My name is Savannah. I'm 25 years old, and I have abandonment issues.
The time it took for me to be able to accept such a fact about myself is almost as long as my existence—although I must say that I discovered at a young age that abrupt separation, no matter who it involves or what the circumstances are, is an extremely painful emotional trigger for me.
It has never been clear as to why that's the case, though. I have yet to pinpoint the reason it always feels like a part of my soul gets ripped away from my body every time someone walks out of my life. Or, like I confessed in the past, why it's so difficult to peacefully let people go without ultimately questioning my worth and the importance of my own existence. This is partially why I felt compelled to grab my pen and write on the matter of abandonment issues. To me, rare are the issues that writing—and of course, researching—can't solve.
To help me get a grip on this fear, I interviewed Shanta Jackson, AKA The Homegirl Therapist, a Black licensed therapist and advocate for mental health awareness, therapy, and healing. "Abandonment issues can be complex," explains Shanta. "They can come from the loss of a loved one or the loss of a relationship or marriage. There is also emotional abandonment that a lot of my clients have experienced, which is where a parent or caregiver is not emotionally present or available to you."
Shanta's last words resonate in my mind because of how familiar they are. They brought back to mind what one of my girlfriends told me earlier this year. We were discussing the subject and she was trying to convince me that my father's behavior toward me as a child is at the heart of my abandonment issues. It sounded illogical to me. My father never did or say anything that made me feel unwanted, and I can't recall a time in my life where I had reasons to complain about his attitude toward me. Even if he wasn't as present as my mother was and I never really got to spend a lot of time with him because of his job, I never once doubted how much he loved or cared for me. Neither did I feel like he was missing in my life.
But my friend insisted and promised me that if I readHeal Your Wounds and Find Your True Self—a book that explores with depth the five wounds of the soul: rejection, abandonment, betrayal, injustice, and humiliation—I would have a better understanding of my emotions.
In the book, Lise Bourbeau writes that indeed, the wound of abandonment is awakened in a child between ages of one and three by the parent of the opposite sex as a result of lack of parental support and emotional attention. While as a writer, I know that facts written in books are not a synonym for truth and I could've chosen to trust only my memory, somehow Bourbeau's case study still incited me to dig a little deeper into my feelings of abandonment. And surprisingly, I think I may have found something. It took me a minute to see things in this way but after all, maybe my fatheris responsible for my abandonment issues.
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Perhaps my fear of being abandoned was sparked by my father's refusal to educate me on our ethnic background—our North African roots—simply because he didn't care.
I asked Shanta about my theory. "Absolutely!" she said. I could easily imagine our Homegirl Therapist nodding as I read her reaction to this thought. "It's possible that this is where your abandonment issues stem from. You feel abandoned in a sense that you don't know that side of you—because of his lack of interest in his own ethnicity and teaching you as well. So, you feel lost as it relates to you knowing who you are, which fuels the abandonment issues."
I went back to Bourbeau's book, scanning from one random page to another, and I came across a passage that led to another defining a-ha moment. It was a revelation that not only made sense immediately but also opened up the path for me to finally reach a place of peace regarding my fear of abandonment. It is said that our souls come on this earth carrying at least one of the five wounds mentioned earlier. Depending on which they suffer from, the right lives will be assigned to them.
By the right lives, I mean human experiences that will expose our souls to situations that will awaken and trigger the wounds with the intent to heal them. Where it gets tricky is that a soul may not have enough of one human experience to heal. Therefore, it carries its wounds to the next life, and the next life, and the next life until they are taken care of properly, with love and acceptance.
Now, you're probably wondering, what does it mean to take care of your abandonment issues with love and acceptance? How do I do that? Well, this is something I also discussed with our Homegirl Therapist. Here's what she said:
"Abandonment can't necessarily be worked out in a series of at-home exercises. To truly uproot the start of that abandonment, it is suggested that you attend counseling. Without discovering the root and working through that, it is difficult to manage the symptoms of abandonment issues, and that is where the problems happen for a lot of people. The latter as well as all of the symptoms can really be combined into…self-sabotage. We sabotage relationships because of our fear of being abandoned."
Shanta then broke down the process of coming to terms with your abandonment issues into three steps:
1. Identify Your Triggers
GiphyIdentifying your triggers is important in the process of healing your abandonment issues. Knowing what triggers your unhealthy behaviors allows you to identify the emotions that come, and intervene on these behaviors before falling victim to self-sabotage.
How can you identify your triggers?
