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Emotional Neglect?
- Post starter angel2write
- Start date
- Status
Yeah. This sums up my childhood and my current relationship with my parents. I've been writing a good deal about how they ignore my needs (past and present) and favor either my father's needs or any family pet's needs. The focus was either on my father's achievements and major ego boosting or the 'poor dogs' she rescued who needed someone to care for them.
Even now, my mother spent more time moaning about my 'poor dog' who was in a kennel while I was on vacation (for four frigging days) and how she suffered- yes, suffered. She sort of ignored my comments about having major panic attacks on bridges where I felt like I was dying. Apparently, that wasn't important enough for her to acknowledge except with an ' oh you must have inherited it' off handed comment. No sympathy. No comfort. None. Kind of makes me resent my dog a little...
BIG lack of concern about my needs- emotional and physical. Yes, I also had food, clothes, shelter, etc. as a child. I did not experience extreme deprivation (starvation, lack of shelter, etc), but I did experience a lot of emotional neglect and major gaslighting.
The best way to put this is that the dog was and still is more important than me (in my parents' eyes). Realizing my spot on the totem pole really messes with my head.
I wish I knew how to just deal with this crap or give you some kind of advice, but I don't.
I'm still trying to figure out what it 'means' to me on an emotional level.
- Post starter
- #15
angel2write
Diamond Member
Have been brooding about this tonight.
It's not the ways they hurt me that really hurt. None of it was that bad. It was that they didn't care that it hurt me. If there was a reason I had to endure something, I could have endured it. But knowing that I had to endure it just because my parents didn't care that it hurt me... or couldn't be bothered... or even because my squirming and suffering amused them... that's what really hurt.
It was the not-caring that I couldn't handle. I felt like a subject in an experiment instead of a child. Like a rat they were running through mazes. Sometimes I got the cheese. Sometimes I got shocked, depending on how fast and carefully I was able to run that day. And the whole time I kept thinking if I could be a good enough rat, someday the scientists would realize they loved me.
Yeah, like that's going to happen. Scientists don't fall in love with lab rats. And the cuts that really bled (to use Just Me's metaphor) were those moments I realized I did everything right, everything I possibly could... and they still didn't love me. It still wasn't good enough. Those were the moments I wanted to crawl off and die. Those were the times I hurt myself to punish myself for still not being good enough to get love.
Gack. I'm talking too much.
It's not the ways they hurt me that really hurt. None of it was that bad. It was that they didn't care that it hurt me. If there was a reason I had to endure something, I could have endured it. But knowing that I had to endure it just because my parents didn't care that it hurt me... or couldn't be bothered... or even because my squirming and suffering amused them... that's what really hurt.
It was the not-caring that I couldn't handle. I felt like a subject in an experiment instead of a child. Like a rat they were running through mazes. Sometimes I got the cheese. Sometimes I got shocked, depending on how fast and carefully I was able to run that day. And the whole time I kept thinking if I could be a good enough rat, someday the scientists would realize they loved me.
Yeah, like that's going to happen. Scientists don't fall in love with lab rats. And the cuts that really bled (to use Just Me's metaphor) were those moments I realized I did everything right, everything I possibly could... and they still didn't love me. It still wasn't good enough. Those were the moments I wanted to crawl off and die. Those were the times I hurt myself to punish myself for still not being good enough to get love.
Gack. I'm talking too much.
Queen Boudica
VIP Member
No you are not talking too much. It makes perfect sense and it is helping me.
It was good enough. It was always good enough and probably far much more than good enough, it was probably near perfect. Just your parents were never good enough to appreciate you, they were not good enough to have you, not the other way round.
They punished you enough by doing this to you. No need to punish yourself for their failures, their lack of humanity. Reward yourself for surviving such horrible parents.
YOU are good enough to get love, Just not from those parents who were not capable of knowing what love was. How blessed they were to have you and how they threw that away.
sillybearmama
New Here
This is such an apt metaphor... this is exactly how I feel about my parents most especially my father. I was always chasing his approval, a constant search for what would be enough to make him realize I was good enough to love.
Working with my therapist has helped me work toward the understanding that it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with them. They were so broken and had failed so much that they could never look at me and see me for who I truly was. Even now it's too painful for them to really see me, all they can see is their own failure reflecting back at them. It's hard to remember this when you're constantly being rejected by your parents even as an adult but it does make sense and helps to keep things in perspective.
I had a thought that I shared with my therapy group the other day about this same subject. Children should be a priority in your life not an accessory to it.
