You were introduced to Jeff’s facing his rage in Part One of this series and observed his introduction to feeling abandoned in Part Two.   The issue of abandonment moves forward here.

Hi this is Jeff here and I want to share the continual evolution of my emotional world.

The fear of abandonment lives on and perhaps has become more intense as I grow older. I am not sure why this is happening, but I think it would be a good idea to allow myself to sink into this world where I am fearful of being discarded in an effort to understand it. The sense of abandonment produces scary pain that quickly turns into rage. This will inevitably cause my wife Julia to leave me and I cannot abide by this nightmare. More importantly, I know that I need to change for me because not being reactive will make me a better man.

I feel like I am so desperate to make a difference in the world and that I will be taken out of it before I get my chance to do so. I want to heal others and I am actually pretty good at healing others emotional pain. I’m not so good at dealing with my own stuff.

I am spending lots of time examining what happens to me when I feel abandoned and I wonder where it originated. I think my first real experience of this was when I was thirteen years old when my father suddenly died of a heart attack. I didn’t really have a great relationship with him. He was impatient and physically abusive. Of course I never had the opportunity to improve this situation.

He was here one minute and gone the next. His presence in the room suddenly vanished. I was in shock and I couldn’t feel the magnitude of this loss. Maybe I never have and perhaps I need to feel the weight of this trauma. I want to heal and not be triggered every time I feel like I am going to be left behind. Even though I wasn’t getting along with my dad, his death shattered my innocence and caused me to emotionally hunker down and futilely attempt to protect myself from any potential loss. My father’s death combined with his beating me somehow created an ingrained belief that I was a horrible person. This caused me to be forever hypervigilant and scan the environment for signs that people were about to leave and hurt me.  I would worry endlessly that I was committing some offensive act that was repellent. I was sure friends and lovers didn’t like me and even though they seemed to enjoy my company; that one day they would find out that I was a phony-that I was not really the dependable, honest person they thought I was. They would discover that I was really rotten to the core. This is how I actually saw myself for many years. Then they would unceremoniously leave me all by myself. I was so afraid I would be friendless and without a partner. I was beginning to understand that being abandoned and abused were the underlying reasons for feeling this way.

I never saw my dad while he was dying or when he was dead. The powers that be wanted to protect children from the reality of death. The lack of opportunity to say good-bye exacerbated this sense of abandonment. I felt the void of not having a father, all that was left was an empty space where a man who provided security used to be.

I often imagine myself being all alone, homeless and sitting on a sidewalk. My hair is disheveled and my clothes are filthy. Being all alone had caused me to give up on life and now I was wallowing in a world of drugs, alcohol and self-degradation. I had no future, just a messed up past and no direction.

This visual image flooded my brain every day and I realize that I truly believed that I didn’t deserve the goodness that life could bring. No, I was a loser always fighting losing battles and continually doing my best to destroy my marriage. What kind of boy is angry at his father during the time he dies? A despicable person, that’s who.

After every anger incident I would have with Julia, I became guilt ridden and hopeless.   I would beat myself up and wonder why I was such a jerk. I was in hell and saw no way out.

Exercise helped me and I read this great book by Bob Livingstone called The Body, Mind, Soul Solution: Healing Emotional Pain through Exercise. I discovered long distance running and I used techniques in the book to face my fear of abandonment.

I was running and listening to the first song that flowed angrily through the headphones was a live version of Lou Reed’s Dirty Boulevard. Lou sings out, “Have you ever had rage in your heart?” The answer was yes and I felt a combination of rage and despair rip through my very being.

The mood changed.

Donny Hathaway’s version of Leon Russell’s A Song for You came up next. It was beautiful and the love I felt for Julia at this moment was stronger than anything I ever experienced.

Suddenly I had this vision of my father standing in front of me laughing and then holding his chest and then he was gone-vanished. The pain on his face caused me to cry from the gut and I almost lost my breath.   I could see myself as a thirteen year old looking like a young traumatized ghost. I felt so sorry for this teenager. His dad left him at such an early age and he would never see him again. I saw the thirteen year old version of me reach out to his dad and hold his dead body in his arms. The tears were rushing down my face. I realized that I have been trying to find answers to all the questions I had about his death and somehow I would find closure. I now understand that this will never happen and grief is always evolving and closure is a myth, but there is no need to live immersed in a storm cloud either.

I am now listening to Mary J. Blige’s Each Tear and the tears are coming down like rain. It is time to find a therapist to help me. I don’t have to be afraid of being abandoned. I can learn to deal with being abused as a child. It wasn’t my fault my father hit me. Having those you love leave is a normal part of life. I have been so afraid that I would collapse if I was left alone. I haven’t considered that I could grieve and heal from my loses. Life will go on. It will be painful and frightening, but I will get through it and be even stronger than before. Instead of being my worst enemy, I can become my own best friend.

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