Fear of Abandonment and Attachment Issues: How to Heal Anxious Attachment Wounds
The fear of abandonment is a type of anxiety that can have a significantly negative impact on someone’s relationships and life satisfaction. Plus, people with an anxious attachment style are more likely to fear abandonment.1
Those with this fear can struggle to trust people, have low self-esteem, and experience an extremely distressing inner monologue. However, abandonment and childhood attachment patterns can be overcome with increased awareness and sufficient support.
The first step in overcoming abandonment fears is typically exploring the past and taking small steps towards trusting others. A mental health professional is well placed to guide you or someone you care about on this path. This article also explores this topic thoroughly, discussing:
- What the fear of abandonment is, including its signs and causes
- How attachment styles can impact the fear of abandonment
- Which mental health conditions cause abandonment fears
- Overcoming fear of abandonment in therapy
What Is a Fear of Abandonment?
In a nutshell, the fear of abandonment is a type of anxiety. For example, someone may fear being rejected, discarded, or simply left by people they love. It is a typical symptom of insecure attachment styles and certain mental health conditions. This is because, often, people who fear abandonment have been emotionally wounded in childhood and are deeply attuned to a fear of being wounded again.
As a result of past experiences, someone’s inner monologue may be dominated by fear of abandonment, driving them to engage in behaviors that aim to avoid or prevent being abandoned. For instance, some people may sabotage their relationships to feel a sense of control over how they end. Therefore, it’s clear that abandonment fears can create many challenges within relationships.
Next, we’ll explore the signs that abandonment fears are present and impacting someone’s life.
Signs Someone Fears Abandonment
If someone has a fear of abandonment, the most obvious signs show up in their close relationships. The following are some fear of abandonment symptoms in adults:
- Ruminating about being left alone
- Feeling anxious about normal separations and departures
- Having strong negative feelings when reuniting with loved ones (for example, indifference or agitation)
- Needing frequent reassurance from loved ones
- Clinginess, neediness, and wanting to spend all their time with someone
- Doubting reassurance from others and struggling to trust
- Feeling jealous or possessive over loved ones
- Making themselves “indispensable” to someone (such as being extremely helpful or supportive)
- Being a people pleaser and prioritizing other people’s needs
- Feeling inadequate and insecure
- Resisting intimacy and vulnerability
In terms of relationship patterns, a fear of abandonment can cause varying behaviors. For some people, it might look like staying in unhealthy relationships because they simply can’t face being alone. They might also move on very quickly to new partners because they want to avoid being single.
On the other hand, some people’s fear of abandonment could drive them to sabotage their relationships. They may fear getting too attached to someone, as it makes abandonment more of a likelihood, so they look for reasons to leave. For example, they might hold partners to unachievable high standards. When they inevitably fail to live up to these, the person with abandonment fears takes back control and leaves on their own terms.
Interestingly, one study found that people who strongly fear abandonment also often experience psychosomatic symptoms. These are physical health symptoms (such as headaches, fatigue, or stomach pains) that aren’t caused by a medical condition. Instead, they’re triggered by emotional stress.2
You may recognize these signs in yourself or someone close to you, but what causes this strong anxiety in close relationships?
What Is the Root Cause of Fear of Abandonment?
Abandonment fears are closely tied to attachment wounds. In early childhood, the attachment we form to our primary caregivers is essential in establishing a sense of security in our future relationships. If someone’s needs are dismissed or met erratically in childhood, they’ll doubt that people will truly be able to support them in adulthood. For example, they may feel unworthy of love and that neglect is inevitable, and struggle to regulate their own emotions.
Attachment wounds can be caused by caregivers who dismiss and reject their children’s needs. They can also be caused by the death of a loved one, as losing a significant person at an early age may plant the idea that anyone could suddenly leave and never come back.
Additionally, research finds that children are more likely to fear abandonment if they witness conflict between their parents. This risk is greater when parents separate or divorce; children may worry they’ll be abandoned by both or one of their parents. Even if abandonment is unlikely in this scenario, these children have already experienced a significant shift in their family dynamic, sowing the seed of possible further negative changes.3
Finally, for some people, a fear of abandonment may be caused by actual abandonment. When children are left, neglected, or abused, they can experience rejection and loss of love as a self-shaming experience. Being emotionally or physically abandoned not only increases the fear of abandonment in adulthood, but also causes adults to carry feelings of shame and low self-worth.5
Typically, fear of abandonment comes hand in hand with insecure attachment. We’ll explore this connection further next.
What Attachment Styles Fear Being Abandoned?
People’s attachment styles can influence the way fear of abandonment manifests. While anxiously attached people are typically driven to seek closeness, avoidantly attached individuals seek distance. Further, people with a disorganized attachment style (fearful avoidant in adulthood) often switch between wanting closeness and distance.
