Childhood I Don't Know How I Should Feel

[sugnim]

I don't know what to feel about the neglect I experienced as a child. I was left alone each day in the house with no supervision from the age of 5. When my mother & step father were home, I had to either be in the garage, or my bedroom (when I finally had a bedroom instead of a couch in the kitchen) and I wasn't really allowed to interact with them. If I did something wrong, my punishment was typically isolation for a month without being allowed to interact with the family or with any friends (although I was allowed to walk to school). As a teenager, I had to pay for my own food & clothing. My mother was usually drunk, and my step father also drank a lot. There wasn't a whole lot of physical abuse, expect for when I would try to get my mother to go to bed at night when she was drunk & she would slap me and spit in my face. Also, when I was younger, she had a fly swatter and a piece of wooden baseboard that she used to hit me with. My mother often told me she did not want me, and I was kicked out of the house while I was still in high school.

Anyway, whatever I went through was not as bad as what my mother went through. She was beaten & raped by her father. Her mother told her she did not want her and sent her away at the age of 15. She grew up in poverty.

Growing up, I knew about some of the things my mother faced as a child, and I always felt sort of guilty about it. I still do. My mother has some pretty severe mental illness issues, some of which may be organic, and some of which are almost definitely from her childhood. I can't talk with her about what it was like for me growing up because she believes that I had a great childhood. The guy who used to be my step father is dead. There really isn't anyone who saw how I grew up. And I don't know how I should feel about it. It's taken me quite some time to even admit that there was anything wrong with how I was raised because I know a lot of people had it much worse than I did. Should I be angry? But I can't be angry because my mom probably did the best she could given her background & limitations. Should I be relieved that my childhood wasn't as bad as it could have been? I've tried to just ignore it & forget about it, hoping I could move on, but that isn't working. It's creeping into my daily life & causing a shit-ton of problems for my marriage and my personal sense of well-being.

 

[Mawyanne]

I don't know what to feel about the neglect I experienced as a child.

It sounds to me like you experienced enough as a child! Why compare it to how it could have been worse? It was bad enough on it's own.
I also have difficulty with not knowing how I should feel about my mom's abusive actions to my brothers, sister and me. Maybe not knowing how to feel isn't the right wording... I have trouble reconciling the things she did even though I forgive her because she, too, has mental health issues and she truly believed she was acting in the best interests of her family. Still, I myself have suffered from mental health issues...but I would never have treated any of my kids the hateful way I saw her treat my sister! Then again, I was willing to get help and make changes, as you seem willing to do. We all make choices.
I don't believe I will ever be able to talk to my mom about any of those things... not that I haven't tried. I wish she was able to recognize how wrong she was. In the meantime, as much as I love her, my mom is a major trigger for me, 'toxic' to me, even though we have been hundreds of miles apart since I was 18. I had to completely limit the frequency and length of time I spend on the phone or in email with her, and the very rare occasion that I am in her presence. I think I need to limit it all the more... at least until I've worked out my own health and develop an immunity to her toxicity.
I do appreciate that you are so understanding of the things your mom went through... but those really are her issues. How she responds to those issues is up to her (I.E., has she chosen to get help to recover from those issues? Or has she perhaps used her issues as a crutch, an excuse for her behavior?) I feel compelled
to end this by suggesting that you shouldn't feel sorry for your mom... she makes her own choices, even now.

 

[EveHarrington]

Would it help to view yourself from the outside? How would you feel if you saw another child being treated the same way?

 

[illusionist]

I personally don't feel that we ' should ' feel a certain way. We feel how we feel, our emotions are ours.

I've found that over the years I've had different emotions, at different times, towards my abusers.....I believe it's what I had to go through as part of processing it all. I think I've come out at the end of the years of mixed emotions with reasonably balanced ( for the most part) emotions regarding them.

 

[Suzetig]

I think we just feel how we feel, no right or wrong to it - it just is. You can compare your experience to your mums if you like, decide she had it worse, decide that she did her best with you etc etc but you get to live with what happened to you.

