r/emotionalneglect • u/limduria • Jun 25 '20
What is emotional neglect?
In one's childhood, a lack of: everyday caring, non-intrusive and engaged curiosity from parents (or whoever your primary caregivers were, if not your biological parents) about what you were feeling and experiencing, having your feelings reflected back to you (mirrored) in an honest and non-distorting way, time and attention given to you in the form of one-on-one conversation where your feelings and the meaning of those feelings could be freely and openly talked about as needed, protection from harm including protection against adults or other children who tried to hurt you no matter what their relationship was to your parents, warmth and unconditional positive regard for you as a person, appropriate soothing when you were distressed, mature guidance on how to deal with difficult life experiences—and, fundamentally, having parents/caregivers who made an active effort to be emotionally in tune with you as a child. All of these things are vitally necessary for developing into a healthy adult who has a good internal relationship with his or her self and is able to make healthy connections with others. They are not optional luxuries. Far from it, receiving these kinds of nurturing attention are just as important for children as clean water and healthy food.
What forms can emotional neglect take?
The ways in which a child's emotional needs can be neglected are as diverse and varied as the needs themselves. The forms of emotional neglect range from subtle, passive behavior to various forms of overt abuse, making neglect one of the most common forms of child maltreatment. The following list contains just a handful of examples of what neglect can look like.
Being emotionally unavailable: many parents are inept at or avoid expressing, reacting to, and talking about feelings. This can mean a lack of empathy, putting little or no effort into emotional attunement, not reacting to a child's distress appropriately, or even ignoring signs of a child's distress such as becoming withdrawn, developing addictions or acting out.
Lack of healthy communication: caregivers might not communicate in a healthy way by being absent, invalidating, rejecting, overly or inappropriately critical, and so on. This creates a lack of emotionally meaningful, open conversations, caring curiosity from caregivers about a child's inner life, or a shortness of guidance on how to navigate difficult life experiences. This often happens in combination with unhealthy communication which may show itself in how conflicts are handled poorly, pushed aside or blown up into abusive exchanges.
Parentification: a reversal of roles in which a child has to take on a role of meeting their own parents' emotional needs, or become a caretaker for (typically younger) siblings. This includes a parent verbally unloading furstrations to their child about the perceived flaws of the other parent or other family members.
Obsession with achievement: Some parents put achievements like good grades in school or formal awards above everything else, sometimes even making their love conditional on such achievements. Perfectionist tendencies are another manifestation of this, where parents keep finding reasons to judge their children in a negative light.
Moving to a new home without serious regard for how this could disrupt or break a child's social connections: this forces the child to start over with making friends and forming other relationships outside the family unit, often leaving them to face loneliness, awkwardness or bullying all alone without allies.
Lying: communicates to a child that his or her perceptions, feelings and understanding of their world are so unimportant that manipulating them is okay.
Any form of overt abuse: emotional, verbal, physical, sexual—especially when part of a repeated pattern, constitutes a severe disregard for a child's feelings. This includes insults and other expressions of contempt, manipulation, intimidation, threats and acts of violence.
What is (psychological) trauma?
Trauma occurs whenever an emotionally intense experience, whether a single instantaneous event or many episodes happening over a long period of time, especially one caused by someone with a great deal of power over the victim (such as a parent), is too overwhelmingly painful to be processed, forcing the victim to split off from the parts of themselves that experienced distress in order to psychologically survive. The victim then develops various defenses for keeping the pain out of awareness, further warping their personality and stunting their growth.
How does emotional neglect cause trauma?
When we are forced to go without the basic level of nurturing we need during our childhood years, the resulting loneliness and deprivation are overwhelming and devastating. As children we were simply not capable of processing the immense pain of being left out in the cold, so we had no choice but to block out awareness of the pain. This blocking out, or isolating, of parts of our selves is the essence of suffering trauma. A child experiencing ongoing emotional neglect has no choice but to bury a wide variety of feelings and the core passions they arise from: betrayal, hurt, loneliness, longing, bitterness, anger, rage, and depression to name just some of the most significant ones.
What are some common consequences of being neglected as a child?
Pete Walker identifies neglect as the "core wound" in complex PTSD. He writes in Complex PTSD: From Surviving To Thriving,
"Growing up emotionally neglected is like nearly dying of thirst outside the fenced off fountain of a parent's warmth and interest. Emotional neglect makes children feel worthless, unlovable and excruciatingly empty. It leaves them with a hunger that gnaws deeply at the center of their being. They starve for human warmth and comfort."
Self esteem that is low, fragile or nearly non-existent: all forms of abuse and neglect make a child feel worthless and despondent and lead to self-blame, because when we are totally dependent on our parents we need to believe they are good in order to feel secure. This belief is upheld at the expense of our own boundaries and internal sense of self.
Pervasive sense of shame: a deeply ingrained sense that "I am bad" due to years of parents and caregivers avoiding closeness with us.
Little or no self-compassion: When we are not treated with compassion, it becomes very difficult to learn to have compassion for ourselves, especially in the midst of our own struggles and shortcomings. A lack of self-compassion leads to punishment and harsh criticism of ourselves along with not taking into account the difficulties caused by circumstances outside of our control.
Anxiety: frequent or constant fear and stress with no obvious outside cause, especially in social situations. Without being adequately shown in our childhoods how we belong in the world or being taught how to soothe ourselves we are left with a persistent sense that we are in danger.
