The deep pit of abandonment depression

Abandonment depression is an exceptionally difficult psychic and soul state that many of us can live with for many years not knowing actually what it is.  Society doesnt help us alot seeing depression and an inability to cope as indications of failure rather than as the result of not having enough of ‘the good stuff’ built into our souls or psychic fabric from a very very young age. And the wound for many of us is indeed preverbal.  We forget that it was often common practice for babies to be immediately removed from their mothers after birth and the cutting of the cord which is a psychic injury to start with needs for the baby a comfort and soothing, just one of the inbuilt wounds our body and soul can remember and that we meet as sensitive sensate beings coming into an at times emotionally split off society.

For an incredibly delicate nervous system it would be ideal for us to be bonding skin on skin with our mothers immediately before this happens and to receive both loving touch as well as lot of soul to soul eye gazing and affirming as we grow, surrounding us in a matrix of love.   For those of us born to depressed mothers we would carry that knowing.  For those of us born to anxious or fearful mothers we would carry a lot of that into later years.  We may not know where our anxiety comes from nor why it manifests at certain times of day.

For myself 5 to 7 pm is always difficult as that was the time my mother was left alone from a young age to fend for herself with no Mum and Dad.  Nana was at work, Poppa was dead by then.   I had my second major accident at this time of day in 2005 after I ran from Australia following being savaged by my sister during a breakdown that occured at the end of my marriage.  When I tried to confront her about it I was told that I ’caused’ her breakdown.   There was no safe place for me to feel what I felt to express what I felt, to be the person I was and so I had to run but with no supports I crashed and its the 13th annivesary of that in a few days time and so my body is remembering it all as a cascade of neurochemical which comes in waves as I go to sleep and then awake.  Luckily last night at 2.30 am I awoke to love not hate.  To a beautiful message from Scott saying how he is longing to meet me and love me for the rest of my life.

I was honest.  I told him how much pain I am in.  How hard it is to go for over a day with no message not knowing if they have been attacked again or whether or not he is safe.  I also said how I am feeling raw as Mum’s probate comes through and we have to meet the solicitors on Wednesday.  My brother called today and we was running all over the place and didnt even remember that he had called me late last week to let me know which actually made me feel waves of sympathy and empathy for him.

Anway I dreamed of the pit of our collective multigenerational abandonment depression as a deep dark pit on the 80th birthday of my Mum.  In the dream I was on an island far from the mainland and I had to walk over a turnstile to a dark tar filled pit of sludge.  I had a silver cup in my hand and I had to empty the pit cup by cup while over on the far shore of the mainland everyone else partied and celebrated.  At that stage I was 12 years sober and had not yet grieved so many losses of both childhood and my addictive years.  These days I know what abandonment depression is and how it feels.  I know self imposed isolation makes it worse but the dilemma is trying to express it in a society that does not recognise it or give us help to deal with it.  Some of us are carriers, that is all I know.  We have a task and a journey to travel to recognise what it truly is that ails us.  If we were never seen or known or affirmed in our true self that is a form of abandonment and soul loss that will only be recovered as we mine the pit.  We have to find the way back not only to our own abandoned inner child or divine child but to that of our parents, ancestors and of the collective as well.  One thing is for sure, we are not sick or crazy for suffering abandonment depression.  We are just humans longing and aching to find a way back home to truth and reality and to our souls.

The task of separating and maturing into an adult who can contain that depression and recognise the soul wound while providing the conditions to find the right kind of support and help grows OUT OF the full experience and understanding of our wound.  The way through is in feeling it and integrating it and in letting ourselves use the pain generated to birth love and wisdom, love for self, love for other, compassion and discriminating awareness of intrinsic soul needs and desires and boundaries of our unique and shared humanity.  We are not alone in our abandonment depression once it is validated and shared.