Abandonment syndrome: what it is, symptoms, how to treat it and more!

Known as monophobia or autophobia, the fear of abandonment is something more common than you might think. Characterized by an intense fear of being alone that, when not dosed, can lead to serious disorders, this dysfunction significantly affects daily life due to its connection with anxiety.

Thus, when the individual finds himself in a situation that can lead him to loneliness, he begins to feel anxious and suffer from the possibility of being abandoned. Given this, the person suffering from monophobia may end up developing relationships of emotional dependence.

Throughout the article, more details about the abandonment syndrome will be commented. If you want to know more about it, continue reading the article.

The abandonment syndrome has several recognizable symptoms, which allow those who suffer from the dysfunction to be able to identify it to seek professional help. Among these symptoms, anguish, aggressiveness, difficulty trusting people and self-deprecation stand out.

Next, more details about the symptoms of the abandonment syndrome will be commented. If you want to know more about it, continue reading the article.

Monophobes are constantly distressed by the fear of being left by their partners. This causes them to begin to “suffer in anticipation” in the face of the possibility, even though they have nothing concrete to support their theory that they will be abandoned.

This whole process tends to trigger the aggressiveness of people who suffer from the disorder. In this way, they begin to think that they should abandon their partners before being abandoned in order to avoid the suffering that being alone will certainly cause in their lives.

Boundless demands are quite common in monophobic people. This is a way to establish dominance and make your partner always comply with your desires. However, this process is not easy for the person who suffers from abandonment syndrome because it is something unconscious.

In fact, she doesn’t even know that she is demanding too much from her partners because she is not aware of how much affection and effort it takes for him to stay by her side. Therefore, it is something that causes damage to both parties in the relationship.

In addition to the issue of demands, monophobes can show contempt for the feelings of others. As they don’t know how to deal with their own and don’t even understand that they are asking too much of people, they end up not seeing what this behavior causes in those around them. Thus, they are people insensitive to the suffering they cause.

They can end up becoming tyrants if they believe they are not getting what they should. However, they never speak openly about their desires and expect those around them to be able to guess what would make them happy.

Distrust can also be understood as a symptom of the abandonment syndrome. This happens because as the monophobic person lives under the constant affliction of being left by people, he cannot establish trust because he believes that at any moment he will be betrayed with abandonment.

This type of belief tends to generate paranoid behavior. Thus, people suffering from the syndrome think that others are always trying to deceive them with their words and may end up considering all attitudes directed at them, even the kindest ones, as attempts at deception.

Punctuality is very important for monophobic people, whether it’s about meetings with their partners or about care situations, such as in doctors’ offices. Having to wait for someone to get somewhere, especially if they are alone, is something that triggers a feeling of anxiety.

Thus, this feeling turns into the certainty that her partner will not appear and she will be exposed to the eyes of people who are in the same environment as someone who was abandoned. A situation like this can easily turn the monophobic into a vindictive person.

A person with abandonment syndrome constantly needs their partner to reaffirm the love they feel for them. And even if he is always ready to give you more and more elaborate proofs of this feeling, that will not be enough. Monophobia causes people not to be able to feel satisfied.

Therefore, once the monophobic person realizes that his partner fulfills his demands and does everything to show his affection, what he will do is ask for more and more to try to satisfy himself.

People who suffer from abandonment syndrome, in general, have self-esteem issues and cannot see their own qualities. This is exactly why they need so much external validation, either from their partners or their family members. Furthermore, they become demanding in order to disguise their own self-loathing.

As they are constantly putting themselves down, monophobes try to do this to the people around them so that others don’t realize that, in fact, they don’t have a good image of themselves.

For a person who suffers from the abandonment syndrome, dependency can come easily. Their relationships are always guided by this characteristic, as they are afraid of being left by the people they like exactly because they need them to feel validated – even if this is never actually accomplished due to their dissatisfaction.

This is also why monophobes make a point of knowing everything about their partner’s lives and inserting themselves into every detail of it. However, while doing so, they keep their lives a secret.

Outburst situations are quite common in people with monophobia. In general, they are the result of despair. Whenever they feel closer to being dumped, they adopt this behavior to try to disguise their fear of what they believe will happen. Also, if someone tries to comfort the monophobic, he can become aggressive.

These scenarios can even trigger self-devaluation crises, as demonstrating their fear so explicitly will make the person with abandonment syndrome feel inferior to others for exposing their needs so openly.

Jealousy is one of the symptoms of the abandonment syndrome and highlights individuals who see others as people who exist to satisfy their social needs. Therefore, these people cannot have moments alongside others. It is a selfish movement that disregards the will of third parties.

Thus, in the case of romantic relationships, even if those who suffer from the syndrome are able to understand that their partner has an independent life, this is relegated to the background of their needs, since the role of the partner is only to meet their demands.

Faced with the jealousy caused by monophobia, those who suffer from this disorder tend to feel very angry. Therefore, your love relationships are based on a love-hate relationship with your partner. Although he is a person for whom the bearer of the abandonment syndrome nurtures positive feelings, at the same time he starts to feel hatred due to the fear of being left out.

It is noteworthy that there is some guilt involved in this process of hating the partner. However, it is minimal. What prevails is the need to have someone around.

People who suffer from abandonment syndrome are in a constant state of alert. This happens because they cannot imagine when they will be left and therefore they always feel apprehensive about this issue. As in most situations there is no clear sign of this, monophobes become agitated people who are in constant discomfort.

Due to the highlighted facts, your body can go through changes. In general, space is opened for imaginary illnesses to arise due to the feeling of apprehension.

It is possible to detect the causes of abandonment syndrome through some registry causes, which can be duly identified by a psychologist or psychoanalyst. Thus, based on this identification, it is possible to better understand what makes the person so afraid of being abandoned by others.

Next, some causes of abandonment syndrome will be addressed. If you want to know more about it, continue reading the article.

Traumas can be considered the main catalyst for monophobia. In general, they are linked to the period of childhood, in which the child deals with his first abandonment and, for not having the necessary tools to process it, ends up not being able to overcome the experience. So, as she tries to repress the memory so as not to suffer, the negative effect ends up accumulating.

Thus, this has repercussions in adult life and can trigger the abandonment syndrome. Therefore, it is very important to do professional follow-up with a psychologist so that traumas can be properly treated.

Anxiety is a complex and difficult subject to approach. However, it is directly linked to monophobia and may be one of the main reasons for the appearance of this dysfunction. This usually happens because the fear of being abandoned can be reproduced during an anxiety disorder regardless of its form.

Thus, the relationship between the two things is quite ambiguous, since both can be placed both as a cause and as a consequence of the situation. What matters is that there is a tension that needs to be resolved so that the person is no longer afraid of being alone.

It is common for people to feel desperate in the face of the possibility of being left when their emotions are shaken in some way or have not been fully developed. In scenarios where the partner is a kind of emotional comfort for other areas of life, this can become even more serious.

In addition, on the issue of emotional immaturity, it is important to emphasize the difficulty of honest dialogue resulting from the abandonment syndrome, which can end up creating an unnecessary distance between the two people.

Treatment for abandonment syndrome is an exercise and must be done with the help of a psychologist.