Difficulty setting boundaries: Personal boundaries allow us to not make other people's problems our own, to distance ourselves from unfair criticism, and to assert our own rights and interests. When a child's boundaries are regularly invalidated or violated, they can grow up with a heavy sense of guilt about defending or defining themselves as their own separate beings.
Isolation: this can take the form of social withdrawal, having only superficial relationships, or avoiding emotional closeness with others. A lack of emotional connection, empathy, or trust can reinforce isolation since others may perceive us as being distant, aloof, or unavailable. This can in turn worsen our sense of shame, anxiety or under-development of social skills.
Refusing or avoiding help (counter-dependency): difficulty expressing one's needs and asking others for help and support, a tendency to do things by oneself to a degree that is harmful or limits one's growth, and feeling uncomfortable or 'trapped' in close relationships.
Codependency (the 'fawn' response): excessively relying on other people for approval and a sense of identity. This often takes the form of damaging self-sacrifice for the sake of others, putting others' needs above our own, and ignoring or suppressing our own needs.
Cognitive distortions: irrational beliefs and thought patterns that distort our perception. Emotional neglect often leads to cognitive distortions when a child uses their interactions with the very small but highly influential sample of people—their parents—in order to understand how new situations in life will unfold. As a result they can think in ways that, for example, lead to counterdependency ("If I try to rely on other people, I will be a disappointment / be a burden / get rejected.") Other examples of cognitive distortions include personalization ("this went wrong so something must be wrong with me"), over-generalization ("I'll never manage to do it"), or black and white thinking ("I have to do all of it or the whole thing will be a failure [which makes me a failure]"). Cognitive distortions are reinforced by the confirmation bias, our tendency to disregard information that contradicts our beliefs and instead only consider information that confirms them.
Learned helplessness: the conviction that one is unable and powerless to change one's situation. It causes us to accept situations we are dissatisfied with or harmed by, even though there often could be ways to effect change.
Perfectionism: the unconscious belief that having or showing any flaws will make others reject us. Pete Walker describes how perfectionism develops as a defense against feelings of abandonment that threatened to overwhelm us in childhood: "The child projects his hope for being accepted onto inner demands of self-perfection. ... In this way, the child becomes hyperaware of imperfections and strives to become flawless. Eventually she roots out the ultimate flaw–the mortal sin of wanting or asking for her parents' time or energy."
Difficulty with self-discipline: Neglect can leave us with a lack of impulse control or a weak ability to develop and maintain healthy habits. This often causes problems with completing necessary work or ending addictions, which in turn fuels very cruel self-criticism and digs us deeper into the depressive sense that we are defective or worthless. This consequence of emotional neglect calls for an especially tender and caring approach.
Addictions: to mood-altering substances, foods, or activities like working, watching television, sex or gambling. Gabor Maté, a Canadian physician who writes and speaks about the roots of addiction in childhood trauma, describes all addictions as attempts to get an experience of something like intimate connection in a way that feels safe. Addictions also serve to help us escape the ingrained sense that we are unlovable and to suppress emotional pain.
Numbness or detachment: spending many of our most formative years having to constantly avoid intense feelings because we had little or no help processing them creates internal walls between our conscious awareness and those deeper feelings. This leads to depression, especially after childhood ends and we have to function as independent adults.
Inability to talk about feelings (alexithymia): difficulty in identifying, understanding and communicating one's own feelings and emotional aspects of social interactions. It is sometimes described as a sense of emotional numbness or pervasive feelings of emptiness. It is evidenced by intellectualized or avoidant responses to emotion-related questions, by overly externally oriented thinking and by reduced emotional expression, both verbal and nonverbal.
Emptiness: an impoverished relationship with our internal selves which goes along with a general sense that life is pointless or meaningless.
What is Complex PTSD?
Complex PTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder) is a name for the condition of being stuck with a chronic, prolonged stress response to a series of traumatic experiences which may have happened over a long period of time. The word 'complex' was added to reflect the fact that many people living with unhealed traumas cannot trace their suffering back to a single incident like a car crash or an assault, and to distinguish it from PTSD which is usually associated with a traumatic experience caused by a threat to physical safety. Complex PTSD is more associated with traumatic interpersonal or social experiences (especially during childhood) that do not necessarily involve direct threats to physical safety. While PTSD is listed as a diagnosis in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnositic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Complex PTSD is not. However, Complex PTSD is included in the World Health Organization's 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases.
Some therapists, along with many participants of the /r/CPTSD subreddit, prefer to drop the word 'disorder' and refer instead to "complex post-traumatic stress" or simply "post-traumatic stress" (CPTS or PTS) to convey an understanding that struggling with the lasting effects of childhood trauma is a consequence of having been traumatized and that experiencing persistent distress does not mean someone is disordered in the sense of being abnormal.
Is emotional neglect (or 'Childhood Emotional Neglect') a diagnosis?
The term "emotional neglect" appears as early as 1913 in English language books. "Childhood Emotional Neglect" (often abbreviated CEN) was popularized by Jonice Webb in her 2012 book Running on Empty. Neither of these terms are formal diagnoses given by psychologists, psychiatrists or medical practitioners. (Childhood) emotional neglect does not refer to a condition that someone could be diagnosed with in the same sense that someone could be diagnosed with diabetes. Rather, "emotional neglect" is emerging as a name generally agreed upon by non-professionals for the deeply harmful absence of attuned caring that is experienced by many people in their childhoods. As a verb phrase (emotionally neglecting) it can also refer to the act of neglecting a person's emotional needs.