You can recognise your mums challenges while also knowing you've been harmed by her behaviour to you - you're entitled to your feelings about what happened. Whatever happened to your mum, you had a terrible time as a child and it has an impact - one doesn't cancel out the others

 

[sugnim]

Would it help to view yourself from the outside? How would you feel if you saw another child bein...

I'm not sure if that would be helpful. I get extremely nervous & angry when I even suspect that a child is being wronged, even if I logically know they aren't. IT has lead to fights with my spouse, even though I know she would never ever harm our son. In fact, last weekend, while I was painting our house, I overheard a little girl next door crying to her mother saying "No, mommy, please, please just give me another chance!" I really wanted to go and kill that woman, I was so angry and shaken at hearing that. I'm sure there was no abuse involved, but I couldn't calm my inner anger and shakiness nonetheless.

 

[Terri]

As survivors of abuse, we tend to minimize what we went through, sometimes we have to to protect ourselves and keep going. Sometimes if we admitted to ourselves how bad it was it would hurt so much more, or we would have to actually hold someone responsible for their actual behavior.
I just started EMDR therapy and that has been helping already. Something to consider.

 

[shimmerz]

I really wanted to go and kill that woman, I was so angry and shaken at hearing that.

I generally found that the way I felt about how other people were being treated was a better indicator of how I saw my past. Projection I think they call it. Especially if you knew the child wasn't being abused.

Being afraid of one's own anger is a very usual thing for those of us who have been neglected/abused. We do all sorts of cartwheels to externalize it - by being indignant, enraged etc for others, not ourselves. Because it can be too much.

I think a good therapist's job is to teach us to slowly internalize and own those feelings - rather than project them onto other people/situations.

Just a thought.

 

[Sideways]

I agree with @shimmerz that if you're able to get really angry about other kids being treated poorly, then that's an indication of some of the feelings that you may not yet feel safe enough to feel on your own behalf.

But I also agree with the above posts that there is no 'right' way to feel, and that there isn't necessarily one specific emotion that you should feel. Conflicting emotions, especially when you're able to see the difficulties your mum went through, I think are natural and healthy. It doesn't tend to com naturally to us to just be outright angry and hateful of the people who raised us. So feeling love and hate at the same time would make perfect sense to me. Feeling betrayed would also be a really big one for me.

I think that one of the big things I've been able to progress with over the years is starting to get myself in a position where I can look at the past more realistically - see it as genuine abuse - and work on getting myself into a space that is safe enough to finally let my emotions come to the surface. We keep them bottled up for decades because it's not safe to be angry at our primary caregivers as little children. At some point, now that you're an adult and capable of keeping yourself space, it's finally okay for those emotions as they come out.

When they do come out, whatever they are, and as conflicting as they might be, it's important to honour those feelings and embrace them as your own. Then in time, we can eventually let them go and move on.

One thing I know is that you can't force yourself to feel something specific, or force emotions to come to the surface at a particular time. They come out and express themselves as we heal, so give yourself time and be gentle with yourself:)

 

[Hidden me]

I don't know what to feel about the neglect I experienced as a child. I was left alone each day in the...

wow

I don't know what to feel about the neglect I experienced as a child. I was left alone each day in the...

I can totally empathize with you and I also understand what you're saying I know you said you don't know how you should feel but you feel however you feel its your feeling and its unique to you. Your feeling are important to you so why should you not validated your little girl and her experience, what happed to your Mum is not your fault so please don't feel guilty about what happed to her because your not responsible in anyway and I want you to know that. I'm sorry that its popping up in your everyday life but these thing have a way of jumping out at us when we don't address them
I cant imagine what life must have been like for you growing up being isolated neglected and possible abandoned at times I guess it must have been awful gentle hugs if you accept.

 

[Stills]

I can empathize with you in the sense that my parents also had rough childhoods and I felt that by feeling however I feel is wrong, but that's not true at all. You feel how you feel, and you shouldn't compare your childhood with your parents. It sounds like you didn't have room to feel what you're feeling, and please know that you're allowed to feel, and that your feelings- they matter. They always will.