Angel2Write, thank you so much for this thread! I have often felt the same way with my mother, not so much with my father. I grew up in an upper middle class family, had what looked like on the outisde, a perfect childhood. Nice house, cars that ran, food, and a vacation every year, etc... However, I have always felt that I was an outcast and had something missing from my family life. Like many have alerady stated, I never attributed it to true trauma. It just felt like a void.
I am realizing now that a lot of things from my childhood had a great effect on how I would behave, especially during my teenage years and even now. My parents had four children, whom I truly believe that they do love, but my mom just has no idea how to show it. I was the baby girl (3rd child of 4), so naturally they were overly protective of me. However, I was also always blamed for everything or if they thought it wasn't my fault, my reaction to the entire situation was the topic of discussion and the person who actually did something wrong got away with it because I let my temper get the best of me. I can remember being younger and my parents constantly threatening to take me to a psychiatrist because they thought I had multiple personalities. I could be sweet as sugar one minute and the next, I could punch your lights out if provoked. This led me to feel very ashamed. I can remember crying in my room as a very young girl, thinking what the hell is wrong with me and how come I am the only one in trouble? This also caused me to view going to a mental health professional in a very negative manner and I always refused to go. All that shame led me to become very angry at home ( I was pretty much an angel at school). I stabbed my brother with pens, punched people, and even would hide just to see if my parents would come looking for me. When they didn't, I convinced myself that they didn't love me.
I don't even remember getting much affection at all from my mom, I just remember getting blamed, told to control my temper, and to forget about things. For example, in the third grade, a boy would rub on me and say weird things to me when I was in elementary school. He was an obsessed little boy and one day when I grew the courage to tell him to stop, he told me he was going to rape me. My parents made excuses for him and told me to get over it. That's when I began acting out and distancing myself from them. I got bullied in school a lot and one day when I fought back, my mom grounded me and told me I deserved to be punished by the school. Even when she found out about my recent trauma, she virtually said nothing. Whenever I do open up to her on the rare occassion, she is very quiet or just says things that make me feel ashamed all over again like I did was little. Yet, she can't even begin to fathom why I am very private and don't even like to be around her. I've realized that I only love her out of obligation of her being my mother.
Whew, that was a lot I just got out here. I guess my point is, I think it's those childhood experiences that shape us and while they don't conform to society's norms of traumatic, they truly are. Affection and attention are basic human needs and if they aren't met, that deficiency has a dire effect on our psyche.
P.S. The metaphor about the cuts....so true!
I am realizing now that a lot of things from my childhood had a great effect on how I would behave, especially during my teenage years and even now. My parents had four children, whom I truly believe that they do love, but my mom just has no idea how to show it. I was the baby girl (3rd child of 4), so naturally they were overly protective of me. However, I was also always blamed for everything or if they thought it wasn't my fault, my reaction to the entire situation was the topic of discussion and the person who actually did something wrong got away with it because I let my temper get the best of me. I can remember being younger and my parents constantly threatening to take me to a psychiatrist because they thought I had multiple personalities. I could be sweet as sugar one minute and the next, I could punch your lights out if provoked. This led me to feel very ashamed. I can remember crying in my room as a very young girl, thinking what the hell is wrong with me and how come I am the only one in trouble? This also caused me to view going to a mental health professional in a very negative manner and I always refused to go. All that shame led me to become very angry at home ( I was pretty much an angel at school). I stabbed my brother with pens, punched people, and even would hide just to see if my parents would come looking for me. When they didn't, I convinced myself that they didn't love me.
I don't even remember getting much affection at all from my mom, I just remember getting blamed, told to control my temper, and to forget about things. For example, in the third grade, a boy would rub on me and say weird things to me when I was in elementary school. He was an obsessed little boy and one day when I grew the courage to tell him to stop, he told me he was going to rape me. My parents made excuses for him and told me to get over it. That's when I began acting out and distancing myself from them. I got bullied in school a lot and one day when I fought back, my mom grounded me and told me I deserved to be punished by the school. Even when she found out about my recent trauma, she virtually said nothing. Whenever I do open up to her on the rare occassion, she is very quiet or just says things that make me feel ashamed all over again like I did was little. Yet, she can't even begin to fathom why I am very private and don't even like to be around her. I've realized that I only love her out of obligation of her being my mother.
Whew, that was a lot I just got out here. I guess my point is, I think it's those childhood experiences that shape us and while they don't conform to society's norms of traumatic, they truly are. Affection and attention are basic human needs and if they aren't met, that deficiency has a dire effect on our psyche.
