Is this how it started?
When I was four years old my grandmother left me on the side of the road.While I don't consciously remember this event I often wonder if this was the start of my anxiety/abandonment issues.
I don't recall all of the specific details, just that my family was going somewhere together. We took two vehicles, one for my parents, aunt and uncle and the other for my grandmother, sister, cousin and myself. My grandmother was to head out first with the adults following a little later. I was very upset by this and started crying and saying I wanted to ride with my mom. My grandmothers fix to this was to pull over on the side of the road, tell me to get out and wait for them. I grew up on a farm surrounded by gravel roads, but she waited to do this until we had hit blacktop. My grandmother took off with the other kids, meanwhile the adults were just leaving the house. The thing with gravel roads is that there are at least two routes you can take to get to the same place. My dad had planned to take the route closest to our house, my grandmother went another way. It had rained the previous day, otherwise I may have been standing beside the road for much longer. My dad was forced to turn around because of a flooded bridge and go the way my grandmother went. I don't know how long I stood beside road. I don't know if any cars passed by, my guess is no. Times were different in 1988 but not enough that it was safe to leave a four year old little girl beside the road. I often wonder exactly what my grandmother was thinking. I wish that I'd had the guts to ask her before she passed away, I thought she would blow me off which I felt would feel worse. My parents saw me that day, picked me up and sped off to confront grandma. The subject never brought up again until I was a teenager, then as a funny antidote from my childhood.
I don't recall all of the specific details, just that my family was going somewhere together. We took two vehicles, one for my parents, aunt and uncle and the other for my grandmother, sister, cousin and myself. My grandmother was to head out first with the adults following a little later. I was very upset by this and started crying and saying I wanted to ride with my mom. My grandmothers fix to this was to pull over on the side of the road, tell me to get out and wait for them. I grew up on a farm surrounded by gravel roads, but she waited to do this until we had hit blacktop. My grandmother took off with the other kids, meanwhile the adults were just leaving the house. The thing with gravel roads is that there are at least two routes you can take to get to the same place. My dad had planned to take the route closest to our house, my grandmother went another way. It had rained the previous day, otherwise I may have been standing beside the road for much longer. My dad was forced to turn around because of a flooded bridge and go the way my grandmother went. I don't know how long I stood beside road. I don't know if any cars passed by, my guess is no. Times were different in 1988 but not enough that it was safe to leave a four year old little girl beside the road. I often wonder exactly what my grandmother was thinking. I wish that I'd had the guts to ask her before she passed away, I thought she would blow me off which I felt would feel worse. My parents saw me that day, picked me up and sped off to confront grandma. The subject never brought up again until I was a teenager, then as a funny antidote from my childhood.
It was years later when my anxiety was at it's highest the story came back to me. If this hadn't happen would I still be plagued with anxiety and feelings of abandonment? Or were there other contributing factors such as genetics or events in my life that were to blame.
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