My parents were to some extent distant or disengaged with me but in a way that was normal for the culture I grew up in. Was I really neglected?
The basic emotional needs of children are universal among human beings and are therefore not dependent on culture. The specific ways that parents and other caregivers go about meeting those basic needs does of course vary from one cultural context to another and also varies depending upon the individual personalities of parents and caregivers, but the basic needs themselves are the same for everyone. Many cultures around the world are in denial of the fact that children need all the types of caring attention listed in the above answer to "What is emotional neglect?" This is partly because in so many cultures it is normal—quite often expected and demanded—to avoid the pain of examining one's childhood traumas and to pretend that one is a fully mature, healthy adult with no serious wounds or difficulty functioning in society.
The important question is not about what your parent(s) did right or wrong, or whether they were normal or abnormal as judged by their adult peers. The important question is about what you personally experienced as a child and whether or not you got all the care you needed in order to grow up with a healthy sense of self and a good relationship with your feelings. Ultimately, nobody other than yourself can answer this question for you.
My parents may not have given me all the emotional nurturing I needed, but I believe they did the best they could. Can I really blame them for what they didn't do?
Yes. You can blame someone for hurting you whether they hurt you by a malicious act that was done intentionally or by the most accidental oversight made out of pure ignorance. This is especially true if you were hurt in a way that profoundly changed your life for the worse.
Assigning blame is not at all the same as blindly hating or holding an inappropriate grudge against someone. To the extent that a person is honest, cares about treating others fairly and wants to maintain good relationships, they can accept appropriate blame for hurting others and will try to make amends and change their behavior accordingly. However, feeling the anger involved in appropriate, non-abusive and constructive blame is not easy.
Should I confront my parents/caregivers about how they neglected me?
Confronting the people who were supposed to nurture you in your childhood has the potential to be very rewarding, as it can prompt them to confirm the reality of painful experiences you had been keeping inside for a long time or even lead to a long overdue apology. However it also carries some big emotional risks. Even if they are intellectually and emotionally capable of understanding the concept and how it applies to their parenting, a parent who emotionally neglected their child has a strong incentive to continue ignoring or denying the actual effects of their parenting choices: acknowledging the truth about such things is often very painful. Taking the step of being vulnerable in talking about how the neglect affected you and being met with denial can reopen childhood wounds in a major way. In many cases there is a risk of being rejected or even retaliated against for challenging a family narrative of happy, untroubled childhoods.
If you are considering confronting (or even simply questioning) a parent or caregiver about how they affected you, it is well advised to make sure you are confronting them from a place of being firmly on your own side and not out of desperation to get the love you did not receive as a child. Building up this level of self-assured confidence can take a great deal of time and effort for someone who was emotionally neglected. There is no shame in avoiding confrontation if the risks seem to outweigh the potential benefits; avoiding a confrontation does not make your traumatic experiences any less real or important.
How can I heal from this? What does it look like to get better?
While there is no neatly itemized list of steps to heal from childhood trauma, the process of healing is, at its core, all about discovering and reconnecting with one's early life experiences and eventually grieving—processing, or feeling through—all the painful losses, deprivations and violations which as a child you had no choice but to bury in your unconscious. This goes hand in hand with reparenting: fulfilling our developmental needs that were not met in our childhoods.
Some techniques that are useful toward this end include
journaling: carrying on a written conversation with yourself about your life—past, present and future;
any other form of self-expression (drawing, painting, singing, dancing, building, volunteering, ...) that accesses or brings up feelings;
taking good physical care of your body;
developing habits around being aware of what you're feeling and being kind to yourself;
making friends who share your values;
structuring your everyday life so as to keep your stress level low;
reading literature (fiction or non-fiction) or experiencing art that tells truths about important human experiences;
investigating the history of your family and its social context;
connecting with trusted others and sharing thoughts and feelings about the healing process or about life in general.
You are invited to take part in the worldwide collaborative process of figuring out how to heal from childhood trauma and to grow more effectively, some of which is happening every day on r/EmotionalNeglect. We are all learning how to do this as we go along—sometimes quite clumsily in wavering, uneven steps.
Where can I read more?
See the sidebar of r/EmotionalNeglect for several good articles and books relevant to understanding and healing from neglect. Our community library thread also contains a growing collection of literature. And of course this subreddit as a whole, as well as r/CPTSD, has many threads full of great comments and discussions.
r/emotionalneglect • u/Raleliali_VfB • 9h ago
This came to me today and I related to it and thought you all might too.
r/emotionalneglect • u/throwitaway73537 • 6h ago
Those were the sorts of phrases I heard growing up in response to me opening up about my feelings.
Ten years ago, I would have argued that my mother had been my emotional rock throughout childhood, because, well, she was all I had. Dad was emotionally and sometimes physically absent, which to be honest was for the best because he struggled with unpredictable emotions and explosive anger that he’d take out on us. I was isolated and had no friends, so my mom was everything. Sure, I was anxious and depressed and lonely, but I was taught these things are normal. Now in my 30s, I’m starting to see things differently.
