PAINFUL Vulnerable Share
The Abandonment Wound
This is a raw, heartfelt piece. We all suffer, some are from Loss and Abandonment. I help others every day on this journey. WHY?? Because its a story I have had as well.
There's deep truth in what you're expressing in life — about inherited pain, the illusion of healing, and the complexity of trying to rewrite a story we never asked to be cast in.
Lets revise the version that preserves your voice, celebrates the emotional resonance, clarity, and life lessons within.
The Set-Up
What if adulthood is a set-up?
We spend our grown lives trying to undo what was done to us in childhood — not realizing the script was written long before we ever had a say.
You grow up in a home where love felt like a question mark. Safety wasn’t a given — it was something you had to earn, or chase. But you discovered you were smart. Gifted, even. You used your intelligence to survive. People praised your insight, your ability to figure things out. So you kept figuring. You became the fixer. Therapy. Coaching. Books. Retreats. Workshop after workshop. All in pursuit of the ultimate fix: to heal yourself, to not repeat the pattern. To be different. Better. Free.
But what if the setup is… to repeat the pattern?
My story is stitched with abandonment. My mother lost her father before she was even born. Her mother died when she was eight. Her stepfather when she was nine. She was raised by a sister who didn’t want her. So she ran — from war, from pain, from a world that never gave her safety. She built a new life in North America. She became a survivor. A mother. A wife. A woman who grew something out of scorched soil. She managed well.
But survival has a cost.
I grew up watching her cut people out of her life like dead branches. I swore I’d never do that. And yet, here I am. Living the same script.
She struggled with my connection to my father — even though it was minimal. She disappeared from my life 15 years ago. From my child’s life, too. No warning. No goodbye. Just silence.
And just like that, I became motherless and fatherless — just like her.
But not by choice.
I tried. I tried so hard to stay connected to both of them. But distance, and their own life got in the way.
So I ask:
How do we overcome the set-up?
How do we change the script that was handed to us — written by generations before we were born?
Can we rewrite it? Can we fire the director? Change the scenery? Speak to the audience that applauds our breakdowns?
Or maybe… maybe it’s not about healing it the way we thought.
Maybe this abandonment wound isn’t something to be hidden, patched, or forced into healing.
Maybe it’s not a scar to seal, but a story to reveal.
Because the more we hide it, the louder it gets.
Maybe true healing isn’t about becoming untouchable. Maybe it’s about becoming seen — fully, openly, even painfully.
So let’s stop burying our grief. Let it breathe. Let it move.
Let the world see it.
Because in the light, even wounds can become windows.
Love
Holly
Do you have this story too?