P.S. The metaphor about the cuts....so true!
Gamereign555
Diamond Member
Emotional neglect throughout my early childhood and later really did effect me. I was unable to form a relationship for many years, I started doing drugs and did them for a long time, I did meth for a long time which I dont care what anybody says, did permanent damage to my body and nervous system. I messed myself up so much through my life, it is hard to tell exactly what caused my ptsd, as I have exposed myself to many different types of abuses along the way.
Queen Boudica
VIP Member
(((((( gamereign555 ))))))
Gamereign555
Diamond Member
Thanks lizio, it doesn't depress me anymore. I have learned to be more in the moment now. I am a very different person now. I tend to think that my ptsd is punishment for my drug use and behavior in the past, but my therapist has reminded me of my childhood abuse too so. I am just taking care these days.
Angel2Write,
In some ways, I think the emotional neglect I suffered at my parents' hands was worse than the physical and emotional abuse. My mother showed little interest in me. It was clear to me from an early age I was not wanted (my sister recently confirmed this when she told me that my parents had decided to have a third child to make their marriage better - a stupid thing so many couples do). Instead of making the marriage better, I added stress as any child does. My mother resented me because I was another child to care for. My father was disappointed in me, because he always wanted a son. I'm gay, so I joke that he got half a son. ;)
I was emotionally neglected (feelings completely negated). I was shown little warmth or kindness form my mother. There were several times when I was physically neglected when I should have been taken to the doctor, or even the hospital, and I wasn't. I had all kinds of emotional problems that were never even noticed let alone addressed by my parents. If I felt scared about something, my mother just got mad at me. I felt empty inside. I felt like I had no real attachment to anyone (except my grandpa who I only saw about once a year) and knew I was not wanted. I think this had as much affect on me as the beatings.
Emotional abuse is worse than physical abuse, because their are never any physical signs on the body. And, it is hard to describe a lot of emotional abuse. As kids, we never went to anyone for help, because we knew no one would believe us. My mother had a perfect persona with the outside world, and a lot of her nastiness was underhanded and hard to put into words. It came out sounding lame and hollow. We just shut up.
There is no doubt in my mind that people can have PTSD because of emotional neglect. I was always scared, always lonely, always feeling unloved, always feeling completely alone in the world.
Spero3
In some ways, I think the emotional neglect I suffered at my parents' hands was worse than the physical and emotional abuse. My mother showed little interest in me. It was clear to me from an early age I was not wanted (my sister recently confirmed this when she told me that my parents had decided to have a third child to make their marriage better - a stupid thing so many couples do). Instead of making the marriage better, I added stress as any child does. My mother resented me because I was another child to care for. My father was disappointed in me, because he always wanted a son. I'm gay, so I joke that he got half a son. ;)
I was emotionally neglected (feelings completely negated). I was shown little warmth or kindness form my mother. There were several times when I was physically neglected when I should have been taken to the doctor, or even the hospital, and I wasn't. I had all kinds of emotional problems that were never even noticed let alone addressed by my parents. If I felt scared about something, my mother just got mad at me. I felt empty inside. I felt like I had no real attachment to anyone (except my grandpa who I only saw about once a year) and knew I was not wanted. I think this had as much affect on me as the beatings.
Emotional abuse is worse than physical abuse, because their are never any physical signs on the body. And, it is hard to describe a lot of emotional abuse. As kids, we never went to anyone for help, because we knew no one would believe us. My mother had a perfect persona with the outside world, and a lot of her nastiness was underhanded and hard to put into words. It came out sounding lame and hollow. We just shut up.
There is no doubt in my mind that people can have PTSD because of emotional neglect. I was always scared, always lonely, always feeling unloved, always feeling completely alone in the world.
Spero3
So well put, Sea. Great post. I read a really disturbing article about a year ago that was about the number of kids in this country who have been adopted from foreign countries where they languished in horrible conditions in orphanages before being adopted. Some of these kids are very, very serious emotional problems and are extremely violent - to the point where the adoptive parents and their biological children live in terror. Many end up in special homes, because the adoptive families cannot handle them. I have a friend who is going through this with one of her two adopted boys. She and her husband adopted them when they were about three from a South American country. One of the boys is fairly normal, but his twin brother is such a mess they have had to put him in a special home and school. He completely lacks the ability to know right from wrong and has zero compassion or empathy. It is really frightening. I am sure both of these boys suffered from serious emotional neglect probably right from birth. Very sad.
Spero
Spero
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