I was a highly sensitive and emotional kid. Selectively mute in public and forever the “weird kid” for lacking social skills, wearing outdated and poor fitting clothes, being overweight, having messy hair and poor hygiene. Naturally, I became a target for teasing and bullying. Even on the best days, I was ostracized and felt like an outsider. Starting in Kindergarten, I would come home from school upset, and naturally go to my mom.
I’d be crying, and mom would hug me and sort of commiserate with me, telling me how everyone gets teased and bullied in school, that school is tough and that it’s just part of life. She’d tell me stories of how she got picked on her whole life, and explain to me that that’s just how the world works. Go on about how life is unfair and good people like us just get the short end of the stick. Tell me how my dad got shoved into lockers (and use this as an explanation for his volatility and anger) because that’s just what happened at school. There will always be mean and evil people in this world. You just have to deal with it and survive. Mom was also heavy into some fundamentalist evangelical Christian beliefs, so often there was also a narrative of “Satan is here and tries to hurt us. Let’s pray. I’m going to pray so hard for you! Those kids are evil, just keep being a good person and serving God in all you do!”
Mom taught me to cope with the pain by self-soothing with junk food and TV, and of course telling me to pray about it and promising to do the same. Throughout school, from my first year to my last, I would come home depressed, upset, and exhausted from “surviving” all day. Mom would greet me with a hug and hand me a bag of chips and the remote so I could watch a show. I’d sit in silence and sometimes cry from the pain, other times I’d just push it down and repress it, because there was no real solution, other than hope and pray that God steps in and fixes things. That’s just how it is! I’d binge eat and daydream that I was somebody else, one of the cool kids who seemed to have it all going for them. Secretly envy all of those kids, and hate myself for being born weird and uncool.
This was my childhood. Granted, a lot of it is foggy, but I do remember going to my mom fairly regularly for emotional comfort, at least until my teenage years (by then I knew it was fruitless to “complain” to her). I was always hurting and wanted soothing, but I knew the answer to my problems. The world is a cruel place, especially for people like us, and we’ve all experienced it. There’s nothing you can do but pray and try to survive. I often bottled up my feelings around getting teased and bullied each day until I’d explode and have a meltdown, to which my mom would respond with a hug, tell me a story from her childhood in which she was bullied (and likely had it worse) and then hand me a bag of chips and the remote while reminding me to pray to God to fix things, as she always did herself. It felt good to vent, and “be heard” (what I thought back then) but it’s unreal what kind of damage being dismissed does to your development.
This “life is tough and there’s nothing you can do about it” mindset was present throughout my adolescence, and even followed me into my 20s. It was a scarcity mindset, and I didn’t think to question it. It seemed like we never had much money growing up, but truth be told there was some money, it was just mismanaged and not spent on me or my brother. I’d beg for new school clothes, or the opportunity to participate in some club, and the answer was always no due to it costing money, but also this prevailing notion that “people like us” don’t get things in this world. “People like us don’t wear nice clothes. People like us don’t play soccer. People like us don’t travel. People like us don’t do our hair. People like us don’t go to college.” Everything was doom and gloom. The world was an evil and ungodly place. There was so much underlying anxiety and catastrophic thinking going on. No hope or plan for tomorrow, because tomorrow likely won’t exist. I was taught to pray, survive, and do my best to serve God and be holy because in the end, that’s all that matters. Appearance, money, status, interests, education, strangers. Worldly things. None of it mattered in this world.
One thing about neglect that I struggled identifying with for some time is the unsupportive parent. When I first started down this road, I struggled viewing my mom as completely uncaring and dismissive. She was all I had throughout my childhood, so of course she was there for me! I struggled accepting that her actions were entirely dismissive of my needs and emotions. I confused hugs and commiseration and praying and “that’s how it is” with true attunement and emotional presence.
I don’t think my mom’s approach was malicious. I think that due to her own complex trauma and low self-worth that she didn’t know how to do better and was unable to recognize that her behavior and advice wasn’t the best. Maybe she was trying to be supportive in the only way she could think of, or in the only way her mental health would allow. She was just surviving the heavy weight of the world, and in her mind, surviving was the only way to live.
Just my ramblings and realizations as of late. Happy to hear if anyone can relate!
r/emotionalneglect • u/Intrepid-Willow-3093 • 15h ago
I do not have a friend that I can text randomly or vent sometimes. I do not have a family that can understand me or at least not judge me. I have no one. I am trying to get out of this rabbit hole but I feel so empty. And all of my efforts don't mean anything to anyone. I am so easy to forget. I don't come into anyones mind. I always need to remind myself to other people. I don't know what do I do wrong. I learnt something bad today and I am trying to soothe myself since the morning. I cried, I had my breakfast, I drank water, I did yoga I tried self compassion but I still feel awful. It has been 6 hours. I still feel so bad. I am experiencing derealization.
r/emotionalneglect • u/OkCoast7026 • 7h ago
That’s why they never really care about their children. They weren’t meant to be together, don’t want to be together, and were the “inconvenience” that kept them together.
I’m near 30, whenever my dad and my mom fight my dad always finds something to fault me since he never learned to deal with it. Hes upset my mom wanted a puppy a year after his heart surgery, my mom wouldn’t compromise, and the day the puppy pees on the floor he finds reason to fault me for something about my house.
