Signs of self abandonment and how to stop the cycle of self -abandonment: build self-trust to heal self-abandonment

Self-abandonment can be defined as a pattern of ignoring, minimising, or betraying your own needs, emotions, boundaries, or desires. 

I can see now that this is exactly what I have been doing. In this post, I will be sharing my experience of this, how it may be showing up in your life, and how you can start building self-trust and your identity to heal self-abandonment.

When you’ve spent a lifetime being everything for everyone else, it’s no wonder you can’t hear your own voice anymore.

I didn’t realise that for most of my life, I have been betraying myself, my needs and desires for the sake of others. I have always been putting everyone else's needs and wants above my own. 

This doesn’t mean I am broken or a failure. I have just been in a cycle of abandoning my wants, needs and desires for so long now that I feel like I don’t really know who I am and wonder whether I ever really took the time to discover who I was. 

I smiled when I was really exhausted and unhappy inside. 

I have said yes time and time again when I really just wanted to say no.

I have silenced my voice to avoid conflict and keep peace. 

Over the years of people pleasing and putting everyone else first, I stopped being able to hear my own voice. 

It is clouded by everyone else's needs, desires and wants over mine. I have been putting myself last for so long that I do question whether I ever really knew myself, knew what I like and don’t like, what I want in my life. This is not to say that I am feeling completely clueless, this is more about me viewing every choice and decision in my life from a new lens to see if they were truly mine. This is about asking myself whether this is me or something I have been influenced into thinking I like. 

Maybe this feels familiar to you.

Maybe you’ve spent decades being dependable, likable, capable but have this feeling in the pit of your stomach of yearning and wanting more for yourself. The only problem is you don’t really know yourself anymore. Maybe you never really had the chance to get to know your true self. 

This may be your sign of self-abandonment. 

Signs of how self-abandonment has been showing up in my life:

👉🏼 not setting boundaries in the relationships I had and if I did, I wasn’t sticking to them

👉🏼 people pleasing all the time 

👉🏼 always saying yes even when I really wanted to say no. When I did try to say no, I would feel major guilt. 

👉🏼 making decisions based on expectations from family or society over what I truly want

👉🏼 always re-arranging plans I had made if a friend or family member asked for help or to do something

👉🏼 constantly breaking promises to myself

Identity: Losing Myself in Pleasing, Performing & Seeking Acceptance

For years, I shaped my identity around what others needed from me. I became who I thought I should be. In relationships, I made myself small. I feared conflict. I over-explained, over-gave.

I didn’t know how to set boundaries without guilt.

I didn’t trust that my needs mattered.

I feared being truly me 

This wasn’t about vanity or ego. This was survival. Learned behaviours. Deep conditioning that taught me my worth was earned through self-sacrifice.

I felt invisible in my own life. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore—or even what I liked. It was a loss of self.

Now, I am awake and I no longer want this to be my reality so I am changing it.

Breaking the cycle of self-abandonment: Rebuilding Self-Trust & Identity

If you’ve spent decades people-pleasing, keeping the peace, or putting yourself last—of course your self-trust feels shaky.

When we override our needs long enough, we stop hearing them.
When we constantly outsource decisions, we forget how to make our own.
And when we don’t follow through on what we say we’ll do for ourselves, our inner self learns: “I can’t count on you.”

This isn’t failure.
It’s a survival strategy that helps you belong.
Now I want to change this, I’m ready to belong to myself now.

This is definitely true for me and I know that this is key to healing my self-abandonment. Thinking about the way I will be re-building trust is looking at it like building a relationship with my inner child. I know that it is the tiny acts that I take sending a message to my inner child saying “I see you, I hear you, you matter and I won’t abandon you again”.

Here are some ways I am healing self-abandonment through building self-trust:

✨ Journaling - I am taking the time to journal everyday. This is not something that needs to be long. It can be a long session or just some quick thoughts around how I am feeling, how my day went. I have found this to be a great way to deepen my understanding of me.

✨ meditating - I am taking the time to get better at being in stillness and silence. I used to meditate and really enjoyed it. I would see my days going so much better and my reactions and responses were better too because I was more grounded. I do this in the morning when I wake up and before starting the day. 

✨ having slower mornings - I have never been someone who likes to rush in the mornings and when I used to wake up, I used to love having those few hours and silence and quiet to myself to do whatever I wanted. My slow morning at the moment looks like waking up about 6am (it’s ok if I am later), brushing my teeth, showering and getting ready, journaling, meditating. Sometimes, I will also read for a little while. I have been doing this for the last couple of weeks and really coming to appreciate this time to myself. 

I am starting small, building consistency and then will gradually add more. So, I encourage you to take this at your pace, be kind to yourself as you heal. Also, don’t forget to celebrate your wins!

You don’t need to do it perfectly.

You just need to begin again—one tiny promise at a time.

Trust isn’t built in your head. It’s built in your body, your breath, your choices.

And you are allowed to return to yourself—gently, consistently, and without shame.