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Research Research On The Effects Of Child Abuse And Neglect On Only Children (kinda Pissed)

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I am the only child of two narcissists. My mother is an overt/histrionic/ off the charts narc with sadism and my father is a covert narc who is withdrawn, angry and mean in old age. I am no contact due to their disturbing behavior towards me. I am now 53 and they are 76 and 84. I was told my parents were narc when I was 12. I have spent my adult life going to therapy, to learn how to deal with my C-PTSD, clinical anxiety and depression. Therapists say I've been severely abused, and I know that. Despite that, I have built my own business, traveled and had a decent life. I chose not to marry or date after 40 due to choosing narcissistic partners. If you need a study participant, let me know. I've spent my life fighting hard to keep going and hope all of this can help others somehow.
Carolyn M
 
Can't sleep AGAIN and so I decided to research the topic again and this thread was the only thing on google that came up when typing in only child and abuse and neglect. Am I the only, only child in the world that went 3 or more days at a time without any human interaction?
 
Nope @Fadeaway. That was my childhood, too.

I do also wonder if having siblings might make it more likely that neglect would be discovered. It seems logical that each kid would increase the chances of discovery, since each child would have their own circle of people that they interact with that could discover and report something.
 
It seems logical that each kid would increase the chances of discovery, since each child would have their own circle of people that they interact with that could discover and report something
Except that kids in trauma band together... keeping each other’s secrets, and reinforcing a child’s belief of needing to... whether as allies or enemies. Closer and more tight lipped than the mob, abused kids sticking together against a common enemy. Whether they love each other or hate each other, the fear of discovery -and methods used to avoid it- tends to multiply the more people who are in it.

So, in theory, more chances for discovery, but in practice? It’s a harder group to crack. So it tends to come out as a wash, IME.
 
Except that kids in trauma band together... keeping each other’s secrets, and reinforcing a child’s belief of needing to... whether as allies or enemies.

Yep. This is my experience. In a family unit where there is abuse to the children, there is little choice but to band together with each other. A child's social circle is not that large and what they have are adults, who naturally give credence to the other adults, first. Which means the risk of being found out that you tried to expose the injustices toward you will then reap more trauma and punishment. The clout of influence a child would have with an adult, in that situation, gives little room for help and intervention. Thus you have many of us on this site who are trying to recover from the abuses as children, where, in my case, adults were aware of the abuse, but wanted to keep the larger structure of the family unit in place, rather than save a single child.
 
There are so many skills I didn't learn when it came to interacting with other people, due to having adults ignoring me and no children to play with. The isolation and loneliness were killers. It was all on me, I had no one who understood. I took the brunt of it all.

I was taught to believe a lot about myself and my situation I may never had believed had there been other children in the home. In public everyone believed the only children myths about being spoiled. Any acting out as cries for help, I was told I wanted to be the center of attention because I was an only child. It was made very clear to me by my 4th grade teacher that he was having none of that. I never got to go to recces with the other kids because I craved human interaction so badly it was hard not to talk in class during the times I was actually enrolled in school.

The shear loneliness and lack of support and having another child's perspective still effects me. Losing a parent as a young adult without sibling is so hard.

I know that children with siblings have there own set of issues and can have negative experiences that make life more difficult. It's just that I can find a ton of research on birth order and abuse but not on only children and abuse.
 
Would you make a survey and publish it?
You may find a sense of connectivity with people of similar upbringings.
For example, what you said about non-verbal communication might be a thing.
Personally, i have had to read books explaining body language to help me interpret interactions.

Will you start that thread, @Fadeaway, on the effects being an only-child may have had on predisposing one to potentially abusive situations (in childhood & adulthood), or similar topic? maybe the different social world we live in?
 
How would I go about making a survey and publishing?
I have done polls here and written several threads, but I ma looking for something like what you would finding a medical journal, phd research.I have written to researchers but no one is interested.
 
There are websites available to make questionnaires, you would then advertise the link either on here, various social media or put the QR code on a poster and splash it around uni's....
but i can see that's alot of work when you really quite simply want the answers and the results of someone elses research!

is it possible to ask your therapist to research it and present you with some findings, or at least guide you where to look?
 
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