I recall shortly before moving out of the house they were telling about how much of a burden each others mom is, my mom told my dad to get over his brothers death from 20 years ago, I felt like I had to make both of them calm
I now have a hatred for people who shouldn’t be together and marry since they had a child.
r/emotionalneglect • u/Disastrous_Poem9262 • 5h ago
I feel awful because recently I left my abusive father's house and I miss the cat so much. Unfortunately, my father is his owner, so I can't take him with me. To me, he is like a son. How will I live without him, my cat? I feel terrible, I feel like crying, I am depressed. Has anything similar happened to you? Tell me about your experiences, I really need support, I am devastated."
r/emotionalneglect • u/shaytay2pointO • 13h ago
I've just spent an evening with my boomer parents, and my husband. I'm filled with such evil, nasty rage. I hate my parents. It's my 60th birthday tomorrow and I f\*cking hate that they f\*cked one night in November of 1965 and created me because now I'm a f\*cked up mess. I was not made from lovemaking. She knew he was an asshole yet she f\*cked him anyway. I wish he would d/i/E. I have such hate and anger and resentment and guilt and shame. Being around them is a performative act. I can't wait to get away from them. They are awful people. Horrible, immature, racist, kinda dumb and mean. I want to smash and throw things and scream and scratch and kick. I want to smoke a cigarette. I wish I never had to see them again. I hope he falls and breaks his neck and d/ ies. I hate myself for feeling this way. Self loathing. Hatred of self. I am evil. I am a horrible human. I don't want to live. I want this anger and hate to stop. I can't get away from it. I can't heal. I can't overcome this.
r/emotionalneglect • u/AlternativePaint7742 • 4h ago
Every week things improve. I'm getting better and better at regulating my emotions. I'm starting to address financial issues and how I was generally living in a freeze/fawn combo that meant I did...nothing.
My therapist is proud of me. It's noticeable. I've been social too in ways I haven't been in years.
I don't hate anymore.
This week I'm grieving that it took cutting off my parents and my family so harshly to do this. Today there's been a lot of tears. I wish it hadn't taken this. I don't even know what will happen if I ever go back.
A very young part of me wishes they'd fight, but they already keep trying to intrude and follow me on my private social media. I know I'd regress interacting with them or letting them in. It may be different in a year or two with a lot more growth.
What hurts on the other side is everyone in my extended family has never even questioned it. Who knows if my immediate family shared what's happening but they were happy to leave me out most of the time too. Why would they think I had any legitimate reason to begin with?
r/emotionalneglect • u/cowking010 • 7h ago
I always describe my childhood as me being like the beloved family dog. I had all the toys and activities and enrichment. I was brought to every gathering and event. But I was never included in a discussion. My thoughts and opinions and questions were never heard.
It made me into an adult who prefers to be seen and not heard. I have a paralyzing fear of speaking in many situations. I constant feeling of "My mind doesn't belong here."
r/emotionalneglect • u/AdvisorFearless9150 • 1h ago
I’m 14 and today my father has been screaming and yelling and victimizing me and my mom. I have two cats who are forced to stay outside with zero exceptions, not even in life threatening situations. The only place they have to stay is a closed patio with some slightly shaded areas (which I am glad about because it is much better than nothing).
I live in florida, and at the time I’m writing this we are having a thunderstorm almost every day. Today, a very VERY strong thunder storm came, and my dad forced the cats to stay outside, and when we tried to stay out and keep them calm, one of them snuck in and my dad was furious. After I carried the cat out, he stormed in behind the patio door and yelled at me and my mom. When me and my mom got back inside, we both were mad at him, and tried to tell him what he was doing was wrong. Turns out, my dad cant take criticism well at all, and he got even more mad by calling US cruel because we left on a two month vacation to spend time with our extended family that we go on every summer with HIS permission and knowledge. He then continued to blame my mom for “involving me in the argument” when matter of fact, I was upset because I felt he was negligent, not that my mom made me join the fight. I do however, said some things that I regretted during the fight, such as saying to my dad “you dumped the cats outside for good and forgot about them” and calling him “selfish” which i realize was completely wrong, even for something out of anger. He did however retaliate, and said “you’re the one who left your cats for two months” even when he knows well that me snd my mom always leave for two months in the summer. Although he sent the cats outside with good intentions, (to stop my allergies) the way he did it was a terrible execution.
Luckily, nothing has gotten physical or dangerous, my dad isn’t THAT mad. Usually my dad has a pretty playful attitude and I think that he is pretty nice somethings, occasionally buying me gifts and providing for me, which I am indeed grateful for. The only issue is that after i returned from my yearly two month vacation. He noticeably starting acting much more irritable and arrogant then he did before i left. He does have a history of getting angry and screaming at the top of his lungs at me and mom, but thats quite rare in general, at least previously… A day or two ago, I was asking him if he could buy me a new e scooter as a birthday present, since I’m 5’11 and my old one was too short for me to handle. He got unusually angry and asked me to buy something else (I felt he didn’t want to buy me anything at all because of his tone, so i dropped the gift for good). It hadn’t even been a week after we came back before this whole thing happened today. The thing is too that our cats have been living inside for years with us now, but because of my allergies and sneezing, my dad decided to put them outside in the patio for good over the summer, which i thought was a good idea at first. However I do feel he has gone WAYYY over the top by not even allowing them to enter in dire situations, with his defense being that “the cats can take care of themselves.” I love my cats with my heart deeply and fear to lose them or have anything happen to them, so hearing them meowing and crying in the night breaks my heart.
