely spirals today than I was 10 years ago."

I still have moments, or even days at a time, when I feel that loneliness darkening me again, but at the same time, I'm getting good practice and improving my ability to find that child and feel the most amazing love for him. 

Back a few years ago when I was still not good at locating and connecting with my inner lost boy, or when I was between therapy sessions and was struggling to find my inner child, it used to really help for me to watch movies that mirrored my feelings of loneliness and abandonment. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Cure, and Simon Birch could empathetically connect their pain to my own. That helped me to start bawling alone in my living room, which proved to myself I was ready to talk to my own lost little boy. From there, I could take that emotion and start talking to my little guy, hugging him.

Remember this; a 3 or 6 or 9 year old living inside us doesn't need to be taught. He just needs to be comforted. Loved. Held. Validated as real and lovable. Just like with a real 3-year-old, you don't have to coach him...just hold him and prove you are connected to him. I often just repeat over and over, "I've got you. I've got you. I've got you."

That reminds me of another emotionally good ending of another great movie where the father does this with the son, Super 8. So heartwarming. So needed between me and my inner lonely, lost, frightened, emotionally abandoned adolescent.

If you don't have a therapist, there are some good articles on the web that teach techniques for "How to heal abandonment issues" or "how to heal loneliness." 

I can't express enough though to take it slow and be grateful for small steps.  We are not going to heal quickly. We strive for progress, even an inch at a time, not for perfection. I was recently guided by one of our friends on the forum, to give myself permission to heal from my current emotional struggle in small steps. She reminded me that any time I try too hard, I blow myself out of the water altogether.

I believe there are only two forces in the universe: Love and fear. Fear is what drives our loneliness, our anger, our confusion, etc. Love, if we can focus on finding it for ourselves, gives us peace, connection, patience.

I don't say this is easy, but it's a good way to start inching slowly toward healing. At this point in my life, I'll take an inch. Any healing is some healing. I can get another inch tomorrow, or next month. Before I know it I'll have a mile behind me.

[rainydiary]

I found Pete Walker's book so helpful and yet also get lost in all the terminology he uses.

My experience with the book is that different parts stood out and resonated more at different times.  At one point that phrase abandonment depression made sense and now I feel like it has slipped through my hands.

For me all those words are often entry into understanding myself better and I don't hang on to them as much.  I find ways to describe my experience the best I can. 

It is all overwhelming and comes and goes. 

[dollyvee]

Hi Oz,

Thanks for putting this question out there and to everyone else for their replies as I think it helps me identify something which I have been experiencing recently.

Like Papa Coco, I also grew up in a narcissistic family and there were conditions placed on how I should act. So, I was abandoned/rejected/crriticized/ ridiculed etc for "stepping out of lines," whatever those were as they were often arbitrary. I took it all in as something to do with me, something was wrong with me. Now, when I'm showing up in the first part of a relationship or friendship, and I am just trying to put myself out and maybe perceive something as a rejection, I am hit with a wave of feeling which I think is abandonment depression though I can see how the fear and shame are mixed in with it. I'm recognizing that it's not from this situation but is past stuff. It's showed up in the past and has made me "cut and run." Right now, I'm trying to "feel" this stuff and recognizing that it's a lot of pain from that time when I had to just take everything in like this black hole of pain - what my mom and sf said about me, what I did that was wrong became I am wrong (the shame). The fear is there as well in that I am expecting/fearful that these thing will happen again, and what it means about me as a person (scared I've done something wrong). These "rejections" bring all that stuff right back up.

I don't know if it's helpful for you, but I read this about abandonment in relationships and even though it's quite light thought it summed up some of my issues pretty well. I'm starting to recognize that I think feeling this abandonment depression leading to me self-sabotaging relationships, and that it's not just how things are. Not that it shouldn't be felt as I think that's one of the ways through it, but recognizing when it's coming up/what exactly it is.

https://www.therapyinbeverlyhills.com/7-tips-for-dating-someone-with-abandonment-issues/

Sending you support,
dolly

[Oz]

 I'm so overwhelmed by such authentic, insightful and caring responses it's been a lot to process and made me ponder deeply on this.
How it seems to me is that this abandonment depression is not something in and of itself its more like a mixture (melange as Pete calls it) of all the unresolved "stuff" coming calling, being intensified by my prolonged isolation. Being abandoned by my family created all the fear, shame, loneliness etc. I think being so isolated is akin to that abandonment and therefore brings with it all those feelings/states.
For me it seems to be when hope leaves and I'm just existing, it's like death, I feel that's pretty much bottom of the barrel stuff for me.
I agree that patience and inner child work is key when I'm in this state and just any kind of self nurturing.
Wishing you all the very best.

[Papa Coco]

Oz

I isolate too. I am compelled to. But then that worsens the loneliness.

Why do I isolate? I guess I just feel unwelcome in the world and being alone is where I'm not bothering anyone, and no one is judging or rejecting me.  Also, we are set on a path, and loneliness is the path we stay on. You throw a football and it continues on the path you throw it on until it stops. Isolating is the devil that I know. So, even though it's not good for me. It allows me to stay comfortable in my discomfort. I call it being uncomfortably comfortable in my own shoes.

Sometimes I don't feel dead, but I feel like I'm done living and now I'm patiently waiting to die.

But then someone or something pulls me out of the house, and I start to feel like I'm not quite done living yet. For a while anyway.