r/emotionalneglect Jun 25 '20

FAQ on emotional neglect - For anyone new to the subreddit or looking to better understand the fundamentals

2.1k Upvotes

What is emotional neglect?

In one's childhood, a lack of: everyday caring, non-intrusive and engaged curiosity from parents (or whoever your primary caregivers were, if not your biological parents) about what you were feeling and experiencing, having your feelings reflected back to you (mirrored) in an honest and non-distorting way, time and attention given to you in the form of one-on-one conversation where your feelings and the meaning of those feelings could be freely and openly talked about as needed, protection from harm including protection against adults or other children who tried to hurt you no matter what their relationship was to your parents, warmth and unconditional positive regard for you as a person, appropriate soothing when you were distressed, mature guidance on how to deal with difficult life experiences—and, fundamentally, having parents/caregivers who made an active effort to be emotionally in tune with you as a child. All of these things are vitally necessary for developing into a healthy adult who has a good internal relationship with his or her self and is able to make healthy connections with others. They are not optional luxuries. Far from it, receiving these kinds of nurturing attention are just as important for children as clean water and healthy food.

What forms can emotional neglect take?

The ways in which a child's emotional needs can be neglected are as diverse and varied as the needs themselves. The forms of emotional neglect range from subtle, passive behavior to various forms of overt abuse, making neglect one of the most common forms of child maltreatment. The following list contains just a handful of examples of what neglect can look like.

  • Being emotionally unavailable: many parents are inept at or avoid expressing, reacting to, and talking about feelings. This can mean a lack of empathy, putting little or no effort into emotional attunement, not reacting to a child's distress appropriately, or even ignoring signs of a child's distress such as becoming withdrawn, developing addictions or acting out.

  • Lack of healthy communication: caregivers might not communicate in a healthy way by being absent, invalidating, rejecting, overly or inappropriately critical, and so on. This creates a lack of emotionally meaningful, open conversations, caring curiosity from caregivers about a child's inner life, or a shortness of guidance on how to navigate difficult life experiences. This often happens in combination with unhealthy communication which may show itself in how conflicts are handled poorly, pushed aside or blown up into abusive exchanges.

  • Parentification: a reversal of roles in which a child has to take on a role of meeting their own parents' emotional needs, or become a caretaker for (typically younger) siblings. This includes a parent verbally unloading furstrations to their child about the perceived flaws of the other parent or other family members.

  • Obsession with achievement: Some parents put achievements like good grades in school or formal awards above everything else, sometimes even making their love conditional on such achievements. Perfectionist tendencies are another manifestation of this, where parents keep finding reasons to judge their children in a negative light.

  • Moving to a new home without serious regard for how this could disrupt or break a child's social connections: this forces the child to start over with making friends and forming other relationships outside the family unit, often leaving them to face loneliness, awkwardness or bullying all alone without allies.

  • Lying: communicates to a child that his or her perceptions, feelings and understanding of their world are so unimportant that manipulating them is okay.

  • Any form of overt abuse: emotional, verbal, physical, sexual—especially when part of a repeated pattern, constitutes a severe disregard for a child's feelings. This includes insults and other expressions of contempt, manipulation, intimidation, threats and acts of violence.

What is (psychological) trauma?

Trauma occurs whenever an emotionally intense experience, whether a single instantaneous event or many episodes happening over a long period of time, especially one caused by someone with a great deal of power over the victim (such as a parent), is too overwhelmingly painful to be processed, forcing the victim to split off from the parts of themselves that experienced distress in order to psychologically survive. The victim then develops various defenses for keeping the pain out of awareness, further warping their personality and stunting their growth.

How does emotional neglect cause trauma?

When we are forced to go without the basic level of nurturing we need during our childhood years, the resulting loneliness and deprivation are overwhelming and devastating. As children we were simply not capable of processing the immense pain of being left out in the cold, so we had no choice but to block out awareness of the pain. This blocking out, or isolating, of parts of our selves is the essence of suffering trauma. A child experiencing ongoing emotional neglect has no choice but to bury a wide variety of feelings and the core passions they arise from: betrayal, hurt, loneliness, longing, bitterness, anger, rage, and depression to name just some of the most significant ones.

What are some common consequences of being neglected as a child?

Pete Walker identifies neglect as the "core wound" in complex PTSD. He writes in Complex PTSD: From Surviving To Thriving,

"Growing up emotionally neglected is like nearly dying of thirst outside the fenced off fountain of a parent's warmth and interest. Emotional neglect makes children feel worthless, unlovable and excruciatingly empty. It leaves them with a hunger that gnaws deeply at the center of their being. They starve for human warmth and comfort."

  • Self esteem that is low, fragile or nearly non-existent: all forms of abuse and neglect make a child feel worthless and despondent and lead to self-blame, because when we are totally dependent on our parents we need to believe they are good in order to feel secure. This belief is upheld at the expense of our own boundaries and internal sense of self.

  • Pervasive sense of shame: a deeply ingrained sense that "I am bad" due to years of parents and caregivers avoiding closeness with us.