To break these patterns down further, people who are avoidantly attached tend to withdraw from intimacy and prefer to be self-resilient. They do so because they do not believe close relationships will truly meet their emotional needs and struggle to feel safe in proximity to others.
On the occasions when someone with avoidant attachment does ask for help, it likely feels highly uncomfortable for them. They may feel rejected or abandoned before someone’s even had the chance to support them. Such patterns come down to a fear of commitment, which disguises their fear of abandonment; if they never get too close, they’ll never be properly abandoned.
Anxiously attached people are more likely to fear abandonment than others. This attachment style is characterized by feeling very negatively about oneself, but feeling extremely positive about romantic partners. People with this style may question their self-worth, worry about partners leaving, and act vigilantly toward any signs that a relationship is failing. Unfortunately, anxiously attached people can sometimes smother their partners by constantly seeking reassurance and security.4
When anxious people are actually abandoned, this can activate their attachment system and drive more behaviors that seek reassurance, proximity, and support. These behaviors aren’t necessarily directed at the romantic partners; they could also be aimed at other attachment figures, like parents or close friends.4
In regard to fearful avoidant attachment, people may alternate between anxious and avoidant traits depending on their unique circumstances and experiences.
Fear of Abandonment in Mental Health Conditions
While fear of abandonment isn’t a clinical diagnosis, it can be a symptom of several mood and personality disorders. For example, fearing abandonment can show up in many types of anxiety disorders, like separation anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and specific phobias.6
Fear of abandonment is predominantly an anxiety because it causes irrational thinking and assumptions, rumination of negative outcomes, and catastrophizing. However, depression may also be a cause and outcome of fear of abandonment. For example, people with depression may feel unworthy of love and reject loved ones to avoid feeling rejected by them.
Abandonment fears can also be a prominent feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD).6 BPD causes people to suffer instability in mood, sense of identity, and relationships. It’s thought to be caused by adverse childhood experiences that harm early attachments and sense of self.7
When someone seeks treatment for their abandonment fears, it may be useful to be curious about what mental health issues may be influencing them.
Overcoming Abandonment Anxiety in Therapy
If you’re thinking about therapy for your fear of abandonment, there is a wide range of options for you to discuss your relationship patterns and early childhood experiences.
For example, attachment therapy for fear of abandonment may be an ideal option if you feel your insecure attachment style is at the center of your abandonment anxiety. Therapists with specialist understandings of attachment can explore how your early experiences of caregiving impacted your beliefs and expectations about love. They may ask about your romantic relationships so far to understand how your past is impacting your present. They’ll also offer a safe space for you to talk about painful memories and come to an understanding about your needs. Further, you’ll be helped to cultivate new ways of coping with your abandonment fears, self-soothing after triggering events, and strategies for handling relationship difficulties.
Additionally, you might be interested in couples therapy for abandonment anxiety and attachment issues. In this kind of therapy, both you and your partner will be able to explore your personal histories in a non-judgmental space. The therapist won’t assign blame; they’ll help you understand how both of you contribute to your dynamic. You’ll come away with constructive strategies for handling rocky moments in your relationship when abandonment and attachment insecurities cause friction.
Mission Connection: Get Support for Fear of Abandonment
Having abandonment anxiety in your relationships can be extremely painful, lonely, and distressing. On top of this, experiencing attachment insecurity or a mental health condition can make relationships feel consistently challenging and unsafe.
At Mission Connection, we understand how abandonment issues in romantic relationships can affect the quality of your life. Our team of licensed therapists offers a range of therapies and mental health support for abandonment trauma and attachment insecurity. Get in touch to learn about our services and how we can help you overcome the fear of abandonment today.
References
- Kochendorfer, L. B., & LaBuda, J. E. (2024). Attachment. Encyclopedia of Adolescence (Second Edition), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-96023-6.00086-5
- Lai , W. . (2025). Fear of Abandonment and Psychosomatic Symptoms: The Mediating Role of Attachment Insecurity. Journal of Personality and Psychosomatic Research (JPPR), 3(2), 39-47. https://journals.kmanpub.com/index.php/jppr/article/view/4253
- Arizona State University. (2021, January 13). Conflict between divorced parents can lead to mental health problems in children, study finds. ScienceDaily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210112110157.htm
- Simpson, J. A., & Rholes, W. S. (2017). Adult attachment, stress, and romantic relationships. Current Opinion in Psychology, 13, 19–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.04.006
- Marici, M., Clipa, O., Runcan, R., & Pîrghie, L. (2023). Is Rejection, Parental Abandonment or Neglect a Trigger for Higher Perceived Shame and Guilt in Adolescents? Healthcare, 11(12), 1724. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11121724
- Feriante, J., Bernstein, B., & Torrico, T. (2023, February 26). Separation anxiety disorder. PubMed; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK560793/
- Chapman, J., Jamil, R. T., & Fleisher, C. (2024). Borderline personality disorder. National Library of Medicine; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430883/