- When you start to experience intense emotions, pause for a second, take a deep breath and take inventory of what just happened. Ask yourself why you feel the way you do at that moment.
Example: Your partner decides to go out and hang with a group of friends for the night. You begin to feel anxious and upset. What bothers you the most about your partner hanging with friends? Is it the friends they're hanging with? Do you not want to be alone tonight? Do you have a fear that they will be out late and won't answer your calls? When was the last time you felt this way?
2. Identify Self-Sabotaging Patterns
GiphyYou must identify what your self-sabotaging patterns are and the exact symptoms of your trauma. This will allow you to become more self-aware, and gain the ability to catch emotions at the onset. Note that it will require complete honesty on your part.
How can you identify your self-sabotaging patterns?
- When you find yourself triggered, what has been your "default setting"? What behaviors do you engage in the most? Do you find yourself feeling the need to withdraw or hold back, to attack, or become defensive? Do you turn into yourself and shame yourself for feeling upset? Do you blame yourself or external factors for the perceived issues?
- When you feel insecure, ask yourself, "How do I usually behave? How do I protect myself? If I evaluate my past and current relationships, have there been patterns in my exes' or entourage's complaints?" Examples can be never sharing your emotions, shutting down during conflict, seeking attention through conflict, or becoming clingy or needy.
3. Break The Cycle
GiphyWhile identifying triggers and self-sabotaging patterns are important steps, they can only take you so far if you don't heal yourself. When dealing with abandonment issues, it's likely that in our brokenness, we expect our partner or the person who awakened the fear to fix it. The truth is, they can't. The secret here is self-work.
How can you break self-sabotaging the cycle?
- Talk about it: Communication can truly aid in preventing some unnecessary anxiety or fears with those we maintain any kind of relationship with. Oftentimes, we create narratives in our minds that are likely untrue and then allow those thoughts to drive unhealthy behaviors. When triggered by certain situations, express calmly how you feel, using "I" statements, so that you can take ownership of those feelings and not display blame.
- Be present: One of the other things that we tend to do when we have fear of abandonment is that we focus so much on the past where the trauma happened and the future of what could happen versus being mindful and present in a relationship. Your relationship is happening right now, so put less focus on what might happen and more focus on what is happening.
- Seek therapy: I can't stress enough how important therapy will be to your overall healing, especially when it comes to abandonment issues. Abandonment is tricky and it is important that you seek the help of a mental health professional to process and work through the traumas.
Personally, this is a journey inward that I've taken on for nearly a year now. If you asked me what it looks like for me and what it has taught me, I would say that chasing emotionally unavailable men is how I self-sabotage.
I figured out that by mothering my inner child spiritually and physically by speaking life into her, respecting her boundaries, avoiding putting her in situations that could result in heartbreaks, patting her on the back when she needs a little support, holding her hand at night when she needs to feel loved, pampering her when she doesn't like the reflection she sees in the mirror—doing all of this instead of navigating life from a place of loss and void is how I engage in healthy behaviors. I'm still a work in progress, though.
Moreover, I'm learning that the end of a relationship doesn't have to feel like the world is ending. Some people aren't meant to stay in our lives forever—that's OK. If it's tempting to fight and beg for them to stay, sometimes the best we can do is just to cling to the good memories that we share and understand that those we love are free to continue walking their own path on their own terms.
Their decision to part ways with us doesn't mean that we aren't worthy of love. Quite the contrary, I like to think that it means that a better love is coming.
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America first fell in love with Eva when she graced our screens on cycle 3 of America’s Next Top Model in 2004, which she emerged as the winner. Since then, she's ventured into different avenues, from acting on various TV series like House of Payne to starring on Real Housewives of Atlanta.
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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Thinking about them kinda-sorta inspired this piece because they caused me to reflect on the times when some of my clients have come to me, semi-freaking out, and it was because their thoughts about someone had gone beyond “Hey, she’s pretty” or “Hey, he looks good.” Instead, they were starting to fantasize about certain folks, and they weren’t sure what to do about it, especially when some of those fantasies were transpiring while they were engaging in sex with someone else.
You know, it’s been reported that somewhere around 50 percent of people do indeed have fantasies about other people while having sex with another person. And that is definitely a high enough number to tackle some things about the topic here.
If you’re someone who fantasizes about other individuals, especially sexually, here’s some intel into why that could be the case, along with when it gets to the point and place where you might want to consider actually doing something about it.
What’s a Fantasy and What Exactly Causes Them?
