How to Heal from Abandonment Issues: 7 Steps That Work

Have you been overwhelmed with the fear of being left behind? Do you feel rejected or emotionally discarded when someone (partner, friend, or family member) steps away from you? Does it feel worse when you’ve done nothing wrong?

If you have, you’re not alone.

That’s because, like many people, you’re struggling with abandonment issues.

While they often form in childhood, abandonment wounds can cause lifelong suffering, crippling anxiety, and harmful patterns that destroy all types of relationships.

They can show up unexpectedly in any relationship, whether it's a sudden urge to pull away or a panicked need for reassurance, creating confusion and chaos.

But these responses are not a flaw in you. It’s a pattern. And patterns can be healed.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to:

• Understand What Abandonment Issues Are
• Explore the Root Causes
• Recognize the Signs in Adults
• Start the Healing Process
• Support a Loved One With Abandonment Fears
• Get Actionable Tools to Take the Next Step

What are Abandonment Issues?

Abandonment issues refer to people experiencing intense fear, anxiety, and stress of losing a loved one, being rejected, and being isolated when someone — especially by those you care about most — leaves you.

If you often feel anxious when someone pulls away, worry that a relationship might end without reason, or find yourself constantly seeking reassurance, you may be struggling with abandonment wounds.

These abandonment fears begin in childhood due to inconsistent or harmful relationships with your parents or caregivers (or other people). They stay with you for years, creating your attachment style, shaping how you connect with others in relationships, and impacting your sense of safety and self-worth.

When left unaddressed, these abandonment issues can lead to you taking on the following responses: clinginess, emotional shutdowns, fear of intimacy, over-dependence on others, people-pleasing to avoid conflict, or difficulty trusting others.

You might recognize many of these signs because they are typically connected to your attachment style: your subconscious blueprint for how you expect to communicate with others, believe in love, and view yourself.

Abandonment Issues & Attachment Styles

There are four attachment styles — Anxious Preoccupied, Dismissive and Fearful Avoidants, and Secure.

The first three are considered “insecure” because the person exhibits insecurities about themselves and their relationships, while the latter is when the person is the opposite: they are secure about themselves and their relationships.

Why is this important to know?

Because abandonment wounds are linked to insecure attachment styles, particularly anxious preoccupied individuals or fearful avoidants.

When your emotional needs aren’t consistently met early in life, your brain may have learned that connection is unsafe or unreliable. This creates patterns of hypervigilance, self-doubt, and emotional overcompensation in your adult relationships.

Want to Learn More About Attachment Styles?
Read our in-depth guide about all four attachment styles: Anxious Preoccupied, Dismissive Avoidant, Fearful Avoidant, and Securely Attached.

What Causes Abandonment Issues?

There is no “one cause” of abandonment issues. They are rooted in childhood and can stem from various scenarios and experiences.

Any one of these causes — or a combination of them — can lead to the creation of abandonment wounds.

Abuse or Neglect

If you experienced abuse (emotional, physical, or sexual) or neglect from your parents, caregivers, or other individuals, you would have a more difficult time forming attachments when you’re older, leading to the fear you’ll be abandoned.

The same applies to being emotionally neglected. Parents or caregivers who were physically present but emotionally unavailable may have taught you that your needs would be ignored or dismissed.

Traumatic Events

Witnessing someone dying or experiencing a traumatic event (like illness) is a traumatic event that affects anyone, especially if you’re a child. Death can form the idea that you’ll be abandoned, leading you to fear anytime someone “leaves you”. The fear of abandonment can be incredibly intense if the death is sudden.

Divorce or Separation

We all know divorce or separation can ripple through a person’s life. Not having a strong family unit or parent can lead to you believing that abandonment is “normal” and that it might have something to do with you.

For example, you might have been told it wasn’t your fault, but you still felt like you weren’t enough to make them stay.

