Self-Abandonment in Disguise: When ‘Giving’ Costs You Your Peace
- Updated: May 8, 2025
She’s the one everyone calls.
Not just during business hours—always. Her cell number’s on the invoice, her calendar is open late, and even the “urgent” weekend emails somehow land in her lap because no one else is trained to handle them. Somewhere along the way, she became the fixer, the emotional airbag, the invisible infrastructure behind every fire.
At first, it felt noble. Necessary, even. She thought: This is what leadership looks like—being the one who holds it all. But now, the truth is creeping in like a slow leak: she didn’t just build a business—she curated a system designed to punish her. One that feeds off her presence but never pauses to ask how she’s doing. One where “availability” became her value and “boundary” became a dirty word.
And maybe you know her, because maybe you are her.
If you’re the one who’s always holding space, cleaning up messes, saying “yes” when everything in your gut says “no”—this message is for you.
I’m Denise G. Lee. I help leaders stop performing and start healing—for real. And in this post, we’re going to pull the mask off a pattern that hides in plain sight: self-abandonment disguised as generosity.
In this post you’ll learn:
What self-abandonment actually is (and why high-achievers rarely catch it early)
How this shows up in your leadership, your relationships, and even your self-talk
The cost of keeping up the act—and what it takes to break the cycle without burning everything down
Because being a generous person doesn’t mean giving away your peace.
And being a strong leader doesn’t mean you have to disappear.
What Is Self-Abandonment?
Self-abandonment isn’t always loud.
It doesn’t always look like chaos or collapse. In high-functioning entrepreneurs, it often hides behind systems that look “successful.” Behind the team you manage, the calendar you overschedule, the inbox you never let hit zero. You might be praised for your reliability, admired for your strength—but inside, you’ve been ghosting yourself for years.
At its core, self-abandonment is the act of ignoring your own emotional cues in order to stay useful, likable, or in control. You override your needs—consistently, quietly—because somewhere in your wiring, it felt safer to be needed than to be known.
Please Don’t Call it “High Standards”
In psychological terms, this is often linked to fawning behavior: the compulsion to appease, fix, or over-function to maintain connection. Dr. Gabor Maté calls it “the cost of survival in an unsafe system.” We learned to betray ourselves early, often under the banner of love, loyalty, or survival.
But as adults—especially as business owners—this inner betrayal doesn’t go away. It just gets professionalized.
You call it “customer service” when you text a client back at 10 p.m.
You call it “leadership” when you absorb your team’s anxiety instead of letting them take responsibility.
You call it “high standards” when you work through dinner even though your body is begging you to slow down.
But let’s name it clearly: this is self-abandonment—systemized, justified, and praised.
And it’s a slow leak on your energy, your creativity, and your sense of self.
The Business Burnout Spiral
You don’t just wake up burned out.
Slow you realize that you got there one micro-self-betrayal at a time.
And you maybe be thinking, “How could or can that happen?” Let me explain how.
It starts when you dismissed the gut check during a sales call. Maybe you let that team member cross the line “just this once.” You said yes to the 7 a.m. meeting even though you haven’t eaten, stretched, or breathed. Eventually, your body knows what your mind refuses to admit: you’ve built a business that runs on your constant presence.
And the cost? It’s everywhere.
Next, you start resenting your clients for asking the very things you trained them to expect.
Then you second-guess your offers because they no longer reflect who you are—but you’re too depleted to rethink them.
Suddenly you find yourself over-delivering not because it’s strategic, but because you’re terrified of seeming selfish.
And perhaps worst of all—you stop trusting your own instincts. The very muscle that made you magnetic as a leader? Gone, replaced by a script that sounds more like people management than purpose.
Here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud:
Self-abandonment is scalable.
If left unchecked, it infects your business systems, your leadership voice, and your brand culture.
Your calendar starts looking like a museum of other people’s priorities.
Team members learns that you’ll rescue them instead of holding them accountable.
And your nervous system stays in performance mode 24/7—even while brushing your teeth.
This isn’t just an internal issue. It becomes your brand’s energy. And your most aligned people? They’ll feel it—and quietly walk away.
When we were busy self-medicating with alcohol, sugar, or our drug of choice, or loving people who were unwilling or unable to love us, we put our needs on hold to caretake the needs of others.
— Denise G. Lee (@DeniseGLee) July 9, 2024
You may have told yourself that you were being noble, kind, and sacrificial.
No,…
Signs You’ve Disappeared Into a Self-Abandonment
You don’t need to be in a romantic relationship to lose yourself.