GiphyWhenever you think of the word “fantasy,” what immediately comes to your mind?
Personally, what I find to be interesting is the fact that the dictionary says that there are actually a lot of things that can be considered a fantasy: your imagination, hallucinations, visions, ingenious inventions, illusions — I mean, there is even a genre of fiction that falls into the fantasy category. However, when it comes to what we’re going to discuss today, a psychological term for fantasy is “an imagined or conjured up sequence fulfilling a psychological need; daydream.”
And yes, before we get to the end of all of this, that definition is going to answer quite a few questions as it pertains to the topic of this particular piece. But first, more about the origin story of fantasies.
Apparently famed neurologist, Sigmund Freud spent some time analyzing fantasies and came to the conclusion that, more than anything else, a fantasy represents something that is either a suppressed urge or desire and when you stop to think about what you imagine, what your visions are, what you may long to invent — that certainly tracks. However, something that you should also keep in mind about fantasies is that, oftentimes, they are rooted in few boundaries and can even go well beyond what is considered to be reality (which is something that is based on facts and truth).
Oh, something else that needs to be kept in mind about fantasies is that they are typically relied on as a mental form of escape from something or someone (bookmark that).
And now that fantasies are more clearly defined, if your immediate question is, “Is it wrong to fantasize?” — no, I certainly don’t think that. What I do believe, based on what a fantasy is, though, is if you are fantasizing a lot about a particular person, place, thing or idea, it would be a good idea to ponder why that is the case — why is that a suppressed desire for you, why are you using that as a mental escape and perhaps, the most important question of all, does your fantasy come with any limits?
Now let’s build on top of this…
Now What Causes Folks to Fantasize About Other People?
GiphyAs I was doing more research on the topic of fantasies, I came across an article entitled, “What Happens In Our Brains When We Fantasize About Someone.” The author of it started the piece out by talking about a cool connection that she made with someone on a plane, only for her to find herself fantasizing about him once they parted ways. As she went deeper into her story, she mentioned a word that definitely needs to be shared here: heuristics.
If you’re not familiar with it, heuristics is simply a mental shortcut. For instance, if you find yourself needing to make a quick decision (check out “Before You Make A Life-Altering Decision, Read This.”), you may rely on heuristics to do it (even if it’s subconsciously). The challenge with that is oftentimes heuristics will only provide you with a limited amount of data and information, and relying only on that could cause you to not make the best choice, if you’re not careful. And boy, when heuristics jump into your fantasy space — well, something that immediately comes to my mind is celebrity culture.
Ain’t it wild how people will be on social media, speaking so confidently, about someone—or someone’s relationship—as if they personally know them (when they absolutely don’t)? I mean, just because someone is attractive or you’ve seen them carry themselves well in an interview or two, that doesn’t automatically mean that they are the ideal person or that they are someone to set your own dating standards by. If you’re not careful, though, heuristics and fantasies may encourage you to think otherwise.
That’s because the combo will try and get your brain to jump to all sorts of conclusions and, if you don’t keep that in check, it could result in you making premature, counterproductive, or even straight-up reckless decisions — because remember, a fantasy tends to be about suppressing an urge or desire.
Honestly, whether you are in a relationship or not, if you are fantasizing about a particular individual, understanding why you are doing that should definitely be explored.
However, if you are with someone and you’re fantasizing about someone else, you really shouldn’t ignore what is transpiring because, although by definition, there’s a good chance that whatever and whomever you are fantasizing about will never come to pass, the fact that it’s taking up some of your mental and emotional space, that needs to be acknowledged. Because if there is something that you want or need, and you seem to believe that your fantasies are better at supplying that for you than the reality of your relationship, why is that?
Let’s keep going…
What Does (or Could) It Mean If You Fantasize About Someone Else During Sex?
GiphyIt’s pretty common that a random song will come to mind whenever I’m writing an article. Today? It was Guy’s “My Fantasy.” Then a sitcom did — King of Queens, and the episode when Doug and Carrie were talking about his sexual fantasies. The song is about images that the fellas randomly have about beautiful women. The episode was about Carrie wanting to dictate to Doug what and whom he could fantasize about because some of his sexual fantasies made her feel uncomfortable or intimidated.
And both of these are a pretty solid intro into whether there is something wrong with sexually fantasizing about someone, especially while having sex with someone else. Well, before getting into all of that, I think another article that I read on the topic brings up a pretty good point — that it’s important to think about where your fantasies are coming from: your imagination, things you see on social media, porn that you may have watched, people who you actually know…and if it’s the latter, is it someone from your past or someone from your present?
