7 Common Abandonment Wounds That Happen In Childhood

When I learned about my primary abandonment wound I understood my struggles in adulthood with an empowering new perspective. It profoundly accelerated my healing journey and evolved into my approach to the trauma healing work I do today.

When it comes to the demographic of people I work with worldwide I’m often told these problems are what burdens them the most:
not feeling seen or heard, trust issues, debilitating heartbreak, low self-worth, feelings of disconnect, separation anxiety, unhealthy boundaries, codependency, fear of new beginnings/endings and physical/emotional pain.

My motivation in writing this article is to offer you a greater understanding and awareness of common disruptions in attachment that most people experience in childhood.
With a solid understanding of attachment wounds and thoughtful guidance we can heal at any age and experience deeply satisfying relational lives, even in the uncertainty of the world we live in today.

Before we get started let’s do a brief overview of how healthy attachment is supposed to develop in our childhood:

A child is supposed to receive predictable, consistently warm, emotionally attuned and available communication from caregivers. This allows the child to build up their ability to regulate their emotions and physiology. In turn leading to a resilient, smart, self-respecting human later in life.

Attachment in childhood is a developmental process. Starting from conception (in utero) and continuing through prime years of development (birth-10 years old) and later on until 20 years old when many adolescence move out of the primary caregiver’s home. As Dr. Daniel Siegel say’s in his book the Developing Mind, ‘attachment relationships are the major environmental factors that shape brain development during its period of maximal growth’. Illustrating the vital importance of consistent access to secure attachment in childhood.

Attachment is how we relate to each other, with every relationship there’s attachment. So even though you may resonate with one or more of the below examples it’s important to know we all have the ability for our brains to change and heal abandonment wounds.

At the end of this article I offer suggestions on the next best steps for embodying healthy, secure attachment. First let’s identify the seven common abandonment wounds that can happen in childhood.

1. Medical Trauma: Surgeries or Illness
A common adversity that can happen as an infant is medical surgery to save or better a life, either for the infant or to tend to the primary caregiver. Up until around 18 months babies need a caregiver to regulate their response to fear. An extended separation from the caregiver can result in overwhelm and in turn the baby will need to resort to other coping mechanisms such as the parasympathetic nervous system’s dorsal freeze in order to cope with not getting their needs met. Moving to kids and on into adolescence. I recently listened to an interview with Pat Ogden who shared her insights with an Israeli doctor that brings families to hospitals to ensure people that love the person who went through the shock trauma are there when the ambulance arrives at the hospital. This offers a loving cushion of support for the individual that has experienced the shock trauma. From Stephen Porges Poly Vagal Theory we know that we need others to regulate us and help us feel safe, we understand that we need connections in order to prevent staying in a debilitating threat response also known as survival physiology.

2. Unavailable Caregivers
The most common and unspoken rejection and attachment wound I see in my programs is the person that experienced unavailable or inconsistent caregivers. Many parents are unintentionally unavailable in the western world. Which can lead to misattunement, physical or emotional neglect, dismissive or disapproving behaviours. We work multiple jobs to keep a roof over our heads, we are geographically displaced from family and support networks and we are emotionally unavailable ourselves. If this goes unhealed in adulthood this can manifests as attracting and being attracted to emotionally unavailable partners. Self-abandonment and people pleasing tendencies is also a common repercussion in adulthood.

3. Parent with Un-Treated Mental Health Problems
When a parent is highly disregulated a child will comfort the parent and organize around the threat of the unstable parent in order to stay safe and out of harms way. The child grows up without the availability of an attuned and regulated parent essential for optimal development. As adults these people often find themselves with health problems or in verbally or physically abusive relationships. Narcissistic parenting is a common term used for this type of dynamic. The parent’s job is to regulate their own emotions and behaviours to create a safe space, resilience and regulation for their children. The child learns self-regulation from their caregiver, meaning if parents are highly dis-regulated; high highs and low lows, (outbursts, stonewalling and gaslighting) the child has little choice but to regulate to the parents way of living life.

