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The Pattern Beneath the Pattern
At the core of abandonment, codependence, passive-aggression, gaslighting, and trust is one central issue:
Emotional safety.
Not physical safety.
Relational safety.
The safety of knowing you can exist as you are without being left, erased, or destabilized.
When emotional safety is inconsistent or absent—especially early in life, people don’t become dysfunctional.
They become adaptive.
Abandonment: The Root Wound
Abandonment forms when connection feels unpredictable or conditional.
The nervous system learns to stay alert:
Scanning for shifts.
Tracking tone.
Monitoring distance.
The internal question becomes:
“What do I need to do to stay connected?”
That question becomes the soil from which everything else grows.
Codependence: The Survival Strategy
Codependence develops when connection feels safer than authenticity.
People learn to:
* Anticipate others’ needs
* Manage emotions that are not theirs
* Overgive to reduce relational threat
* Tie worth to usefulness
It looks like care.
It feels like loyalty.
But neurologically and emotionally, it is self-abandonment used to prevent relational loss.
The belief underneath is simple:
“If I’m needed, I won’t be left.”
Passive-Aggression: Suppressed Truth
When direct expression once carried risk: withdrawal, punishment, rejection—truth learned to hide.
Passive-aggression emerges when:
* Needs exist, but they feel unsafe to express
* Anger is present, but feels forbidden
* Boundaries feel too costly
Passive-aggression is not immaturity.
It is fear-conditioned communication.
Gaslighting: Control Through Confusion
Gaslighting occurs when accountability is avoided by destabilizing another person’s reality.
Gaslighting keeps abandonment wounds active by forcing the question:
* “Am I wrong?”
* “Did I imagine this?”
* “Is it me?”
Once self-trust collapses, control no longer requires force.
Trust: The Turning Point
Trust is not believing others will behave well.
Trust is believing in yourself.
Self-trust includes:
* Believing your perceptions
* Noticing patterns instead of excuses
* Speaking directly rather than strategically
* Leaving relationships that require self-erasure
Trust begins the moment you stop negotiating with your own reality.
Healing Reverses the Order
Evidence-Informed Healing Focuses on:
* Rebuilding self-trust and internal safety
* Expressing needs directly and early
* Holding boundaries without justification
* Releasing roles that require emotional self-sacrifice
* Regulating abandonment fear internally rather than outsourcing safety
This is not detachment.
It is self-love.
Bottom Line:
These patterns are not flaws.
They are intelligent adaptations to emotional instability.
But what once protected you will eventually constrain you.
When you stop abandoning yourself,
These dynamics lose leverage.
Vindictiveness: Relevant Statistics
Vindictive or retaliatory impulses are far more common than typically acknowledged, particularly following experiences of emotional harm, injustice, or powerlessness.
Vindictiveness is what shows up after suppression fails.
It’s not the root problem.
It’s a secondary defense that emerges when earlier strategies: appeasing, accommodating, staying quiet, stop working.
Here’s how it fits cleanly into the system you’ve built.
Where Vindictiveness Comes From
Vindictiveness is often mislabeled as cruelty or malice.
In reality, it usually grows out of unresolved powerlessness.
It develops when someone has:
* Experienced abandonment or emotional neglect
* Over-functioned through codependence
* Suppressed needs via passive-aggression
* Had their reality denied through gaslighting
* Lost trust in both others and themselves
At that point, the nervous system flips strategies.
The internal shift is:
“If honesty doesn’t protect me, and accommodation doesn’t protect me, then punishment might.”
Vindictiveness in the Sequence
Here’s the progression most people miss:
1. Abandonment → fear of loss
2. Codependence → self-erasure to maintain connection
3. Passive-aggression → indirect expression of unmet needs
4. Gaslighting → collapse of self-trust and clarity
5. Vindictiveness → attempt to reclaim power through harm, withholding, or retaliation
Vindictiveness is what happens when boundaries are never set, and anger has nowhere healthy to go.
What Vindictiveness Actually Is
Vindictiveness is not strength.
It’s anger that finally surfaced—without skill, safety, or regulation.
It can look like:
* Retaliation instead of repair
* Withholding affection, information, or support
* Teaching them a lesson
* Quiet sabotage
* Enjoyment of the other person’s discomfort
* Moral justification for harm (They deserve it)
This isn’t about justice.
