A Guide To The Inner Child Abandonment Wound

What is an inner child wound?

The abandonment wound is a type of inner child wound. An inner child wound regularly comes from either big traumas or small traumas that were repeated continuously. I linked to a podcast that I love by CiiCii that talks about big traumas vs small traumas. The small traumas can be anything from your mom threatening to leave the house when you did something wrong. Or a parent constantly making fun of an activity you like.

When we are children these events become deeply engraved into our subconscious because we take everything personally. When we are young everything is about us.

These wounds stay in our brain and we act to avoid feeling that way again. It becomes a defense mechanism to protect our inner child from similar situations in the future.

The reactions we have as adults to these events become degrading to us. As well as defensive, which can come off as rude, and even a complete shutdown. 

What is the abandonment wound?

The abandonment wound is one of the main inner childhood wounds. It gets created from a caretaker leaving you behind or not protecting you when you need it.

For example, your mom was always late to pick you up after school when you were 5. When you saw all the other kids leave it created a feeling of abandonment. You might have felt like your mom did not want you anymore and decided to leave you. This feeling occurs even when you know that she will eventually come to pick you up.

This abandonment wound as an adult may result in codependency and people-pleasing because there is a fear that people will leave you. Which comes from not feeling enough for those around you.

Another example could be that every time you did something wrong your parents left the house. Maybe they took a few hours to themselves without telling you. This is a more direct form of an abandonment wound because it is easier to connect your actions to the parent leaving. While in the other example the parent does not intend to leave but the child creates the narrative.

Abandonment wounds are really common and not something to be ashamed of or embarrassed about. Sometimes they do create problems in our adult life and they regularly come out in relationships. It can come out as a dreadful feeling every time your partner leaves or as accepting abuse so that you will still be with that person.

Recognizing wound patterns as an adult?

When trying to heal as an adult there is always a breakthrough when learning about inner child wounds. You first need to recognize the things that you do now that might be unhealthy for you or to others to then dive deep into what impulses these repeated actions.

It is crucial to look at what triggers each emotion and the thoughts behind your emotions. Doing these can lead to figuring out a lot of things about yourself.

Example

For example, every time I get into a fight with my partner they shut down. Which is a result of their childhood wounds. When they shut down and start ignoring me I start feeling like my world is ending and I start crying uncontrollably and shaking. This is where the inner child wound is being reactive.

A way to recognize the pattern is to look at why my body has this reaction. How does that make me feel? I could say that it makes me feel like my partner doesn’t love me anymore and like I can’t do anything correctly. It makes me feel like they are going to leave me for this little mistake.

You could argue that it is a childish way to think, that because of a fight your world is going to end and that they don’t love you anymore for a small action. You could even deem these feelings as selfish as maybe I’m just focusing on how they made me feel by ignoring me and not on how I made them feel with the mistake I made. 

This is when we go deeper into the childhood wound. We recognize that it is an abandonment wound because in the scenario I believe they are going to leave me. We now want to look back at my childhood and see where we can see the same pattern. Maybe my dad every time I did something wrong he would stop talking to me for a whole day. 

How can we start healing it?

To make it easier to explain I’m going to continue with the same example. Now that we know the event that caused this wound we can start to heal it by talking to our inner child. We have to remember that it is a small child and that we need to treat it with all the love we have.

In this example I could tell the child that although I felt like my dad did not love me anymore when I did something wrong and that now I feel the same way with my partner, it is not true. That these two people actually love me very much and that the way they react to me doing something wrong is probably an inner child wound response of them too that they need to heal.

I choose to release the responsibility for those feelings and focus on the reality of the situation. To heal your wounds it is helpful to tell your inner child that you are an adult now and that you have to act as one but that their fears and feelings are being acknowledged and not enough. Never forget to give your inner child reassurance.