I have a fear of abandonment.
I only recently came to recognize it.
I've heard the term "abandonment issues" many times in my life, always uttered by other people. I pictured a clingy ex-girlfriend unwilling to accept that her boyfriend has moved on. (That's usually the actual situation when I hear the term used, actually).
I didn't really realize abandonment issues was actually a
thing until recently.
I've actually been 'abandoned' by friends several times during my life.
They just stop texting or calling one day. My replies get read, of course, but that's as far as it goes. I'm left to wonder if I did or said something to offend them - where things went wrong.
I've ended friendships
mutually several times, and while it is hard, it's easier when you know why the friendship was terminated.
Not knowing sucks, and when you have abandonment fears, it sucks even more.
Ironically, in almost every case, the friendships that were mysteriously ended returned - when
they were ready. They just popped back into my life one day like they'd never left. My search for answers was fruitless - it was almost as if
they didn't know why they'd written me out of their lives and then written me back in. I had to laugh when one of them posted a status on her Facebook page about her irritation with someone who "just stopped talking for no reason." I replied with a comment: "Been there." She liked my comment. I'm not sure if she even got the reference.
I try to keep it hidden, utilizing 'defense mechanisms' to prevent abandonment that, when I look back and analyze them, seem fucking ridiculous.
I've abysat dozens of people, most within our community, but I've religiously staved off actual relationships since my early days here. If you ever expressed an interest in taking things further than an abysitting session and I pushed you away - you know who you are - it had nothing to do with you - it was my way of coping with this fear: don't let people get too close, and they can't leave you hanging. I didn't realize why I was like this until recently, but I've begun to understand it now.
The vast majority of vanilla people important in my life - 99.999999% probably - are close friends, lifetime friends, friendships I have little doubt will last forever.
And within our community, most of the people who I get to know eventually become friends - close friends, sometimes. I have two 'little bro's' and a 'little', even. Some of my best friends are people I've met in the context of an abysitting session, or at a con.
That's not to say that there haven't been friendships here that faded. A friend I texted with on a daily basis for a while found some new friends and stopped texting me to appease them. Another who was my hours-long phone call buddy for several years, but went on to get a boyfriend and was, from that point on, "really busy" - too busy to make that call. There have been a few others - you, also, know who you are.
Truthfully, I'm not special.
Many of us have been abandoned - it's the nature of our community.
I know I'm far from alone in this. The binge/purge cycles we all love to practice makes the abandonment rate pretty fucking high here, and if some of us didn't have a fear of abandonment before finding out about our community, we probably do now.
I've talked to littles abandoned when daddy moved on to a younger, fresher model. What they are feeling is sadness, loneliness, hopelessness even. What they are feeling is abandonment.
I spoke to a friend who was ostracized by his 'crew' at a diaper event, after he said something that offended one person and they, in typically gay ABDL catty form, began a secret, behind-the-scenes campaign to exclude him from the rest of the week.
I've talked to people who were excluded by members of their local community - and I've been one of those people, myself. Hearing people you've messaged for years tell you that they want to meet but you have to promise not to let the local diaper daddies find out - ugh.
If you've been in our community for a while you've read these stories in the forums. It happens so often I sometimes roll my eyes and say "Wow, another one?"
But in each of these cases the people are real. And the sorrow they are feeling at that moment, it's real too.
I feel like the sting you feel when someone in the community 'abandons' you stings so much worse than when it's a non-ABDL friendship.
The connections we make are intense, sometimes. The bonds we build are strong. We are messaging, or texting, or talking, or snuggling with someone else who understands the way we are. That person may have brought out our little side for the first time. Or they may have made us feel some other type of way. And when they disappear, the pit you feel in your stomach when a vanilla friend is freezing you out feels more like a punch in the gut.
I've had young people in our community reach out to me in the middle of the night because they're contemplating suicide after being dumped by their daddy. That's actually happened a few times. I've spoken on the phone to people who describe their situation, and I've thought to myself - if I was this kid's 'big bro', I'd never do him like that.
Except I probably wouldn't be, because I push relationships like that away.
Fear of abandonment.
What's most ironic, I think, is that fear of abandonment is thought to be caused by the same thing that some of us believe causes us to first begin to develop an attachment to diapers.
From GoodTherapy.org:
Abandonment fears typically stem from childhood loss, such as the loss of a parent through death or divorce, but they can also result from inadequate physical or emotional care. These early-childhood experiences can lead to a fear of being abandoned by the significant people in one's adult life.
I was adopted. My first six months or so were spent in foster care, in a very busy foster home.
As I've researched the reasons for the way we are why we are I've come to the conclusion that my diaper fetish was caused, at least in part, by my development of an attachment to diapers as an infant - they were soft, sometimes dry, and comforting - and that may have been the only true comfort I felt.
Diapers were imprinted into my brain. I truly never stopped wearing them.
I had amazing parents (following the adoption), and never lacked adequate physical or emotional care after age 1, but even as a little kid I had a constant, unspoken fear that I would be cast off if I fucked up. I couldn't explain it - I just felt it. It never really went away.
The more I've read on the topic of abandonment issues, the more I wonder if that first year had more of an effect on me than I could ever realize.
How many friendships have I allowed to die because I am afraid the other person is going to end it first?
How many serious relationships might have developed were I not so quick to shut the possibility of one down?
How many times would I not have been depressed by someone purging, or their need to focus on the 'adult' part of their life, or just them simply being busy, misconstruing those unreturned texts or calls for the early stages of abandonment?
I'll probably never know.
But I'm beginning to understand why I am the way that I am - and what may have caused it.
And I'm realizing that it needs to change...
This blog entry wasn't sexy. It really didn't involve diapers, and it certainly didn't show any adorable diaper photos, or anything of that nature.
But I have been meaning to write it for a while.
In the near future I'll be writing several blog entries on depression and other mental illnesses that affect some in our community - how a diaper fetish may contribute, and how it may be an effective coping mechanism, too.
I'll be sharing some intensely personal details of my time growing up, and I'll be inviting others to share, as well.
Today, I wanted to get this one thing out of the way.
If I've ever pushed you away, limiting us from anything more serious than a diaper change or a good phone conversation, I probably didn't give you a reason. Fear of abandonment is the reason.
If I've ever taken your failure to return a text or call more seriously than you think it warrants, and you didn't understand why, fear of abandonment is why.
If anyone else suffers from this, I'd be interested to hear from you, in the comments below or in my inbox.
And if you're one of the people I referenced in my inbox, hit me up.
My next blog entry will return to the normal diaper stuff you expect to see here.
But, for today, a little glimpse into me.
More to come...