It’s about restoring a sense of agency after prolonged self-betrayal.
The Core Belief Beneath Vindictiveness
“If I don’t make you feel what I felt, I’ll never get my power back.”
That belief makes sense emotionally, but it keeps the system locked.
Vindictiveness preserves a connection to the wound instead of resolving it.
Why Vindictiveness Is So Dangerous in Relationships
Vindictiveness:
* Escalates conflict instead of clarifying it
* Confirms unsafe relational dynamics
* Invites counter-control, not accountability
* Reinforces distrust on both sides
* Keeps abandonment fear alive through hostility instead of honesty
It feels empowering short-term.
Long-term, it cements isolation.
The Healthy Alternative (Where Healing Actually Moves)
Vindictiveness dissolves when three things come online:
1. Self-trust
You believe your experience without needing to prove it through punishment.
2. Direct expression
Anger is spoken, not leaked or weaponized.
3. Boundaries with consequence, not revenge
You remove access rather than inflict pain.
The shift is:
“I don’t need to hurt you to protect myself.”
That’s real power.
How Vindictiveness Signals Growth (Yes—Really)
Ironically, vindictiveness often appears right before growth.
Why?
Because it means:
* Anger is no longer fully suppressed
* Self-protection is waking up
* Tolerance for mistreatment is ending
The task isn’t to shame it.
The task is to civilize it—to turn raw anger into clean boundaries.
Bottom Line
Vindictiveness is what happens when:
* Fear ran the system too long
* Needs were silenced
* Reality was denied
* Power was outsourced
It’s a sign that self-loyalty is trying to emerge, just without refinement yet.
When anger is honored without becoming harmful,
vindictiveness becomes unnecessary.
That’s when the cycle finally breaks.
You’re naming the hard layer now, that’s where real change starts.
In short:
Vindictiveness is not rare, random, or purely malicious.
It is a predictable, data-supported response to unresolved powerlessness.
Relevant Statistics
The Pattern Beneath the Pattern
Current research confirms that early emotional support strongly predicts later relational security, emotional regulation, and trust capacity (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2024).
Abandonment: The Root Wound
In the U.S., only 58.5% of adolescents report consistently receiving the emotional support they need, and those without reliable support show significantly higher anxiety, sleep disturbance, and emotional distress (CDC, 2024). These deficits are strongly associated with insecure attachment patterns in adulthood.
Codependence: The Survival Strategy
Recent psychological research confirms that individuals who over-function emotionally in relationships experience higher anxiety, lower self-esteem, and greater emotional exhaustion over time (Tripathi, 2024).
Passive-Aggression: Suppressed Truth
Research shows that individuals who suppress anger or communicate indirectly experience higher stress, greater relational conflict, and lower relationship satisfaction compared to those who communicate directly (Fitness, 2020; Amanatullah et al., 2021).
Gaslighting: Control Through Confusion
Recent sociological and psychological studies identify gaslighting as a form of psychological abuse that erodes self-trust, autonomy, and emotional stability, even when no physical violence is present (Sweet, 2019; updated empirical extensions, 2023–2025).
A 2024 study of young adults found that exposure to manipulative and reality-distorting behaviors was associated with significantly higher anxiety and lower self-confidence, regardless of relationship type (Tripathi, 2024).
Trust
Recent attachment research shows that adults with insecure attachment histories demonstrate significantly lower relational trust, even in otherwise stable relationships, while secure attachment predicts clearer boundaries and healthier conflict engagement (Frontiers in Psychology, 2023).
Healing Reverses the Order
Research consistently shows that psychological safety and self-trust predict healthier relationships, clearer boundaries, and lower tolerance for emotional harm (Edmondson, 2018; Neff, 2021; updated applications 2022–2024).
This is who I am with Sue Reid & Margaret Williams – 2 Mar 2025
This is Who I am Now - 6 Jul 2025
Discussion with Sue Reid on Overcoming Self-Doubt – 6 Sep 2025
Our Wellbeing Equation: What This Means to Us and How We Work It Out – 19 Sep 2025 (Dr. Bronce Rice, Sue Reid, & Margaret Williams)
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