Poll Does Your Family Neglect You Emotionally?

[Changing4Best]

This is a simple poll with a yes or no answer. However, please feel free to discuss why or how they do so or don't.

 

[Abstract]

Hi Sheila,
Do you mean in the past and present?

I had a wobble about what the term really referred to so found this: http://definitions.uslegal.com/e/emotional-neglect/ and thishttps://http://

Is this what you had in mind?

 

[Changing4Best]

Yes, in the present, but the past can surely be part of the poll too, especially in the dicussion section.

As to your links you shared, yes, they cover it, probably more broadly than I intended as I was not thinking so much about leaving a child alone after school or not tending to a child's need to see a psychiatrist, but more about not giving hugs, not talking to a child when they seem lonely, not taking them out places, etc.

As adults it would cover such things as not calling the person once in awhile, not visiting at least occasionally, not writing them, or emailing them, or making arrangements for chat, etc.

 

[Invisible-Guy]

Sometimes I feel like they do, but then realize that this whole thing is hard for them to understand.

I've definitely learned not to over share what's going on inside. They seem to worry too much or they think that I should be able to just turn the page and think happy thoughts. It's almost like people feel that we somehow elect to feel they way or think this way. So now I keep most of the actual problems to myself until I see the doctor or counselor.

Also sometimes I say to myself "I can't believe I just told them that" right after I tell them something related to PTSD.I Keep it basic, such as "I don't do well in crowds yet." and leave it at that.

The only time I get completely abandoned is when I have an emotional outburst. People think it's a character flaw, not understanding that it's just that nasty troll called PTSD.

 

[Changing4Best]

Thanks, Invisable, that sheds some light on it for me.

For me, it is things like that my sister never calls me. It has been over a year! The last time she called me, as if it were a huge favor or something was on Chriistmas Day a year and a month ago or so. Before that, she had not called me for 3 years. Also, she and her husband and then her adult children who live separately never come to visit me. They have all kinds of excuses, they visit one another and their inlaws, but not me.

I'm the only one in the family who has PTSD, from early childhood abuse until about age 6. I did not learn to speak until I was nearly 4 and then I was threatened that if I told my parents or anyone, he'd wring my neck (and he demonstrated this to me on my favorite toy).

I don't think he ever was able to get away with this with my sister, because my mother wasn't working yet then. My abuser was my father's father. He also was a wife beater and had beaten my dad and uncle throughout their childhoods too.

 

[Invisible-Guy]

I have a brother that never lets me know when he's in the area. He visits my nephew and a couple friends, but dodging me like the plague. I did it to myself, I had a couple emotional outbursts while hanging around with him and it's been this way ever since. The family / friend that DO come around are the ones that matter :)

 

[Phenioxrising]

Since my dads depression when I was 8. He has never been the same, he provides for me;even though I don't need him to now.

Also my brother is constantly telling me what I should do. And "blowing up" if he thinks it's wrong.

Since I stood up to him, and told him that he may be older, but I'm a grown woman.
Since then he has nothing to say.

 

[DharmaGirl]

No, I don't think so. I have a brother with PTSD also, and we don't talk a lot. We do occasionally. It is too hard a lot of times. Now that I am remembering a lot, I think he is remembering too. I talk to my mom weekly, and email too. Those are the only people in my tiny family I talk to. So actually it may be yes. I never talk to my cousins, or 2 aunts. Don't have a lot in common with them. I never really liked my one aunt since she always made fun of me.

 

[Invisible-Guy]

In awkward circumstances, I'll often just tell people that I had a stroke instead of a mental illness, they are much more understanding. Maybe other people coud try this trick???

 

[Changing4Best]

I live in a building for the mentally or physically ill, but since I am not obviously physically ill, people assume I am mentally ill whether I admit to it or not. None the less, I have Lyme Disease and PTSD, so... even though I am medicated, it is probably obvious. I've blown up at my family more than once, even on Facebook in front of the whole wide world. I lost half my "freiends" when I did that; they had no idea I was blowing up at my family, but was too far gone to realize every one of my friends could see it all too. When I returned to "myself" I had half as many friends there. To this day I cannot recall who I lost and who I kept, as I also have severe memory loss. I know I did keep my family, but it turns out they don't read my stuff there anyway, I sort of figured out. That is because when I call them to talk, they don't seem to know anything about what I've posted on FB.

 

[Philippa]

My mother definitely acts like this...never calls, (anymore anyway), didn't visit me when she was in town (though she stayed with family friends that weren't that far away), and doesn't email me unless it is to lie to me and trick me into coming back into the family fold, due to current estrangement.

When she is not not actively trying to contact me, she is speaking badly about me behind my back, to my brothers, whom she knows will deliver her shaming for her and then acts like she didn't know they would tell later. Apparently SHE can't be bothered with me. After much crap like this, I've decided, I can't be bothered with her either.

As far as calling and emailing me and making regular visits, my father actually was very good at this...except I DIDN'T WANT to have contact with him, due to all the insensitive, gaslighting crap he inflicts on me when we are together.

My youngest brother calls every once in a while, and my middle brother the same, though now no one really calls except my middle brother, to try and "work things out", which entails me telling him what I want to hear, and him saying it, so I can come back and the family can "go back to normal". I have him on block, so maybe I'm the one neglecting them all emotionally.

I call it self-preservation personally!

 

[Changing4Best]

I just talked to my niece and she tried to convince me that I should give up my dog and move into a nursing facility (I assume so that she does not have to worry about me, as I live alone and have no one nearby). I do have a Social Worker, which I wrote back to her in email after our conversation, realizing that she is a control freak and might try to force me to move into a facility. She is the kind of person who always has to have her way. When it came to my parents' memorial services, she had to have total control. She even talked her minister into insisting to see my eulogy before I was "allowed" to read it at my parents' memorial service! I showed the minister the draft copy, then added what I wanted to after that. I will NOT be controlled by that control freak if I can help it!

However, I have had severe anxiety all afternoon, wondering if she will try to get me to move into a facility by some legal action. I concluded after much thought that I doubted it. The reason: she'd have to come down here to North Carolina from upstate New York to do so. She simply does not have that kind of time or money right now, that I can see. She has two jobs and is in debt up to her eyeballs, as they say. She scared the living daylights out of me for awhile there, because when she gets an idea into her head, it seems like it would take an army to stop it!!! And I don't have any armies at my disposal. She may be rich and I poor, but she cannot control the county judge here, so I think I am OK. I do NOT want to move into a facility any time soon! I'm only 58!!!

Yes, I am on Di$ability, yes I am under medical treatment, yes, I take a lot of meds, but no, I really do not need to be in a facility. Even my Social Worker said I don't.