Emotional Neglect?

[Oceanheart]

Thank you, Nikon and Angel :3 It always feel great for people to clean bits of my head

 

[ms spock]

I do feel like I've been emotionally neglected when I was younger, but I'm just not sure if I'm right or wrong, because people in my family say I'm a bunch of baloney. I know a few times I felt lack of love/care/concern. I always felt greatly ignored and lonesome, since I suffered physical and verbal abuse from both my parents, and (mom, mostly) did show a lot of lack of concern. Like if I cried, my mother never ever hugged me of asked me if I was ok. She never considered how I was feeling. I remember one time my mother had emotionally hurt me, and I was crying on the floor, and all she said was "Are you going to sleep there tonight?". I still feel like I'm starving for affection. I always crave affection that I never had. I crave love and happiness that a child in me should've had, but never gotten. I constantly ask myself if I'm just crazy, because I'm always being told that I'm "wrong". I'm not sure what is right or wrong :(

Read that post as if it was me - ms spock - who wrote it. What would you say to me then?

Of course abusers are going to lie about what they did.

You have had a terrible time of it. And what is worse is the lying about what happened as it makes you doubt your own reality which is one of the hardest child abuses to deal with IMHO.

 

[ms spock]

Dear Oceanheart

However, as I previously wrote and your words clearly indicate, ALL abuse is inextricably intertwined with and wrapped in a layer of neglect.

You are neither crazy or wrong. Your our words are proof of such devastating emotional neglect. And I'm not sure how you came up with your screen name, but I would suspect that besides the breath of the "ocean of love" you feel for others, it also reflects the depth of the "ocean of deprivation" you feel inside - a void from children that is truly hard to fill!

Ah so well typed Alex!

 

[ms spock]

I genuinely feel for your unmet childhood needs, but please don't add to that pain by doubting yourself. Everyone needs to be loved, but only those who have truly been denied it for so long crave it the way that you do.

Oh I feel that way too. Once again Alex - you hit the nail on the head!

 

[ms spock]

Please embrace yourself and ALL your pain, and when you feel as if you can't for a while, let all of us, let me, hold your heart in our hands and keep it beating for you. Also, remember that "we are all wired to connect" emotionally with others, especially our primary caregivers/parents.

Sending you a touch of that affection you are so starved for. I know it won't be enough but hopefully it can be a start. You deserve all the care and love that you never received, but should have.

Here is one hug from me to put in your "ocean heart",
Alex

This brings tears to my eyes!

 

[angel2write]

Here it is, Bear.

 

[Abrasky]

Oh dear waterworks after reading this page.

 

[BigBear]

I haven't read the whole thread yet, so I'll probably mess up by posting at this point.

What's new...

I just want to get the starting point of my thought down on... Hmmmm.... Electrons?

Angel and I were talking and we both think that I have a psych problem too. It's almost impossible that it is PTSD (I don't have any of the classic symptoms), but she wants me to investigate Emotional Neglect.

One weird thing came to mind as I started reading this thread:

Once when I was about 13'ish, I got upset. In order to keep things from turning too far inward, I always had to do something very energy intensive. The phone company had cut down a phone pole in our back yard. I went out and dug it out. The whole was roughly 6 feet wide at the top and 8 feet deep to the bottom. The I had to get the pole out of the hole. You wouldn't believe how heavy 10 feet of telephone pole is. By the time I was finished, the demons were calm and life returned to normal. I feel like that is just a crazy thing to do... and I wonder what it means.

I have no clue now what upset me so...

Any comments are welcome! Now I guess I should go back to reading this thread.

Bear

PS: I understand that my writing doesn't meet forum rules. If anyone wants to PM me and give me pointers, I would be pleased to improve myself...

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

Hey, Bear!
I think that maybe you learned how to 'vent' or 'work' out your emotions. My best friend's dad always told her, if she had problems..to "go plant a garden".

His way of saying that when you had a problem, doing something physical and constructive helps 'work out' the heavy emotion. You are right, it kept you from turning those feelings inward.

I've heard it is easier to get men and boys talking about emotions, if you can get busy doing something together, like fishing...or planting a garden, or digging out a telephone pole, if you're working out something for yourself.

 

[somethings]

Reading these threads are so helpful in feeling like you're not alone in this. Thank you everyone for sharing difficult experiences.

I am 30, and am coming to terms with the childhood neglect/abuse I dealt with from my Father. I literally have memories as a child where I thought to myself that I knew what I was dealing with was wrong and that I wouldn't "be one of those people" who blamed their problems on their parents in their adulthood. However, as I neared my late 20s I realized how deeply and significantly I was affected and it wasn't a matter of choice.