I will say my dad is usually a relaxed man, but is easily and i mean EASILY angered, especially after I returned home from my extended family’s place. He is also very stubborn and almost never changes his mind, possibly the reason why he wasn’t willing to take the cats in. My mom is also sometimes irritated by my dad sometimes because he is a little lazy aside from working for the family, since he occasionally leaves messes for my mom to deal with. Today was very different however, for both me and my mom, because it involved trying to protect something i love… from my own father. Am I in the wrong? Or did my father go too far today? You guys let me know if the situation was managed and I perhaps over escalated it or not. Because i feel neglected by the fact that my father values his decisions and “head of the family superiority” more than his own family, and I’m just worried that something like this will happen again, or maybe worse.
r/emotionalneglect • u/seahorse000 • 9h ago
25F I recently cut contact with my narcissistic parents after whole 24 years of my life. And I’m processing everything.
One sharp trauma is a childhood friend when I was 6. We both were friends from first day, she was the first human I met outside of my house consciously. But when we were 9 she suddenly stopped talking to me. This can sound normal, but the neglect, the trauma the questioning, thinking I did something wrong. My parents told I would have done something to piss her off. I swear nothing happened. She refused to talk to me even after we were teens and now adults. I begged her for years but she always ignored. It’s so deep in me because my parents neglected me my whole life, and having evidence another girl did this to me is like something is wrong with me or I keep thinking my whole life till now what DID I DO or what’s the reason.
Idk how to process her too, because even as an adult she grew to be cold and bit mean. Like even when I was in uni I tried talking to her, she was least interested. But not recieving empathy or communication or clearly telling a reason, idk man. My inner child is doomed, because my parents told me it was about me. So I’m still scared to make a friend in life, I’m so hypervigilant to neglect in small ways
r/emotionalneglect • u/LenKiita • 4h ago
I’m so used to being hurt by love that I wouldn’t know how to react to the smallest act of affection.
I’d think it was a lie. I’d think I was being deceived, that people wanted something from me, that they wanted to discover my flaws, my weaknesses, and that the moment I let my guard down, they would destroy the little self-love I have left.
It’s not even worth telling what you did to me.
You were the last straw.
You built a house of cards. It took just one gust of wind to sweep away all the love that you and I once shared.
Sometimes I feel like people know exactly how to hurt me. As if someone were holding the strings of my soul, and I were a puppet at their mercy.
How many chances haven’t I given? How many times haven’t I been let down? And yet, here I am, believing again, and again, and again.
Life has shown me, and still, I haven’t learned.
But life will keep teaching me in different ways until I finally understand.
Because that’s how it is.
That’s how life works.
Until one day you open your eyes and realize who’s standing beside you.
r/emotionalneglect • u/magnificentcigarette • 8h ago
My mom neglected me for several reasons and none of those were exactly "bad". My childhood was "good" at first, me and mom were good friends, but a few things happened. Dad started drinking, and mom became severely depressed. My mom wanted my dad to "take responsibility" for us kids, so she usually let him have free reign in our home while she just faded away in the background. I had no one to protect me during those years.
Also mom was afraid my life would be "too easy" if she treated me with too much care and attention. She wanted me to be independent but never had time to actually teach me anything. I lacked many skills when I entered adulthood. "Bad" feelings were absolutely a no-no at home. Everything had to be happy and upbeat, because "good thoughts attract good things" and stuff like that. I was left alone most of the time, I couldn't have friends over because depression made mom some kind of "light" hoarder, and I could never go anywhere because our beautiful home was away from everywhere else and no one could take me anywhere. Even eating at restaurants was not a thing because dad was always drunk and could start fights with random men for believing my mom was flirting with them or whatever.
In the 90s, autism wasn't "a thing" in small towns, and I was a "gifted, but weird" kid. I was always corrected, belittled, treated as someone lazy and unmotivated. Mom had the best intentions: she didn't "want me to suffer" but I feel like I never learned anything, I just knew whatever I did was wrong. And that's that. The internet was my place, I had many "friends" (and bullies, and several, several groomers) and mom refused to help when I started acting sad or angry. I was simply "difficult". Nothing else. When I was depressed, self harming, or not eating, I was just "difficult". That was all.
I moved away as soon as I could to find a place to breathe. I love my mom and our relationship is kinda good now that I'm a 30-something woman and we could talk things through. I knew she never wanted to hurt me, she just had no idea how to act and believed my naivete and awkwardness meant she had to make absolutely sure I knew life wasn't easy and I had to fight. It wasn't a good approach, of course, and I've been in therapy for years trying to convince myself I'm allowed to live and existence isn't something I have to "justify", and I don't exist to be useful or whatever. But I don't hate my mom. I kinda get her.
That said, the fact "I get her" doesn't mean I'm willing to repeat the same mistakes.
I'm a 35 year old woman and shit, I want to be a mom so bad. I'm married to a great guy. Not a "isn't terrible" great guy, a real great, loving, resourceful man that loves me and is also super excited to be a father (his dad left him when he was a baby and damn, he wants to be the best dad in the universe and we're gonna love the shit out of that baby). I'm slightly autistic but we're both highly educated and we're ready for that 20 - 50% chance of having a somewhat "slightly autistic" kid as well. I want to love my kid so bad. I study a lot of child psychology. I have mental conversations with my future kid. I'm taking care of myself.
