Neglectful Parenting: I Need Resources To Share With My Husband

[dharmaBum]

I'm in EMDR treatment for PTSD due to prolonged sexual abuse in childhood, but also experienced pervasive, ongoing neglectful parenting which rears it's head frequently during counseling sessions (and daily life as well). I'm in need of resources, especially online articles, to share with my husband about the impact of early childhood neglect on adult survivors.

Due to a recent-past prevalence of intense suicidal ideation when talking to my husband about the neglect and abuse I experienced as a child (some more than 30 years ago), I don't usually talk to him about the content of counseling sessions. However a recent session highlighting my mother's frequent claims that she "wished she never had children," wished I and my siblings "were dead" , and wished that we as children had never "been born" left me very shaken. My husband was helpful in spontaneously arranging activities with our daughter so that I had some extra alone time after the session. However, when I finally tried to talk to him about the session just as I would share any information about my day with a loved-one and best-friend, he was quiet, flat, unempathetic and became focused on his inadequacy to understand the situation.

I did my best to stay calm, but also had flashes of suicidal ideation.

After telling him that the session had involved revisiting hearing those words spoken by mother and feeling them fully while feeling the depth of the worthlessness they intimated (typical EMDR strategy for those unfamilar), he said, "That happened how long ago?" And then the silence... And the silence... And the silence...

I wanted to go back to watching television (a brief daily treat in the evening after our preschooler is ensconced in bed), and then he became confrontational about how I "made him feel inadequate" because he had no personal familiarity with my experiences and he "could not empathize". Ironically, the next day I had a small bicycle crash which he immediately soothed with hugs before I could even finish telling him what had happened. But the previous evening, while I told him that my mother told me as a child she wished I was dead- no such soothing affection.

During the post-session discussion, he was however able to self-adapt his understanding of the situation that, in fact, I did not make him feel inadequate, but that he did feel inadequate. I also shared that even though I lived through the experiences, it has taken me much research to understand them, and so I can understand why he struggles.

Have you needed to educate a spouse, friend, or loved-one on why neglectful parenting is damaging? Please share your resources!

 

[dharmaBum]

ack! Writing this post and researching possible resources for my husband has triggered sadness as additional neglectful parenting phraseology springs to mind, "I'll give you something to cry about," and "Wipe that look off your face or I'll do it for you!"

I recall, under the age of 7, running away from home to hide in a tree and cry until I fell asleep MANY times. Then at some point it shifted to hiding under houses. I feel very vulnerable about this fact. In one scene my family is laughing at me (age 4-6?) because I don't recognize my father who just shaved off his beard. I am in fear because I think they have gotten rid of my father, my absolute favorite relative. I keep saying, "Where is my real father?" and they keep laughing. I run to get away from this "family" and hide in the dust under the log cabin we live in, and cry. I may know by now that they will look for me in trees.

Later, in the city at age 13, I'm fed up with the physical abuse from my old sister and no protection from my mother. Meanwhile I'm enduring rape by the "boy next door" at indeterminate intervals. I run away to a friend's house. To below her house- to the dusty crawl space that is about 4 feet tall or less. I convince her I will be fine living there, but she tells her mother, who feeds me a meal and convinces me to go home. I steal a bottle of perfume from their house for no reason and it ends up being expensive and a problem in the relationship because I don't admit it. My family doesn't realize I have left.

 

[emmat]

Have you needed to educate a spouse, friend, or loved-one on why neglectful parenting is damaging? Please share your resources!

Heya,

Neglect is one of those horrid things that often sems to get ignored when looking at the spectrum of child abuse and thats sad. I lived with it myself and it's caused undue harm in the way my personality and outlook on the world developed. I learned as a child to repress certian emotions/ ways of being so that nowadays I simply have no idea how to get angry/ be assertive.

I'm going to PM you with an link to a web resource I found quite handy when I was talking to a friend about it all as I don't think I can post it here and stay within the forums rules.

 

[dharmaBum]

Thanks for the resource emmat. I read through much of it but haven't been able to find links that really spell out the impact of neglect on adult survivors, the resource stopped at adolescents. So far it is mostly me telling my husband how it has impacted me, but I'm pretty much in flashback zone when we are having those discussions and am hyper-sensitive to any kind of question or confusion on his part. Then when he doesn't understand and I can no longer stay calm while explaining it I begin to spiral down into total fear reactions about how completely damaged I am and that I am flawed in feeling affected by something that happened so long ago in the past.

 

[emmat]

I understand.

I get the same, the constant questioning just sends me back to feeling like a 'naughty child' or makes me feel like I'm just not good enough to provide a decent answer. It get's really difficult. I explained to my OH the effect the questioning had and once he got used to holding back from it our conversations got a bit easier.

 

[numbfornow06]

dharmaBum I can relate to what you are saying. Neglect is not so easily healed if ever (?) unfortunately because it become WHO we are as adult. I remember my "mother" constantly telling myself and my siblings she would've rather had dogs instead of children, to go "play in traffic," stop that crying or I'll give you something to cry about, open your mouth again and I'll knock your teeth down your throat etc...you get the picture.
I'm so sorry for what you had to endure. I hope the forums here are of help. I just joined myself and hope it will be for me too :)

 

[Seneca]

That sucks. At least he cares about you physically, if he was attentive to an external wound. It's sadly very common to not "understand" childhood trauma. And there's always a chance that something you said just plain made him uncomfortable. That would explain why he was focusing not on you, but his ability to help you.

It's always easier to treat a physical wound.

 

[dharmaBum]

EMDR is helping. Time is helping somewhat. We were driving last night and discussing difficulties I am having in negotiating tantrums with our daughter. I told him how I would have been slapped immediately if I showed the defiance or uttered the screaming phrases she uses regularly. He said, "Its terrible to think of anyone slapping a child." Not, "I'm sorry to hear what happened to you," or "It's terrible to think of you being slapped as a child..." but it's better than the seeming detachment from past discussions.

 

[AdamAnt]

It's true that its a guys natural impulse to fix things, and it's frustrating to not be able to help. When things are just out of our realm of knowledge, and in this case, possibly something that seems too complicated to understand, you will see that frustration! His frustration may just be signaling how important you are to him.

 

[dharmaBum]

hey AdamAnt- your contribution helps me feel more cheerful about the situation. I love my husband a ton and wouldn't trade him in a million years!

 

[Grandpalw]

I hope no one minds me chiming in from the spouse's perspective. My wife suffered all the neglect, emotional abuse, and physical abuse descibed in this thread. It has only been recently, due to my trying very hard to gain an understanding of how these abuses affect the adult survivor that I have been able to gain the smallest glimpse of what my wife suffered and more importantly the effect of those abuses on our relationship 40 years later. Not ever having experienced these abuses,I would look at her in the manner described, not having any comprehension of what she was saying or feeling. She until only very recently, never accepted any type of affection, or intimacy with feeling, everything was just physical without real true emotion.

Perhaps one thing you can do is to encourage your husband to deeply research CPTSD, effects of childhood abuse on adult survivors, etc. Read as many threads and posts as possible on this site. He is lucky that you have accepted and are dealing with the many issues that affect you today. My wife has not yet come to terms with her childhood.

 

[dharmaBum]

Thanks for sharing your view granpalw- it is valuable to me as it sounds like you have some experiences similar to my husband. Do you have a specific resource or two that helped you understand CPTSD? I would love to share something with him that a non-abuse survivor found comprehensible and helpful.