Yeah, knowing the source of your fantasies can definitely help you to understand how “deep” into your fantasies you might be.
What I mean by that is, seeing a beautiful man one time and randomly thinking about what it would be like to have sex with him on some beach vacation is quite different than constantly thinking about your ex, the sex you used to have with him and then fantasizing about it For one thing, the beautiful guy, you will probably never have access to. That ex, though? Well, at the very least, that is a bit more realistic, right?
Then there’s the fact that, again, a fantasy is a suppressed urge or desire. When it comes to the beautiful man, is it his looks that you long for, or is it something deeper? And that ex of yours? Lawd, now why, when you have your own man in your own bed, is your ex “scratching some sort of itch”? Because we all know what they say — “he’s your ex for a reason,” so why is he creeping up into your intimacy space now that the relationship is over? Is something unresolved?
Are there sexual needs that he met that your current partner isn’t (check out “You Love Him. You Prefer Sex With Your Ex. What Should You Do?”)? Is something currently transpiring in your current relationship that you are using fantasies about your ex to escape from?
You see, although when it comes to the topic of fantasizing about others when you’re having sex with someone else might seem like the a cut-and-dried, “Don’t do it, end of discussion” — as someone who works with couples for a living, I think the bigger concern isn’t if another guy comes into your mind during sex with your partner…it’s more about WHY is that happening to begin with. Because if you need to escape from where you are, if you can’t be present with your partner, something is definitely up.
When Should You Be Concerned About the Fantasies You Are Having?
GiphyDuring the last several months of breaking up (because we all know that sometimes breaking up is a process) with the last boyfriend whom I will have in this lifetime, I recall fantasizing about other people while having sex with him. It’s because I really wasn’t attracted to or interested in him, sexually, anymore — but I was a bit fearful of what it would mean to let the entire relationship go.
And boy, is that a huge red flag because I wasn’t fantasizing about some random famous person one time during sex — I was relying on images, my imagination, and previous experiences with other people to literally get me through the act. NOT. GOOD.
Y’all, one of the greatest and most profound forms of communication and connection between two people is sexual intimacy, and so, when it transpires, it really should only be about the two of them. That said, should you freak out over a thought about someone who creeps up into your mind every once in a while? Chile, more people have that happen than they will ever admit out loud.
On the other hand, should you worry if you’re like I was? I’ll put it this way — you should definitely be concerned because the last thing that you should be feeling during sex with someone is like you are suppressing what you need and/or that you want to escape from the moments that you are experiencing with them.
And yet, if that is indeed the case, though, what should you do?
Start with doing some sex journaling. Write down your fantasies, the sources of them, and why you are leaning on them in this season (check out “The Art Of Sex Journaling (And Why You Should Do It)”). If they are tied to unrealistic situations, be real with yourself about that. If they are rooted in potential possibilities, do some journaling about how much you are “feeding into” that reality and what you think would be the wisest way to move forward, both for your sake as well as your relationship.
Talk to your partner. Each relationship is different, and so, while I’m not going to recommend that everyone just blurt out that they’ve been thinking about having sex with their co-worker or college sweetheart while having sex with their partner, I do think that the suppressed urges and desires (in general) should be mentioned. Sometimes, fantasies are birthed out of boredom (check out “If You're Not Having Great Sex, This Is (Probably) Why” and “Common Sex Problems Couples Have (& How To Fix 'Em)”) and doing something like creating a sex bucket list (check out “This Is How To Create The Best Kind Of ‘Sex Bucket List’”) can breathe new life into your bedroom.
Plus, sharing some of your deepest thoughts, feelings, and needs (in a kind, thoughtful, and mature way) can cultivate more emotional intimacy with your partner, and that can definitely be a good thing.
Consider seeing a sex therapist. If, after doing both of these things, the fantasies seem to be getting stronger and louder, you might need to make an appointment with a reputable sex therapist (check out “Have You Ever Wondered If You Should See A Sex Therapist?”). They may be able to help you to “connect some dots” about what’s going on that you wouldn’t have considered without their help, because sex therapists are trained in helping individuals sort out the mental and emotional sides of intimacy, not just the physical ones.
____
Are fantasies bad? They aren’t. However, when it comes to sexual ones, a quote by Benjamin Franklin absolutely comes to mind: “If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.”
And that, right there, should be a guiding message for how you should process the fantasies that you do have.
Amen? Sho’ you right.
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