The Quiet Terror of Being Left

Abandonment is the fear I pretend I don’t have, mostly because I’ve carried it so long it feels like part of my skeleton.

Everyone thinks my issues start with “I don’t want to be alone,” but that’s not it. I’m fine alone. I’m functional alone. Hell, I thrive when the only person I have to worry about disappointing is myself.

The problem isn’t solitude.

The problem is the drop—the sudden freefall from “I’m here, I’m staying” to “I’m gone.” That wrenching switch that tells your nervous system, “See? You weren’t worth keeping after all.”

If someone—anyone—could actually convince me I was safe, that fear would evaporate on contact. Safety kills abandonment the way light kills mold. It would dissolve something ancient in me, something wired into my earliest memories.

But my brain isn’t stupid.

It’s traumatized.

And trauma has this cute little habit of arguing with the truth even when the truth is screaming in your face.

So I do what I’ve always done:

I stay in dead-end relationships because at least I know the person won’t leave.

I cling to situations that hurt because at least the pain is familiar.

I avoid people who might actually care because rejection feels like being skinned alive, and I don’t want to find out what their leaving would do to me.

It’s not romance.

It’s survival strategy masquerading as preference.

I tell myself I don’t need anyone, that I’m better alone, that I’m “too much” or “too intense” or “too complicated”—but the truth is disgustingly simple:

I don’t trust anyone not to leave.

I don’t trust stability.

I don’t trust affection.

I don’t trust good things because every good thing I’ve ever had has walked out, let go, or closed the door behind itself without looking back.

So yes, if someone genuinely proved I was safe, the fear would die. But my mind fights that proof because believing it would require rewriting an entire lifetime.

And honestly?

Some days it feels easier to keep the scar tissue than risk ripping it open again.

But I’m working on it.

Slowly.

Quietly.

In the places no one sees.

Because even if I don’t fully believe I’m safe yet—I want to.

And that’s a start.