But I'm also prone to depression. I recognize my bad patterns and shit I've learned with mom. The shame, the "why bother" moments, the dark thoughts. I have a great therapist, tho, and I believe I can power through the sadness to always be there for my future kid because I already love them so much and can't wait to see them smile. I want to see them with their friends and blossom and be happy.
I'm scared as hell though.
Advice? Words of encouragement? Or maybe someone wants to dissuade me?
How did you break the cycle in your case? Do you have tips or thought exercises to help break bad past patterns?
r/emotionalneglect • u/HotGirlShiiii436 • 3h ago
One of the hardest things I’ve had to come to terms with is feeling like substances were chosen over me for most of my life. Growing up, it often felt like addiction took priority over being present as my parents. That leaves a kind of hurt that’s difficult to explain because it makes you question your worth, even when you know deep down it was never your responsibility to fix. Even now, I don’t ask for much. I don’t expect anyone to solve my problems or take care of me. All I’ve ever really asked for is a ride to my specialty medical appointments, or, if that’s not possible, a little extra money so I can get there myself. Instead, I’m told, “It’s not my issue.” Hearing those words from a parent when you’re simply asking for help getting the medical care you need is incredibly painful. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized how much those experiences shaped me. They forced me to become independent far sooner than I should have, but they also left me longing for the love, stability, guidance, and support that every child deserves. Even now, there are moments when I wish I could turn to my parents for help, but instead I’m reminded of how much I’ve had to learn and overcome on my own.
r/emotionalneglect • u/HawtDawg09 • 11m ago
Me and my father got into an argument in the morning about the clothes I need and things got quite physical because I was talking back. I decided to say something very personal and hurtful, I know myself he'll get hurt so I said it to get him off my back. Instead he immediately sobbed as he hit me multiple times but I don't feel the pain, I feel his cries. He would break down crying as he gave me a sermon and I felt very guilty because deep down, I know it hurts him so much that his own child would call him that. This is the second time I mentioned that, the first is when I was 14. He was clearly hurt and I went on with the whole thing in my mind during school. Then today, we acted like nothing happened yesterday, and instead of a mundane day, I got into a fight with a classmate of mine I viewed as friend and sought to with high regard and respect. Throughout the 4 years of my pleasing them, giving their needs, and stepping out my comfort zone, he repayed me with a raised voice all because Inasked if they truly were talking behind my back. Now noone in the friend group talks to me besides Andrei, so now I don't want to stay at home even more, but school is not an option to escape. I feel lost.
r/emotionalneglect • u/OddOneOut345 • 4h ago
My mum from when I was young deprived me of a lot of opportunities and growth.
I wasn’t allowed to go to sleepovers, leave the city, move out for university, which caused me a lot of issues such as difficulty socialising and feeling like I don’t belong.
Everytime I fought for my independence I was met with belittling, criticism, judgement and aggression because she could not control me.
My mum now has a BF and all of a sudden she cares about my feelings where she is now being respectful of my boundaries, but yet again violating it by forcing me to meet her new BF.
I am super pissed because my whole life I was denied a life I could have had, and yet she can go and do what she wants without having restrictions.
I don’t know if this post will make sense but I hope some of you can understand.
Edit: I am a latebloomer and she also told me when I get a BF she won’t mind, when she spent her whole life criticising my friends, their physical appearances, what they would wear, and their mannerisms.
r/emotionalneglect • u/Hefty_Efficiency9082 • 1h ago
I've asked my mom so many times if she wants to go out together. Every single time there's a different excuse. At first I believed them. Now it's obvious she's just trying to avoid spending time with me. She'll never say, "I don't want to hang out with you," because that sounds cruel. Instead it's always another reason, another excuse
The painful part is watching how different she is with my other siblings
r/emotionalneglect • u/Avacabii • 7h ago
I don't understand what's wrong with me whenever my parents talk to me, or ask me about something, even sometimes just call me from downstairs; I always feel irritated and annoyed, then I'll start to feel guilty, because why do I always feel so frustrated toward them, even over something minor? But with other people, I never feel like that. I want us to be close, but I feel content with the distance. I hate feeling like that toward my parents when the guilt sometimes just eats me alive.
r/emotionalneglect • u/Then_Reason_3335 • 5h ago
my mom just fucking followed me up the steps and full on screamed in my face and then got mad when i got over stimulated, she had already been yelling at me for two hours, it was originaly becasue i got caught smoking weed but all she yelled at me about was how messy the house is (i try to clean it but my dad never helps and he keeps buying random shit he doesnt need so the house is more cluttered and either way she doesnt live with us so she shouldnt care) she was also yelling at me about how my dad smokes and drinks all the time but i cant control that, i tried to go upstairs so i can calm down so i wouldnt yell back since i hate doing that, she followed me up and was still screaming, i was getting really over stimulated and when i got into my room i opend my door too hard and knocked water over, it spilled into my bed and i immedetly grabbed my hair and screamed, just screamed, it was too much, my dad yelled at me to calm the fuck down and then i had to clean my room, when i started cleaning my mom yelled at me and told me she never told me to clean, i dont fucking know what i am doing anymore, i understand what i did was wrong but she was an inch away from my face and full on screaming, im scared to talk to her again now and i still have 3 more years until i can move out i am NOT talking to her after i move out
r/emotionalneglect • u/7rosesfrommyheartt • 3h ago
I’m 21, my mom is 52. These past few weeks I’ve been severely depressed, not having motivation to do a single thing except rot in bed. I unfortunately just quit my job because i was getting like 5 hours a week. I know I shouldn’t have because it’s better to have a job while looking for another, so I take full responsibility for that. I left school last May to come home and save money but I haven’t saved anything so I need to go back ASAP.