Unmet Emotional Needs

While we have basic needs — food, sleep, and shelter — we also have emotional needs, such as love, support, kindness, and affection. When the emotional needs of your childhood weren’t met, you develop the belief that connection is unsafe, unreliable, or must be “earned”.

This snowballs into a situation where you become wary of being abandoned or betrayed in relationships. So any action by a partner, friend, or family member where they “leave” you triggers your patterns of hypervigilance, self-doubt, or emotional overcompensation.

Regardless of the cause of your abandonment issues, the longer these wounds go unaddressed, the more you’ll experience and keep repeating these patterns.

That’s why understanding the root cause of your abandonment issues can help you navigate a healthy path forward and remove the deeply destructive behaviors of these issues.

How Abandonment Issues Show Up in Adult Relationships

Many adults don’t realize their relationship struggles are actually rooted in abandonment wounds, which, in turn, develop their attachment styles. Understanding how they manifest in adulthood is the first step toward healing.

Below, we explore how abandonment shows up based on your attachment style.

Attachment Style	Common Abandonment Behaviors & Emotional Patterns
Anxious Preoccupied	- Constant fear of being left or replaced - Overanalyzing texts, tone, and time delays - Needing ongoing reassurance - Feeling unworthy or “too much”
Dismissive Avoidant	- Pulling away when someone gets too close - Preferring independence over connection - Downplaying needs or emotions - Ending relationships to avoid vulnerability
Fearful Avoidant	Craving closeness, but fearing rejection - Swinging between clinginess and distance - Difficulty trusting - Feeling unsafe expressing needs
Securely Attached	- Comfortable with intimacy and independence, but might struggle with insecure people - Trusting and able to express needs openly - Able to manage conflict constructively

Remember that these patterns aren’t character flaws; they’re learned survival responses.

The good news is that with awareness and support, they can be managed (when you feel triggered) and healed.

In the next section, let’s explore how you can rebuild trust and heal your abandonment issues.

5 Steps to Rebuild Trust and Get Over Abandonment Issues

Healing from abandonment wounds doesn’t happen overnight. It requires patience, self-compassion, and new tools.

The steps below are designed to help you feel safe, supported, and more emotionally secure.

Step 1. Identify Your Attachment Style

Your attachment style dictates how you approach love and relationships and cope with issues. It’s also the foundation for how you handle abandonment wounds.

So, it’s integral that you identify yours so you can gain insight into your fears and move toward a secure attachment style that allows you to handle all issues with confidence.

Here’s what you can expect when you start addressing your abandonment and what healing might look like:

• Anxious Preoccupied — Builds self-trust and self-esteem
• Fearful Avoidant — Stops the push-pull cycle of committing then withdrawing
• Dismissive Avoidant — Opens to vulnerability in a relationship.

Interested in Knowing Your Attachment Style?
Take our 5-minute quiz. You'll get a personalized report detailing your style and everything you need to do.

Step 2: Practice Self-Soothing

When abandonment wounds are triggered, your nervous system goes into survival mode. This is where you might spiral, with various emotions and unhelpful mindsets that make the experience even worse.

Self-soothing helps calm these responses so you can make more conscious choices.

Here are some things to help:

• Deep breathing can help you regulate your emotional state
• Guided meditation can make you focus on your body
• Communicating your emotional needs to your partner
• Journal down your thoughts and reactions to these moments
• Engaging in activities that bring you comfort and joy

Practicing these self-soothing techniques can help you return to a “neutral” zone, where you can see things more clearly and respond in kind.

Step 3: Use Body-Based Healing

Your abandonment wounds live not just in your thoughts but also in your body. You might feel that you’re tired, physically and mentally, because your body is in a state of survival mode. It’s exhausting and can lead to health issues in the long term.

This is where you can use practices like somatic healing, breathwork, or gentle movement to help you attune to your body and release tension.

Whether you do one or all of these, these body-based healing techniques can help release fear stored in your nervous system.

