Processing childhood neglect

[Deleted member 34561]

I hear you and feel you Unicorn. Love the name btw. I too suffered an awful lot of neglect as a kid thrown in with massive sexual trauma. I think neglect alone would be enough to f*ck any kid up. From my own point of view I suppose when you are being abused you're getting attention however toxic that attention is whereas when you're neglected you get no attention whatsoever. I must have got something out of the unhealthy attention that somehow compensated for the neglect? I mean I was either being abused or ignored. At least when I was being abused I wasn't being ignored. I dunno its so f*cked up really. And yeah I think I am more angry about the neglect than the abuse. Because I felt so f*cking invisible you know? And that the only time I mattered was when I was being raped molested and beaten. Obviously I know differently now at least on a logical level but emotionally it still hurts. I just wanted to let you know you're not alone and yes it does bloody suck majorly. (((hugs))) if you want them bless ya B xx

 

[Suzetig]

It neglect is so much more than not being loved, for me it mean not mattering enough to be given clean clothes, to be fed regularly, to be woken and got ready for school, to have a place to study when I needed it. It meant the house being filthy, have a wet, urine stained bed, being dirty myself because I wasn’t taught to bathe or wash my hair. It meant not ever being comforted when I hurt myself, being cared for when I was sick, no one talking to me about my day, going to school meetings. Having friends come and stay.

There were very really physical, emotional and psychological impact in neglect. It’s worth remembering that in the U.K. every single child killed by their parents or carers suffered neglect on some level. It’s a very really trauma and one that had massive impact.

Except for my neglect, that wasn’t a big deal really :rolleyes:

 

[Justmehere]

So, what's going on in your head while you're excluding her? What makes it seem like a good idea?

Great question! This is so hard to answer... don’t really have an answer yet actually.

hhmmm Yeap. Wouldn't being neglected make you angry? And is that what you are fighting against?

My therapist (and authors of studies done) think that neglected kids get angry partly because the anger gets a response. Kids brains don’t develop well without a response. It can even cause “failure to thrive” and that can lead to death even if all physical needs for survival are met.

The whole connection-to-responsive-humans thing appears to be as essential as air, food, water. Screaming babies and raging toddlers... they get a response. A common theory as to why kids whi have endured neglect + physical abuse do better than kids who endured neglect alone, is because being hit is a response. It’s really confusing... but that’s one common working theory out there.

The adult in me is sort of pissed about the neglect? My mother was dissociatively checked out. I could tell her the house was on fire and get a flat response, “oh, ok,” as if I had said “the shy is blue”.... if any response at all. No rush to put out the fire. No response to my distress.

My angry response to that reality when I was a kid feels a lot like panic when seeing something bad about to happen. It’s a survival response. My heart races.

 

[UnicornSightings]

I hear you and feel you Unicorn. Love the name btw. I too suffered an awful lot of neglect as a ki...

I’m so sorry for what you went through! Thanks for the virtual hug. Same to you. <3

 

[UnicornSightings]

It’s hard when it’s all mixed up. Like I had clean clothes (I think). I mean, they were thrift store clothes (my mom got the good stuff) but I had clothes. I had food to eat. Sometimes it was just wonder bread but I ate. I did the grocery shopping a lot of the time and cooked for my mom. I cleaned up her puke when she was drunk. I comforted her every night (not by choice) when she was drunk and crying about her own traumatic past. She would never believe me when I told her I loved her. She always told me I was better off without her and that she was gonna kill herself. I lived in constant fear of that. She told me if I told anyone she said that that she would kill herself for sure. It was very f*cked up. I remember praying in bed each night that I’d die before her. Because I just didn’t think I could live without her. My dad never seemed to want me (she always told me so plus he was always traveling for work) my stepmom was kinda mean and my brother bullied me. She was absolutely everything. And she loved me in the way she could which was very smothering. Not caring or nurturing. And that was when she was not depressed or in a screaming rage throwing everything in the house around. God I remember being so scared when she got angry and wishing so much that I had a lock on my door.

Sorry to hijack the thread, OP, feels good to just write that out.

