Abandonment

@emotionalHuckleberry20808

I am so sorry you've been abandoned. It is so hard, I can relate way too well. The word abandonment sends shivers down my spine. A decade ago, several people I loved very much, and I had treated them all so well and helped them with so many things and sacrificed so much of my life to them (they were all in the same family). One day they believed an absurd  completely false rumor about me and they all turned their phones off to me on the same day. They just abandoned me, one quick dismissive note about why and then they were gone. It was easy to prove that I wasn't guilty of anything like that at all, couldn't believe that they believed that crap, so I proved it. Then they have  reached out at various times, but I want nothing to do with them. If they wouldn't stick with me through ups and downs, don't even care if a rumor was true and just all decide together to get rid of me, why would I want them back?

I've also been loyal to more than one girlfriend who cheated on me when I was busy being loyal to them. That also feels like abandonment. 

So the former makes it hard to trust friends, the latter makes it hard to trust relationships, feeling like in the end I always think I have good hearted people I can trust but they end up proving that it was one-way love and they just abandoned me for someone else or just because they never really cared. 

For memories of those 2 types of abandonment I've had, I don't have a remedy, other than to say this: They didn't leave me, I LEFT THEM.... I had to clear space in my life to find real people, REAL friends, and fake people get in the way of REAL people. I'm a real person, I'm a loyal person, and I deserve someone like me. 

What I did was to think back on my whole life and make a list of everyone who had not betrayed me. Now some of these people I didn't know very well, I never got close to, or I never really pursued deeper level friendship... but they had never let me down or made me feel bad and vice versa. I decided that I would think about them, even if they were just 'hi' friends or I hadn't talked to them in years. 

So I had this small list, but I tried to re-connect with each one. Some responded and were happy to hear from me! I caught up and was really positive to them, encouraged them, celebrated their small victories in life, offered to be there for them anytime, asked how I could help them in their life goals and ups and downs. And if they asked, I would really go do it and try to help them the best I could. And some of these friendships deepened! One of these has become this awesome ultra-encouraging. day to day friend who is like a brother now. We are always boosting each other just in a little text, we can spill our problems to each other, we both care, pray for each other, never judge, never gossip, always encourage to bring out our best. And this took time and taking chances. And some other acquaintances have become friends too, it's really worth the effort! But I have to be the one who becomes a really good friend first, then some of them decide to match my efforts. 

I've also met new people whenever I can, and I'm always filtering them for trust. To me trust is the opposite of abandonment. I'm always looking for signs they can be loyal, no gossipers, people who say positive things about people. 

And I'm so glad now that I didn't waste more time on not-loyal people. I wish I could stop thinking about the way they abandoned me, and it still haunts me sometimes, but now I look *every morning* at this short and wonderful list of names of people who have never betrayed me first thing in the morning, and I always think about WHAT I CAN DO FOR THEM TODAY TO BOOST THEM... and then I just don't have time to think about the abandoners (and I'm glad they didn't take up space in my life that the real people need)

I'm relieved that you got rid of your abandoners, so that you could have space to meet me to give you hope that real people are out there that want to be loyal to you because you are loyal!