Self-abandonment: 8 Signs You’ve Forgotten About Yourself
Why can we leave ourselves aside? How can abandoning ourselves affect us? Discover how to deal with self-abandonment.
When we forget to take care of ourselves, that is, when we do not take time to heal or enjoy our own company, this can end up causing us to experience difficulties such as insecurity or emotional management problems. So,What can we do to leave our self-abandonment behind??
The term self-abandonment It refers to a set of self-destructive behaviors that we have towards ourselves. This can mean that we do not respect our own thoughts, feelings, needs and desires. In fact, these types of behaviors tend to be learned during childhood and can end up negatively affecting the mental health of those who have it.
What are the signs of self-abandonment?
Some of the behaviors that may indicate a self-neglect behavior are the following:
Not trusting yourself: That is, question your own decisions, thoughts or feelings. This can end up causing you to let others make decisions for you, as you feel like you can’t deal with it.
Please others: People who self-sabotage can end up seeking too much validation from others, which results in suppressing their own needs and interests to please the people around them.
Not being transparent: When we question ourselves or do not trust ourselves, this can end up implying that we do not show ourselves as we are, that is, we stop sharing what we think or our feelings with others.
Excess perfectionism: People who tend to self-sabotage may have very high expectations for themselves. This feeling can mean feeling unworthy, no matter how much you do and what you accomplish.
Self-criticism: Self-sabotage can also involve treating yourself in a critical and negative way.
Letting go of our needs: That is, not recognizing what we need, leaving aside personal care and not taking care of ourselves.
Suppress feelings: push away our uncomfortable feelings through denial or avoidance. Leaving aside what worries us or makes us feel bad about ourselves.
Don’t set limits: When people self-sabotage, this can mean failing to set boundaries for others, which can lead to them taking advantage of you or not taking care of what you need.
These are some of the signs that may indicate that a person is suffering from self-neglect
What are the causes of self-neglect?
A self-neglect behavior It usually comes from how we were treated as children. It is likely that if we have this attitude it comes from the way our parents took care of us. Normally, self-abandonment is usually linked to your parents abandoning you emotionally or physically, which leads to feeling unworthy or unloved.
People who have lived in this environment tend to repeat these patterns since childhood since they are more familiar to them. That is, this may involve repeatedly choosing partners and friends who mistreat us, take advantage of us, or do not support us. Which also implies that we treat ourselves this way. We must take into account that a self-neglect behavior It can end up contributing to disorders such as anxiety, depression or low self-esteem.
How to stop abandoning yourself?
As we have observed, self-abandonment It is a learned behavior that we can unlearn. Even so, since it is a habit acquired in our childhood, it will require a lot of time and work to change it. Taking this into account, some of the tips that we can take into account are the following:
Reason with your critical dialogue: If you feel that your thinking is full of criticism of yourself, it is important to try to reason with these ideas and change them for more positive affirmations.
Learn from mistakes: A very common tendency that people who abandon themselves tend to have is to be very afraid of failure or making mistakes. Faced with these feelings, we must treat ourselves with greater compassion and kindness. That is, facing these errors as a way to improve in the future.
Practice gratitude: Gratitude will help you focus on the positive in your daily life. In addition, it will allow you to feel better about yourself since you will focus on what is valuable in your life.
Reserve time for yourself: A person who abandons himself will tend not to leave a single moment for himself. Given this behavior, we must try to leave moments for ourselves and above all to enjoy our solitude and hobbies.
Learn to set limits: Respect is one of the first steps to work on your self-esteem and mental health. Therefore, it is important to work on setting limits for others when you feel that they are not respecting you.
Focus on making decisions and following them through to the end: People who don’t take care of themselves can have a lot of difficulty making their own decisions. In these cases, it is important for your confidence to start making firm decisions and, above all, follow them.
Go to therapy: If you feel that your self-neglect behaviors are affecting you in many ways, it may be a good decision to go to therapy. A mental health professional will help you understand where they are coming from and how to deal with these thoughts and feelings.
As we see, it is important that let’s face this self-abandonment behavior since it can end up wreaking havoc on our well-being. Working on taking care of ourselves and treating ourselves as we deserve should be a priority.