 

[Freida]

I could tell her the house was on fire and get a flat response, “oh, ok,” as if I had said “the shy is blue”.... if any response at all. No rush to put out the fire. No response to my distress.

That is just so sad!!!! No one should have to grow up like this.... You deserved to be loved and cuddled and protected -- not ^^^^ this

 

[Justmehere]

In the session, I felt the anger. The heart-racing-anger. I sat with it. She asked me to describe the anger - where I felt it in my body, what it felt like. I could describe the burning feeling in my arms and chest, and I felt the feeling of keeping her out. I keep trying to find the words to describe it.

She tried to reassure me that my anger isn’t going to hurt her. She’s got strong boundaries and I had pretty strong boundaries of what I was willing to let myself feel and not. She pushed at them a bit, not in a bad way, until I explained I couldn’t go further or I’d give in to the impulse to yell “stop” and run out. She got it. We talked through the very adult cognitive fears about this work, and it was reassuring... but it didn’t resolve anything. I couldn’t figure out how to do it. To feel this anger and the lacking of a response... also feel connection. To anyone.

She wanted to dive right in to letting me even be mad at her if needed (she usues intentional transference as a therapeutic tool to work through the past.) She owned how much she wanted to dive right into the worst of it. I could barely sit in the room and feel all of it. Any of it. But I did anyhow.

I had nightmares afterwards of being attacked by a rabid animal and screaming to my father for help, who had the leash on the rabid animal but didn’t hear me scream and didn’t pull it back.

In the session, it felt like being surrounded by an empty void around me. Like the anger felt real, and tangible, and put this huge space up between me and her. It was really hard to even make eye contact for the first time in a really long time.

She says we have to find a way where I can feel the anger and loss, and the empty empty void around me... The void isn’t in me. It is around me. I am supposed to feel that and her being in the room too. Which actually makes sense and yet also feels like she is asking me to fly to the moon on a penny. Or to speak a language I’ve never heard.

How do I even do this? I kept telling her I didn’t know how. She figured out she had to get more concrete in talking to me, and that helped.

When she said everything felt different and like I was keeping her so far away... that was kind of validating? Because yeah. I was totally doing that. It felt awful.

I don’t know how to “bring her along” - and she’s not asking me to figure it out myself. But damn it. I’m so tired and it’s all spooky and scary to me.

I’ve been really sad and irritable today. Ugh.

 

[Freida]

She says we have to find a way where I can feel the anger and loss, and the empty empty void around me

Oh I so totally get this!!!! I am just scratching the surface of how to feel anger and loss..... So when you figure it out let me know because I need all the help I can get....

 

[Tinyflame]

Also, for me processing neglect is hard because it's the lack of something. I mean, how do you process something that didn't happen?

I agree, I think this is true; all that's left are the deeply internalized messages that suggest that is the only truth, the fierce independence, the frequent forward thinking stream of how to solve or deal with problems and details on your own, the fear, the fear of being forced in to a position of repeating feeling it; the awareness of the fear, the feeling of being on the other side of a moat with no bridge, or a separation; the less-than-human, expendable feel. Just for me though.

Hugs to all. :hug:

 

[ShadowWolf]

Thank you for this thread. I also feel confused and angry about neglect. In some way, I feel like the only other possibility besides neglect is abuse.

When I cut my dad out of my life, he didn't fight it at all. (Except one text on my birthday, which he never even paid attention to when I was a kid.) I mean, I don't want him in my life, and I don't want to fight with him. (He's scary.) But somehow his not even fighting it, not even hating me, feels like it's own pain/betrayal.

But then I feel ashamed for wishing my dad hated me. I just wish he felt anything towards me. But I don't. But I do. :confused:

Sorry, no advice. I have so much trouble in therapy trying to figure out how to process the 'lack'. I have a few experiences that I can kind of point to as examples, but it's not really enough to keep discussing/processing.

 

[Tinyflame]

I was thinking of this, that's why it doesn't matter if you're (I'm) missing or leave, it's like never being 'there' to begin with.

 

[Justmehere]

I had a therapist tell me that neglect is like existential abuse to a child. It denies the very existence of the child.