Why I Don’t Use the Expression “Self-Abandonment” in Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Anymore

First of all, I get why this phrase is popular and salient for a lot of people: It describes the painful awareness of what happens when you leave important parts of yourself behind in favor of fitting in, appeasing another person, making a relationship work, or engaging in anything that demands conditional acceptance.

For me, this term has a subtle undertone of shame. You abandoned yourself. It holds a flavor of accusation.

As a shame-sensitive guide, my first goal is to support you in remembering yourself as whole, authentic, and worthy. Using terms like, “You self-abandoned” does not fit within my paradigm because it suggests that you have done something to yourself, when in actually you have adapted in such a way that you are unable to register or connect to the parts of yourself that need your caring attention.

Understanding Survival: Trauma and the Nervous System

From a trauma-informed perspective, this kind of disconnection is deeply tied to how our nervous system reacts under threat. When a person experiences chronic stress or abuse, especially relational trauma like narcissistic abuse, the brain and body learn to protect by shutting down or dissociating from certain feelings, needs, or parts of the self. This isn’t a moral failing or a conscious choice. It’s a biological survival response designed to keep you safe when the environment feels unsafe.

Rather than “self-abandonment,” I often refer to it as a “self-protective strategy”because this term honors the function of what happened; it wasn’t a betrayal, but a necessary survival strategy, often learned before you had the capacity to choose otherwise.

Healing from this means shifting from blame to curiosity. It means beginning to recognize these protective patterns with compassion instead of condemnation. When you start to see disconnection as a survival strategy, you can create space to gently explore what those parts of yourself need now: safety, acceptance, and care.

Perhaps this is mincing words and the outcome is still the same, but I’m more concerned about the process; How we get there.

If we drop the term “self-abandonment,” what exists in its place? The reality is that you can never abandon yourself because you are always with yourself. But you can be conditioned in such a way that prevents you from registering or even knowing you have a self. You can be trained to believe that even having a self would be blasphemous, thus why you have learned to keep the focus of the other in your mind more than your own self.

This pattern of disconnection doesn’t arise in a vacuum. It emerges from repeated relational dynamics, like narcissistic abuse, where your safety, belonging, and worth were made contingent on shrinking, appeasing, or disappearing. This wasn’t self-abandonment. This was what love required in the systems you were in.

Reframing Self-Abandonment: Compassion Over Blame

How do you feel when you hear the words, “I self-abandoned again”? Perhaps you feel a deep well of compassion, but more than not, you might feel a sense of shame…embarrassment…a sense of failure.  The beauty of this work is that your self, your real, wise, feeling self. was never gone. It was just waiting to be safe enough to reemerge. Healing isn't about scolding yourself for disappearing, but creating the conditions where self-connection feels possible again.

Just like when a part of your body goes numb in the cold, this wasn’t abandonment; it was protection. Your system did what it had to do to keep you safe from what it perceived as a threat to your survival.

What changes when you say. “I defaulted to an old survival strategy”? Suddenly, instead of blaming yourself, you see the incredible intelligence of your nervous system, and your innocence in it all.