The Sin of Self-Abandonment

The High-Functioning Woman’s Addiction to Being Needed

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” — Proverbs 4:23

There are some wounds that don’t just break your heart…

They rewire your nervous system.

They reshape the way you love.

The way you trust.

The way you attach.

The way you survive.

And if those wounds go unhealed long enough, you eventually begin abandoning yourself trying to avoid being abandoned by everybody else.

That’s the convHERsation we need to have.

Because many high-functioning women are not just battling exhaustion…

We are battling the survival patterns created by unresolved abandonment.

And if I’m honest?

I had abandonment wounds long before I ever had language for them.

Imagine being 18 years old.

The daughter of a respected Church of God in Christ pastor and first lady.

Raised in church.

Raised with standards.

Raised with expectations.

Raised believing love meant protection, covering, commitment, and honor.

Now imagine being pregnant by the baby son of a prominent Baptist and entrepreneurial family — a young man who had promised you the world.

You’re young.

In love.

Hopeful.

Scared.

Trying to figure life out.

Then comes the “big announcement.”

Families gathered.

Tension thick in the room.

Your entire future feeling like it’s hanging in the balance.

And in the middle of your parents’ living room…

in front of everybody…

the person who promised to love and protect you says:

“If the baby’s mine.”

Whew.

I don’t care how strong a woman appears today…

there are certain moments in life that mark you.

And that moment marked me.

The humiliation.

The rejection.

The confusion.

The emotional abandonment.

It planted something deep in me:

the fear of not being chosen,

not being protected,

not being safe emotionally.

And what’s wild is…

I would later marry the very person who abandoned me emotionally in one of the most vulnerable seasons of my life.

And the saga began.

Because unresolved abandonment has a way of teaching women dangerous survival skills.

You learn how to overperform for love.

How to over give for security.

How to over function so nobody can say you’re not worthy enough to stay for.

You become hyper independent emotionally while simultaneously starving for reassurance.

And the scary part?

High-functioning women get rewarded for these survival patterns.

People praise the woman who keeps showing up no matter how wounded she is.

So I kept showing up.

Through grief.

Through betrayal.

Through ministry wounds.

Through family fractures.

Through leadership pressure.

Through emotional exhaustion.

I poured every single drop of myself into:

my children,

my husband,

my mother after losing my father,

my community,

my nonprofit work,

my businesses,

my ministry,

and every woman connected to me.

Everybody had access to me.

Everybody could pull from me.

And because I was “strong,” nobody stopped to ask:

“But who is taking care of HER?”

Truthfully?

I had normalized self-abandonment.

I thought constantly sacrificing myself made me loving.

Made me loyal.

Made me Christlike.

Whole time…

I was emotionally disappearing.

And the deeper I healed, the more God revealed something life changing to me:

Self-abandonment is not humility.

It is not purpose.

It is not love.

And it is not holiness.

God never asked His daughters to emotionally destroy themselves trying to keep people from leaving.

But abandonment wounds will have you doing exactly that.

They will have you:

shrinking,

overexplaining,

overcompensating,

overextending,

people pleasing,

emotionally shape shifting,

and publicly performing strength while privately unraveling.

Because when abandonment wounds go unhealed, your nervous system stays in survival mode.

You become emotionally hypervigilant.

Always anticipating rejection.

Always preparing for betrayal.

Always trying to “earn” security.

And whew…

that is exhausting.

Especially for high-functioning women.

Because some of us learned how to survive abandonment by becoming indispensable.

If I’m needed…

they’ll stay.

If I’m successful…

they’ll stay.

If I’m loving enough…

they’ll stay.

If I carry everybody…

they’ll stay.

But eventually I had to confront a painful truth:

I was so afraid of people abandoning me…

that I abandoned myself first.

Read that again...............

Nobody abandoned me more deeply than I abandoned myself.

I ignored my own emotional needs.

Ignored my grief.

Ignored my exhaustion.

Ignored my mental health.

All while publicly functioning at a high level.

That’s why I say high-functioning women suffer differently.

People celebrate our productivity while completely missing our depletion.

But healing forced me to finally look in the mirror and ask myself hard questions:

Why do I feel responsible for everybody emotionally?

Why do I over give?

Why do I tolerate emotional inconsistency?

Why do I abandon myself trying to keep peace?

Why do I feel unsafe when people pull away?

Why does rejection dysregulate me so deeply?

And maybe you need to ask yourself those same questions too.

Because there is a woman reading this right now abandoning herself for:

love,

safety,

acceptance,

profit,

prestige,

likes,

titles,

marriage,

friendships,

ministry,

family,

or the fear of being left again.

Sis…

is that woman you?

Have you become so committed to keeping everybody else connected to you that you disconnected from yourself?

Because the greatest abandonment of my life was not what people did to me…

It was what I allowed myself to become in the process of trying not to lose them.

And healing begins when you finally stop forsaking yourself for temporary validation, conditional love, and external acceptance.

That is where Kingdom Regulation changed my life.

Because kingdom regulation taught me how to anchor my identity in God instead of people.

It taught me that I could feel deeply without collapsing emotionally.

That boundaries are biblical.

That rest is holy.

That peace is necessary.

And that God never intended for His daughters to perform strength while privately falling apart mentally.

So how am I able to carry more now without completely falling apart?

Not only because of professional and personal development in learning emotional intelligence, coping strategies, leadership frameworks, and nervous system regulation…

BUT Living a Life anchored in my kingdom identity.

God’s Word became my emotional foundation.

The Word already told me I would be misunderstood.

It already told me I would be hated.

Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 1 John 3:13 ESV

Not because of me…

But because of Who lives in me.

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. John 15:18-19

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:10-12

And when you truly understand that spiritually, it changes how you process rejection.

It changes how you survive betrayal.

It changes how you carry grief.

And healing required something I never thought I would survive:

I had to let the tables turn.

I had to stop chasing.

Stop proving.

Stop overexplaining.

Stop overperforming.

Stop emotionally auditioning for love, loyalty, and acceptance.

I had to finally embrace ME.

And whew…

that sounds beautiful now, but it was painful in real time.

Because healing meant I had to let people leave.

Let them misunderstand me.

Let them abandon me.

Let them walk away.

Let them create narratives.

Let them disconnect.

Let them choose distance.

And for a woman with abandonment wounds?

That feels terrifying at first.

But somewhere in my healing journey as I surrendHERed more and more to God, He showed me something powerful:

Kingdom math supports the idea that less can actually become more.

Fewer people ◀️ but deeper peace.

Fewer attachments ◀️ but greater alignment.

Fewer performances ◀️ but more authenticity.

Fewer crowd ◀️ but more emotional safety.

And the truth is?

The people who are truly assigned to your life will not require you to abandon yourself to remain connected to them.

That revelation freed me.

Because now…

if people leave, I no longer collapse with them.

Why?

Because there are two who will never leave me nor forsake me.

“Never will I leave thee, nor forsake thee.” — Hebrews 13:5

The Lover of my soul:

Christ Jesus.

And the woman healing enough to finally love herself too:

ME.

And honestly?

That changed everything.

Because true healing is not just behavior modification…

It is heart transformation.