How Anxiety Teaches You to Abandon Yourself (And why coming back is the real work)
You learned it young.
How to quiet your needs.
How to stay agreeable, even when something hurt.
How to twist your face into the right expression to make sure no one was disappointed.
How to ignore the screaming feeling inside and focus on what everyone else needed from you.
And people called that strength.
But really, it was self-abandonment.
The silent skill no one applauds
If you grew up with anxiety—especially the kind no one saw—then you likely became very good at something most people never name:
Leaving yourself.
Not physically.
But emotionally.
Psychologically.
Somatically.
You learned how to turn the volume down on your own body, to disconnect from your discomfort, and to perform whatever version of you felt safest in the room.
You got praise for being “good,” “mature,” “independent.”
But what they didn’t see was the cost.
Because when your nervous system teaches you that being you is dangerous, you become someone else.
Someone easier.
Someone quieter.
Someone who’s always fine.
The long shadow of self-abandonment
Fast-forward a decade or two.
Now you might:
Say yes when you mean no
Apologise constantly
Struggle to know what you even want
Freeze when asked how you feel
Feel numb in your body but frantic in your head
Worry more about what others feel about you than what you feel about yourself
These aren’t flaws.
They’re strategies.
They were forged in the heat of fear and confusion. And they worked.
But eventually, they don’t.
Why anxiety and self-abandonment are linked
Anxiety is your body saying: “Something might go wrong.”
Self-abandonment is your body saying: “And if it does, I’ll make sure I’m not the reason.”
So you try to be perfect.
Or invisible.
Or always helpful.
Or never a problem.
Because being rejected or disliked or seen as difficult feels like a threat.
Not just emotionally. But biologically.
It’s not a personality trait.
It’s a survival map.
What healing actually looks like
It’s not loud.
It’s not instant.
And it’s rarely about confidence or courage.
It looks like:
Saying “I don’t know” when everyone wants a clear answer
Not replying straight away
Letting someone else down, just a little, to avoid betraying yourself
Letting your heart pound and your palms sweat and still doing the thing that matters to you
Noticing your body instead of abandoning it
You don’t recover from anxiety by learning to cope better.
You recover by learning to come home to yourself.
And yes, this is what I teach
The STILL Method isn’t another strategy to perform wellness.
It’s a way to help people listen to themselves again.
To teach their nervous system that safety isn’t found in silence, or people-pleasing, or perfection.
👉 Train as a STILL Method Coach
If this work speaks to you, you’ll learn how to guide others through it—and how to spot self-abandonment hiding behind shutdown, over-achievement, or "good behaviour."
And if this feels too personal?
If this blog didn’t just resonate—but described you—then you’re not alone.
I work 1:1 with a small number of adults who are learning how to come back to themselves after years of vanishing.
This isn’t about becoming a new person.
It’s about becoming you again.
The version who doesn’t leave when things get hard.
The version who doesn’t disappear to survive.
You don’t need to abandon yourself anymore.
You never should have had to.