I am one of four siblings, the only girl. My Father was the disciplinarian and to me, that is all he was. He never hugged me or showed me any other emotion other than anger and rage. I was spanked violently and at the mercy of his rages which were induced by the slightest things. While I think discipline is important for children, his was unbalanced and abusive. My Mother was pretty loving but overly submissive to my Father and wouldn't stand up to him. Her deep religious beliefs were the most important focus and to her, biblically, spanking was fine. However, I literally was never hugged or loved by my Father, and I grew to fear & hate him by an early age. I remember praying to God to kill him so my Mom would marry someone nice.

My parents are still married to this day, and while his anger/rage has subsided his utter lack of interest in me and my life has persisted. I moved out of state the moment I was done with high school and visit sparingly. He has never called me on my birthday, and when I visit he ignores me and watches TV with my brothers, laughing loudly and oblivious to my presence. He taped over my childhood videos with football games. At a family wedding, during the father/daughter dance he left the dance floor and sat down and didn't even consider coming up to me, left awkward and embarressed, fleeing to the bathroom to avoid stares. My mom comes up to me asking "did that make you upset" - so I lie and say no, I didn't even notice. It all hurts so bad.

It has been very difficult in my life to accept love from a man and I struggle with such issues as jealousy and distrust, really not able to believe I am lovable. I have also struggled with loving others as well. I call myself a "loner" but really I am lonely and very depressed. It makes it worse that he talks glowingly of my brothers girlfriend and interacts with her normally. I have contemplated suicide at times, but have become more solid minded and am trying to find ways to build my ruined self-esteem and salvage the relationships I have hurt.

I wonder if anyone has had success with talk-therapy. I am considering it to get over the anger and hatred that I still carry. I want to believe I can have healthy, loving relationships and not doom all my relationships like I have done. At my age it is really hard to think about being alone and childless forever.

 

[mamachick]

somethings-I am sorry for what you have suffered with your parents and it has interfered with adult relationships. I do believe that talk therapy does help. I understand the belief that we are not lovable, I feel it, but keep working on it because I am certain that you are lovable. You need to know it and love yourself. You need to feel it. You are young and have time to learn to believe in yourself. You deserve it.

 

[voodoobaby]

Hi everyone.

I don't even know if anyone will read this, seeing as the last post was written almost a year ago. But nevertheless I have thoughts and experiences to add.

First of all I don't think I've ever stumbled across anything on the internet ever, that has given me the acknowledgment and support that this thread does. For your sharing and understanding I give you my sincere thanks.

There are a few things that I have to get off of my heart, things that you have written that I've always felt, and never been able to express. Like the fact that I always had everything I needed. Food, my own room, clothes, and so on, but still managed to feel like something essential was missing. The way that need made me feel about myself. Made me hate myself for never being satisfied. Thinking that I was whiny and ungreatful, and that I had to love being sad since I couldn't stop being it. That I was this f*cked up person that wanted to, and deserved to feel alone, different and disposable, since the feelings had been there for as long as I could remember.

Just reading that others who have suffered emotional neglect experienced the same immediately took some of the shame away. Thank you.

I would also like to mention, and repeat, the fact that neglect are the abuse that didn't happen. Invisible blows. And this thread suddenly made me understand why I'd wish for my parents to hit me. I wish they would have left marks and done something viable that I could prove, that I could take to a nurse and get help for.

It's so bitter to know that no one ever saw, no one did anything, no one was there to help me. The fact that my four younger siblings seemed to get attention and love they needed, helped to increase the feeling that it was me that was the problem, and that I'd made it all up in my head. I often thought I was crazy. But then again, lying in my bed late at night, listening to my parents doing their rounds, checking on all their children except for me, it seemed wrong. I came to wish for it. Wish that they'd forget me. Want it and need it. It was the only way I could make sense of it. That it was in fact something wrong with me, and that I deserved to be left out. Deserved to stay at home while they went to amusement parks, deserved to have to make my own food while my siblings got their lunches prepared the night before. I deserved to be able to leave the house for hours without anyone noticing or caring, and I deserved to feel the horrible and devastating feelings that made me pray to God every night that he'd let me die during the night.

I never got angry, and always did what I was told. Got by unnoticed, never had trouble in school, and never told anyone, not a single person, that I was alone, and that something was terribly wrong. I thougt it was me. That I was born that way. Born wrong, and unable to be loved.

THis thread brought tears to my eyes. Tears of sorrow, and grief. Such bitterness and hate, that I had to be brought up like that. And at the same time hope, that maybe I will be loved someday. Maybe I do deserve it after all.

So thanks. I just had to say it. Thanks.