4. Sleep Training
A baby’s sense of safety is completely dependent on the caregiver till 14-18 months old. This is the most significant time of life for the baby to learn how to co-regulate, and build those resources for self-regulation. Essentially to know that the world is a safe place to set them up for success for the rest of their lives. We know from Stephen Porges Poly Vagal Theory that if a baby is left to cry itself to sleep or until exhaustion the babies physiology will go into deep conservation mode as this is the only part of the babies survival physiology that is fully developed at this point in time. In other words the baby has experienced a threat response (no available caregiver for soothing and comforting) without resolution so the parasympathetic nervous system’s deep dorsal conservation physiology is the only available platform onboard to put the breaks on the overwhelm. The vagus nerve which also helps regulate our physiology takes years to fully myelinate and develop so it’s biologically impossible for an infant to soothe themselves at this stage of development. Leading expert in Developmental Trauma Stephen Terrell says, ‘in my 20+ years experience most parents that use sleep training have a low tolerance for uncomfortable emotions or stress’. I have worked with many people in their 30’s and 40’s who struggle with an inability to self-sooth or regulate their physiological and emotional responses to stress, largely in part as a result of sleep training as an infant.

5. Adoption and Foster Care
When it comes to adoption, it’s common for an infant or child to spend time in an incubator, orphanage or the foster care system. The bond that is meant to form with the mother or primary caregiver often has a disruption in the form of abandonment. In my personal experience as a person that was adopted who spent time in an incubator, overcoming a sense of existential shame of being unloveable has been a life long journey. When an abandonment wound in the pre-verbal stage of development goes unhealed the person can experience unspeakable anguish, heartbreak and physical symptoms until they receive the right support for embodied healing to happen.

6. Systemic Oppression and Bullying
We all live in a world built on system oppression. Which means ostracizing and disrespecting certain demographics of people has been interwoven into the tapestry of our cultures for thousands of years. No matter where you are in the world most cultures have an anti-black, heteronormative approach to being human. A societal abandonment wound. Which means if we are a BIPOC, LGTBQIA2S+, woman or any other minority in the fabric of our society we have most likely felt rejected or like no one has had our back at some point in our lives. As a child we see a biased perspective illustrated in our history books, in school we are rejected and we are raised in fear of law enforcement in many communities. When it comes to bullying, the act alone can leave a social scar on an individual. A Harvard study shows that victims of chronic childhood bullying are more likely to develop depression or think about suicide as adults compared with those who weren't bullied. While former bullies are more likely to be convicted of criminal charges.’ I’ve grouped these two common attachment wounds together as they are both tremendous social scars to burden and can rob children of their sense of dignity early on.

7. Sexual Abuse
In my experience 99.9% of adults that experienced childhood sexual abuse have an attachment wound layered on top of the devastating abuse itself. The perpetrator is often someone in the attachment network whether it’s in the family, at school or in a friend group. For example the perpetrator was someone in the family and when a close caregiver was informed, the truth was denied, dismissed, shamed or kept secret. On the other hand many people tell me they never felt safe enough to tell anyone so the attachment rupture festers in secrecy. After the abuse itself if there was no nurturing protector there to soothe the individual many people will carry this burden on their shoulders for decades until they choose to work with a trained professional.

What Can You Do To Heal?

When it comes to abandonment wounds healing needs to happen in relationship with a trained professional. If the rupture or trauma happened in relationship it must be healed in relationship. The whole reason why an attachment wound is a wound is because no one was there when we needed them the most. This is not a self-taught thing. I cannot stress how important this is. There are far too many influential leaders in the self-help space that encourage self-healing, when it comes to attachment wounds this just perpetuates the underlying survival physiology and commonly leads to heightened anxiety and self-reliance. We need other well-regulated humans to learn self-regulation. Now more than ever we need to come together as a securely attached culture and unify at a global level.

If you have experienced one or more of the above I highly recommend working with an expert that’s trained in attachment and developmental/childhood trauma so that you can heal the root of your survival physiology.
As a general rule of thumb in my programs the younger the attachment wound happened the longer it takes to repair. With the right support, dedication and consistency it is possible to heal from these seven common abandonment wounds.

When looking for a trained professional I suggest looking at their credentials and ensuring they’ve done their own nervous system healing work as well as trained with Stephen Terrell(Transforming Touch) and Kathy Kain (Somatic Practice) and Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing). If they have all of the above you’re in good hands. My Nervous System Regulation Made Simple Program is full of resources to help build self-trust and regulation, two pillars essential for healing from an abandonment wound.

Thank you for reading this article. I know it’s not an easy read, especially if you’ve experienced one or more of these things yourself. Please know that I have worked with people worldwide on transforming their wounds into their strengths. Healing abandonment wounds is possible with the right professional support.


Be well,

Luana


Photo by Hunter Johnson, Giulia Bertelli, Helena Lopes & Annie Spratt on Unsplash