If You’re Ready to Go Deeper…?
Explore ur Stop Abandonment & Rejection in A Relationship (Anxious Attachment Style Re-Programming) Course! It walks you through the exact reprogramming exercises used by thousands of students.

Step 4: Build Healthy Coping Strategies

Your old coping mechanisms aren’t working anymore, so trying new ones is the best step forward to help you get into the right mindset.

Here’s how you can do it:

• Journal what coping strategies you’re using when you’re triggered and how they are working for you in those moments.
• Start adding in new coping strategies one by one so they can slowly become part of your routine.
• Some new coping strategies can include journaling, exercise, connection with loved ones, or scheduled self-check-ins.
• See if they work for you. If they do, include them in your everyday life. If not, try something else. The idea is to find a balance of strategies that help you respond better to triggers and to reinforce positive emotions.

Step 5: Reprogram Your Beliefs

Your subconscious mind stores the pain of your abandonment wounds and your reactions to trauma. Most importantly, they hold strong beliefs, such as “I will be abandoned” or “I will always be left”.

This is where subconscious reprogramming helps. It’s a technique that allows you to “rewire” your thought patterns and behaviors by challenging negative beliefs and turning them into positive ones.

An example would be to shift the limiting belief of “I will always be left” to “I can be safe and loved.”

Here is how you can do it:

• Write down your thoughts about your abandonment issues.
• Challenge those thoughts with positive reinforcement.
• Repeat it until it becomes your core belief.

Helping Someone You Love Heal from Abandonment Wounds

It can be hard to watch someone you love struggle with abandonment issues and act out on you when they feel you’re about to leave them.

It can be emotionally exhausting, but it’s important to remember that your needs also matter and that boundaries and self-care are essential.

There are some steps you can take to help your partner, friend, or family member with this healing process:

Validate Their Emotions and Thoughts

Explain to them that you understand their emotions and why. Showing a willingness to know what they’re going through and truly actively listening helps them recognize that you’re trying to help them.

The reverse is that disregarding their feelings will only cause them to further enhance their beliefs that they’ll be abandoned. Try not to overreact to any of their behaviors, either, and remind them that their emotions are real and important.

Encourage Open Dialogue

Your partner, family member, or friend with abandonment issues usually has trouble trusting people, so to help them in the long term, you have to be open with your communication, feelings, and emotions.

The more open you are about how it impacts you and your relationship, and the more you can create a safe space for them to share without judgment, the more they’ll be able to express their feelings.

This allows you to discuss issues openly and work towards building a stronger connection.

Set Boundaries with Love

Support doesn’t mean self-sacrifice. Boundaries protect both you and your loved ones.

Healthy boundaries reduce the chance of codependency or enmeshment. They also allow your friend, partner, or family member to understand who they are, what they really need in relationships, and how they can get it.

Encourage Them to Seek Help

Sometimes, no matter what you do, you can’t help people. If that’s the case — and there is no shame in that — you can guide them to get help from professionals.

Encourage them to seek traditional therapy or try The Personal Development School.

Respect Your Limits & Practice Self-Care

You matter, too. You can’t pour from an empty cup.

Supporting someone doesn’t mean sacrificing your emotional health. Focus on self-care (by doing things you love), talk to a therapist if needed, and practice boundary-setting.

Final Thoughts: Your Healing Is Possible — One Step at a Time

Abandonment wounds are painful, but you are not broken, nor are you stuck with them.

By reading this, you’ve already taken the first brave step toward healing. There is light at the end of the tunnel to help you get through this.

The next steps—awareness, emotional regulation, and reprogramming—can be life-changing. And you don’t have to do it alone.

Try our Stop Abandonment & Rejection in A Relationship (Anxious Attachment Style Re-Programming) Course. It walks you through the exact reprogramming exercises used by thousands of students.

You are worthy of love, safety, and connection. We'll help you achieve these things one step at a time.

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