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Coping With Abandonment

The most impressionable time in an individual's life is from birth to about five years. In these first few years a child's personality is most significantly influenced by his surroundings. It is during this time that his paradigms begin to be established. Since the strongest influences during this time are usually a child's parents and extended family, this is where we must begin our examination of the origins of the Nice Guy Syndrome.
There are two important facts we must understand about children. First, when children come into the world they are totally helpless. They are dependent on others to recognize and respond to their needs in a timely, judicious manner. As a result of this dependency, every child's greatest fear is abandonment. To children, abandonment means death.
Second, children are ego-centered. This means that they inherently believe they are the center of the universe and everything revolves around them. Therefore, they believe that they are the cause of
everything that happens to them.
These two factors — their fear of abandonment and their ego-centeredness — create a very powerful dynamic for all children. Whenever a child experiences any kind of abandonment he will always believe that he is the cause of what has happened to him. These abandonment experiences might include any of the following experiences:
● He is hungry and no one feeds him. ● He cries and no one holds him. ● He is lonely and no one pays attention to him. ● A parent gets angry at him. ● A parent neglects him. ● A parent puts unrealistic expectations on him. ● A parent uses him to gratify his or her own needs. ● A parent shames him. ● A parent hits him. ● A parent doesn't want him. ● A parent leaves him and doesn't come back in a timely manner.
Because every child is born into an imperfect world and into an imperfect family, every child has abandonment experiences. Even though their belief that they are the cause of these painful events is, in fact, an inaccurate interpretation of their life, children have no other way to understand the world.

Toxic Shame
These abandonment experiences and the naive, ego-centered interpretation of them, creates a belief in some young children that it is not acceptable for them to be who they are, just as they are. They conclude that there must be something wrong with them, which causes the important people in their lives to abandon them. They have no way of comprehending that their abandonment experiences are not caused by something about them, but by the people who are supposed to recognize and meet their needs.
This naive, ego-centered interpretation of their abandonment experiences creates a psychological state called toxic shame. Toxic shame is the belief that one is inherently bad, defective, different, or unlovable. Toxic shame is not just a belief that one does bad things, it is a deeply held core belief that one is bad.