The System That Taught You to Leave Yourself
Why self-abandonment isn’t your fault—and what healing really asks of us.
Systemic self-abandonment is what happens when a culture, system or institution teaches you—explicitly or implicitly—that your needs, instincts, boundaries or inner rhythms are inconvenient, dangerous or wrong.
This is not just personal.
It’s structural, cultural and chronic.
It’s the quiet force beneath so many of the struggles people bring to therapy—especially around food, body image and identity. And it often goes unspoken, because it’s woven into the systems we’re told we can trust.
What systemic self-abandonment looks like:
In health care: Being told your weight is the problem, no matter the concern you came in with.
In therapy: Being labeled “non-compliant” for not fitting into a model that doesn’t account for trauma, culture or context.
In wellness: Being sold routines, supplements and plans that require you to override your body to “succeed.”
In work: Grinding through fatigue, masking your authenticity or chasing unsustainable productivity just to survive.
These systems don’t usually say, “Leave yourself.”
But that’s the hidden curriculum.
They teach:
Don’t trust your hunger.
Don’t trust your tiredness.
Don’t trust your anger.
Don’t trust your knowing.
And so, people learn to outsource their choices—to diets, productivity hacks, social norms, authority figures.
Often to systems that never had their best interests at heart.
The work of coming home
When I sit with someone in therapy who is struggling to eat, rest, slow down, speak up or feel safe in their body, I know we’re not just working with individual habits.
We’re working with the residue of systemic self-abandonment.
So much of my work is helping people find their way back.
Back to hunger.
Back to rhythm.
Back to what feels good and right in their own skin.
But this work isn’t just about coming back to self.
It is body sovereignty.
It is cultural repair.
It is the radical act of learning to stay with yourself—even when the system taught you to leave.
When someone begins to nourish themselves, honor rest, set boundaries or stop trying to fix their body—they’re not just healing personally.
They’re rejecting the lie that survival requires self-erasure.
And that matters.
It matters more than most people realize.
Healing is in finding the power to choose yourself, no matter what the world tells you. And when you choose to stay with yourself, you choose to heal—not just survive.