Sometimes, the loss happens quietly—when your rules get ignored, your no gets overridden, or your kindness is exploited. You don’t even realize it’s happening until the resentment builds or the exhaustion won’t lift. That’s the trap of self-abandonment: you keep shape-shifting for peace, but it never arrives.
Let’s break down some signs you’ve given yourself up for them, it, or the ideal that doesn’t even suit you anymore:
You have rules—but they’re rarely enforced.
Amy (not her real name) grew up in a family where emotional boundaries were more like gentle suggestions. Her mother told her not to allow visitors on Thursday nights unless it was an emergency—but then would show up unannounced every few weeks with food or some fabricated need. Amy’s boundaries were clearly spoken but never respected. And deep down, she feared what it would mean to actually enforce them.
When you’ve been trained to prioritize harmony over honesty, you’ll quietly tolerate repeated violations.
You stop trusting yourself to mean what you say.
You say yes when you’re exhausted. You don’t answer the door, but you still feel guilty. And slowly, you disappear under the weight of your own silence.
You become the emotional airbag.
Glen (again, not his real name) was raised in emotional chaos. His mother’s drinking meant unpredictable moods, outbursts, and mornings filled with dread. From a young age, he learned how to read her tone, tiptoe through tension, and keep her emotionally regulated—even when it crushed his own needs.
That childhood pattern followed him into adulthood.
First, he parented his mother. Then, he married women who needed rescuing.
And all the while, he abandoned himself.
Self-abandonment often shows up as chronic caretaking: a compulsion to fix other people’s pain so you don’t have to sit with your own.
You don’t know what you want—until it’s too late.
When your identity is rooted in approval or performance, honesty feels dangerous. You’ll say yes when you mean no. You’ll stay silent to avoid “making things worse.” You’ll contort yourself into a version that fits the room—but not your soul.
I know this firsthand.
Years ago, I was engaged to someone who couldn’t fully look me in the eye when I asked hard questions. His unresolved sexuality hovered like a ghost in our relationship, but I ignored my gut until it broke through in a tear-soaked confrontation.
Self-abandonment taught me to stay calm, polite, and palatable. But healing taught me something else:
Peace doesn’t come from being agreeable. It comes from being aligned.
You feel responsible for other people’s consequences.
This is where it gets dangerous.
When self-abandonment becomes your operating system, you don’t just tolerate bad behavior—you make space for it. You soften your no. You make excuses. You pay for the vacation, swallow the insult, or clean up the mess. And all the while, you think: If I just try harder, they’ll treat me better.
But they don’t. Because you’ve taught them who you are:
The one who stays. The one who smooths it over. The one who forgets herself.
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How to Reclaim Yourself and End Self Abandonment
You don’t heal from self-abandonment by reading about it.
You heal by choosing yourself in real-time—again and again, especially when it feels unnatural or “mean.”
It starts by turning that fixer energy inward.
The same effort you’ve spent managing others’ emotions? It’s time to redirect that power toward your own restoration.
Here are a few questions worth sitting with—slowly, honestly, without flinching:
Who taught me that being good meant being quiet, compliant, or endlessly available?
Why does it feel safer to perform than to be fully seen?
Where do I feel responsible for emotions that don’t belong to me?
Which relationships force me to shrink, suppress, or disappear?
These aren’t just reflections—they’re reclamation points.
Each one helps you identify the spaces where you’ve outsourced your value, and invites you to take it back.
And if this work feels unfamiliar, that’s okay.
Most of us who chronically over-give were raised in systems where we were trained to ignore our emotional needs.
The trauma wasn’t always loud—it was often systematic. You became the emotional regulator, the peacekeeper, the “good one.” Now, you’re unlearning that false harmony in real time.
So what does healing look like?
Letting people feel the consequences of their own choices—without rushing in to rescue.
Speaking plainly when something doesn’t work for you—even if it disappoints someone.
Rebuilding your life around alignment, not applause.
You don’t have to be the hero in everyone’s story.
You just have to stop betraying yourself in your own.
Final Thoughts on Self Abandonment
There comes a point when over-functioning stops feeling noble and starts feeling like grief.
Not the loud kind—more like a quiet ache every time you override your needs, defer your truth, or soften your no to keep the peace.
Self-abandonment is subtle, but it compounds. Over time, it rewires how you show up in business, in relationships, and in your own mind.
The invitation isn’t to perform healing. It’s to come back to yourself—without apology, without theatrics, without delay.
💛 If this stirred something real for you…
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