Out With Lanterns, Looking for Myself: 5 Signs of Self-Abandonment
How to spot the subtle ways you disappear in love — and the quiet return to self.
“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.” — Emily Dickinson
It was a Tuesday evening in March 2004 when the realization hit me — snow falling clumsily outside our New York City apartment. The epiphany didn’t arrive with a bang. It came with the quiet thud of my own footsteps echoing in a house that suddenly felt too large, too empty.
My partner was out late, as was his habit then, leaving me waiting — not just for him, but for my own life to finally begin. I’d spent the day anticipating his return, planning my mood around his mood, and deferring my own needs and desires until he was present to witness them.
I looked around at the meticulously clean living room, the dinner cooling on the stove, the book I hadn’t opened because I was saving my energy for us.
And that’s when it hit me: I had become a ghost in my own life, haunting the hallways of someone else’s story.
I had slowly, almost imperceptibly, disappeared from my own existence — leaving behind only a faint imprint of the independent woman I once was. Every decision, every action, every thought filtered through the lens of “What will Peter think?” or “Will this make Peter happy?”
And in that moment of painful awakening, I saw the truth: I hadn’t just lost myself. I had actively, meticulously, and voluntarily abandoned myself.
In defense of Peter, I’m not sure it was even his fault.
“Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies. They learn to hide from themselves.”
— Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score
That line, which I’d read years later, explained the quiet disquiet I felt that snowy Tuesday. The discomfort I couldn’t yet name.
The Whisper That Broke the Spell
The realization didn’t come from a therapist (though I’ve had those), or a dramatic confrontation (those, too). It came quietly, one afternoon during a yoga class downtown.
The instructor said, almost in passing: “Notice where you are not present in your own life.”
It wasn’t an accusation, just an invitation. But it landed like a tsunami.
I could feel tears welling.
In that stillness, without distraction, the answer was screamingly obvious:
I wasn’t present in my life — because I was always trying to be present in someone else’s.
The spell wasn’t broken by thunder. It broke by the soft insistence of my own inner voice, finally given permission to speak.
The Grounding Sensation of Self-Presence
Not self-abandoning feels like quietly setting down a weight you didn’t know you were carrying.
In the body, it feels calm. Neutral. Like a soft hum of steadiness.
It’s not a high. Not a thrill. But your breath deepens. Your shoulders relax. The constant internal scan — to please, perform, protect — goes silent.
And in its place?
Stillness.
You feel rooted, real, and quietly powerful. You finally inhabit your own skin.
A Lantern in the Dark
Healing doesn’t always feel like transformation. Often, it feels like re-entry.
A flicker of recognition.
A reclaimed hour.
A walk taken without explanation.
A candle lit — for no one but you.
A refusal to shrink.
A silence held.
A light turned on inside yourself that says: I’m still here.
And you are.
You are still here.
Out with lanterns. Looking. Returning. Becoming.
As John O’Donohue wisely hoped in his poetry: “May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence. This awakening, this return to your own luminous presence, is a light that truly burns bright.”
When I look back now, I realize that my return to myself wasn’t so sudden. It actually had come in small, almost imperceptible moments.
A pause before answering. A refusal to nod. A silence. A breath drawn for myself. A refusal to shrink.
And the strangest part? It didn’t feel triumphant.
It felt quiet. Steady. Whole. As if the ghost had finally come home.
“The greatest damage done by neglect is the loss of the self.”
— Gabor Maté
I hadn’t disappeared. I’d just wandered too far from home.
“Your soul knows the geography of your destiny,” John O’Donohue wrote. It knows its way home.
And in that knowing, there is always a path back to you.
5 Signs You’re Out with Lanterns, Looking for Yourself
You can’t remember what you like — only what pleases them.
You’re saving joy for later — when they’re watching.
You plan your mood around someone else’s emotional weather.
You get more comfort from being needed — than from being truly known.
You miss you… and you’re not sure how long you’ve been gone.
✨ You’re not alone in this journey.
My Safe Love Project is a place to remember how to come home to yourself.
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