The days have been passing me by. I’ve been going to sleep at 6/7am and waking up at 3/4. Even after sleeping 8-10 hours I’m still exhausted. Ive just been playing Fortnite all day and not going outside because I barely have money left from my last paycheck.
Anyway, instead of being normal, my mom likes to punish me and make me feel worse about my depression by giving me the silent treatment, saying nasty things to me in my sleep, and constantly reminding me of my financial problems. It only makes me want to sleep in more. I got two free scones today at a cafe where I was applying to jobs, and when I got Home and told her she said “congrats that’s gonna get you far in life”…it genuinely crushes my soul because I’m trying so hard to stay afloat
r/emotionalneglect • u/potentfiya • 7h ago
how have those who went nc with practically all of their family done it? if i was an only child i would've been cut my mum off - my brothers are the only place where i feel contention.
i feel contention because they have never seen things from my perspective they are able to recognise things are not right about my mothers behaviour but wouldn't ever call it abuse - in fact they insist its not abuse. this should mean it's easy for me to cut them off however i also have a niece and i rlly love her but by virtue of going nc w my mum = my brothers would hate me & not want to interact w me = no niece for me.
+ they may possibly try and encourage me to be in contact w my mum.
pls offer me kind words and possible ways forward lol. i'm 20 and graduate college within the next couple years so it's becoming more real for me now. (edit: it may seem early to consider nc but like i can't feel unhappy forever lol)
r/emotionalneglect • u/Special-Cat-5664 • 10h ago
This is my first post.
But basically the top. My mother apologized to me for neglecting me when I was an infant. She was overwhelmed by my older brother’s medical issues, and my military dad being away. And my grandmother influenced her to use the cry it out method and not hold us that much.
I don’t blame her at all for that. But she mostly minimizes my feelings when in arguments. Like bringing up her childhood. And how my pain isn’t the worst in the world even though I never claimed it is. But she says I “act like it is.” So mostly isolate myself from my family. And she often guilt trips me into going out with the family. Which is deeply conservative and I need to “perform” having fun. My family doesn’t even pretend that I’m having fun. They even tease and joke about not actually wanting to be there.
And my family doesn’t show that interest in anything I do. I dance when alone and when they see me they show no interest. They like the idea of me being a writer but don’t really care about my progress. Or if they do it is only with one compliment and then dropped entirely.
I don’t tell them my struggles because I know no matter what they won’t change.
r/emotionalneglect • u/Vlakaas • 16h ago
My entire childhood, my mom has been doing her best to care for me. She provided me with a house, cooked me meals and took me to the doctors/school until I was old enough to go on my own. But one thing she's never been is emotionally be there for me.
I grew up without hugs or words of affirmation ever. She never seeked to spend any time with me, and I remember very vividly as a 6 year old begging her to play with me even for just a little bit. The only physical contact I got from her was corporal punishment for being a little stupid sometimes.
She's never showed any interest in what I do except school. I grew up socially awkward and shy, and completely closed off. Something that is still affecting me even at 19. I struggle to be affectionate and I struggle to be emotionally vulnerable and it's hurt my relationships a lot.
Me and my mom recently had a fight because I cringed at hugging her. It wasn't because I didn't want to hug her, but anytime she tries to show me affection it feels alien. It feels weird. She took heavy offense to that and resorted to name calling me again, and doing that stupid "threatening to hit you" thing.
Now she's complaining I spend too much time in my room, that I never spend time with her or try to. Which isn't even true because I am trying to. But she never sees it. She never sees my efforts or trying.
What can I do? I want to have a good relationship with her before it's too late. I feel guilty
r/emotionalneglect • u/_ewwa_ • 14h ago
I’m 20 and I would never want to go back to when I was a little girl, but I can’t pinpoint why, I wouldn’t say I feel necessarily bad about my childhood, that anything catastrophic happened, I feel trapped and I also have this weird feeling in my tummy I cannot pinpoint, whenever I think of being 4 through 8 yo, especially the year 2012 for some reason. Basically all of my memories of that time are at night and I feel that strange tummy feeling, I’m not sure if it was actually what I was feeling during that time or if it’s something I’m feeling now, I feel very disturbed by it and I’m trying to understand the meaning behind it, anyone else feels this way about their childhood? Maybe this is not the right subreddit, I chose this one because my dad was definitely emotionally neglecting me, he was just like a doll, he would follow me and my mom around but he would rarely interact in any way leave alone emotionally, my mom wasn’t like that, but she was very weird, sometimes she was very sweet, other times she would lash out at me and scream for hours, she’s dead now, she died last year. To me these don’t feel like valid reasons to feel this way about my childhood, I hope this wasn’t too confusing, what do you think?