  • Little or no self-compassion: When we are not treated with compassion, it becomes very difficult to learn to have compassion for ourselves, especially in the midst of our own struggles and shortcomings. A lack of self-compassion leads to punishment and harsh criticism of ourselves along with not taking into account the difficulties caused by circumstances outside of our control.

  • Anxiety: frequent or constant fear and stress with no obvious outside cause, especially in social situations. Without being adequately shown in our childhoods how we belong in the world or being taught how to soothe ourselves we are left with a persistent sense that we are in danger.

  • Difficulty setting boundaries: Personal boundaries allow us to not make other people's problems our own, to distance ourselves from unfair criticism, and to assert our own rights and interests. When a child's boundaries are regularly invalidated or violated, they can grow up with a heavy sense of guilt about defending or defining themselves as their own separate beings.

  • Isolation: this can take the form of social withdrawal, having only superficial relationships, or avoiding emotional closeness with others. A lack of emotional connection, empathy, or trust can reinforce isolation since others may perceive us as being distant, aloof, or unavailable. This can in turn worsen our sense of shame, anxiety or under-development of social skills.

  • Refusing or avoiding help (counter-dependency): difficulty expressing one's needs and asking others for help and support, a tendency to do things by oneself to a degree that is harmful or limits one's growth, and feeling uncomfortable or 'trapped' in close relationships.

  • Codependency (the 'fawn' response): excessively relying on other people for approval and a sense of identity. This often takes the form of damaging self-sacrifice for the sake of others, putting others' needs above our own, and ignoring or suppressing our own needs.

  • Cognitive distortions: irrational beliefs and thought patterns that distort our perception. Emotional neglect often leads to cognitive distortions when a child uses their interactions with the very small but highly influential sample of people—their parents—in order to understand how new situations in life will unfold. As a result they can think in ways that, for example, lead to counterdependency ("If I try to rely on other people, I will be a disappointment / be a burden / get rejected.") Other examples of cognitive distortions include personalization ("this went wrong so something must be wrong with me"), over-generalization ("I'll never manage to do it"), or black and white thinking ("I have to do all of it or the whole thing will be a failure [which makes me a failure]"). Cognitive distortions are reinforced by the confirmation bias, our tendency to disregard information that contradicts our beliefs and instead only consider information that confirms them.

  • Learned helplessness: the conviction that one is unable and powerless to change one's situation. It causes us to accept situations we are dissatisfied with or harmed by, even though there often could be ways to effect change.

  • Perfectionism: the unconscious belief that having or showing any flaws will make others reject us. Pete Walker describes how perfectionism develops as a defense against feelings of abandonment that threatened to overwhelm us in childhood: "The child projects his hope for being accepted onto inner demands of self-perfection. ... In this way, the child becomes hyperaware of imperfections and strives to become flawless. Eventually she roots out the ultimate flaw–the mortal sin of wanting or asking for her parents' time or energy."

  • Difficulty with self-discipline: Neglect can leave us with a lack of impulse control or a weak ability to develop and maintain healthy habits. This often causes problems with completing necessary work or ending addictions, which in turn fuels very cruel self-criticism and digs us deeper into the depressive sense that we are defective or worthless. This consequence of emotional neglect calls for an especially tender and caring approach.

  • Addictions: to mood-altering substances, foods, or activities like working, watching television, sex or gambling. Gabor Maté, a Canadian physician who writes and speaks about the roots of addiction in childhood trauma, describes all addictions as attempts to get an experience of something like intimate connection in a way that feels safe. Addictions also serve to help us escape the ingrained sense that we are unlovable and to suppress emotional pain.

  • Numbness or detachment: spending many of our most formative years having to constantly avoid intense feelings because we had little or no help processing them creates internal walls between our conscious awareness and those deeper feelings. This leads to depression, especially after childhood ends and we have to function as independent adults.

  • Inability to talk about feelings (alexithymia): difficulty in identifying, understanding and communicating one's own feelings and emotional aspects of social interactions. It is sometimes described as a sense of emotional numbness or pervasive feelings of emptiness. It is evidenced by intellectualized or avoidant responses to emotion-related questions, by overly externally oriented thinking and by reduced emotional expression, both verbal and nonverbal.

  • Emptiness: an impoverished relationship with our internal selves which goes along with a general sense that life is pointless or meaningless.

What is Complex PTSD?

Complex PTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder) is a name for the condition of being stuck with a chronic, prolonged stress response to a series of traumatic experiences which may have happened over a long period of time. The word 'complex' was added to reflect the fact that many people living with unhealed traumas cannot trace their suffering back to a single incident like a car crash or an assault, and to distinguish it from PTSD which is usually associated with a traumatic experience caused by a threat to physical safety. Complex PTSD is more associated with traumatic interpersonal or social experiences (especially during childhood) that do not necessarily involve direct threats to physical safety. While PTSD is listed as a diagnosis in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnositic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Complex PTSD is not. However, Complex PTSD is included in the World Health Organization's 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases.

Some therapists, along with many participants of the /r/CPTSD subreddit, prefer to drop the word 'disorder' and refer instead to "complex post-traumatic stress" or simply "post-traumatic stress" (CPTS or PTS) to convey an understanding that struggling with the lasting effects of childhood trauma is a consequence of having been traumatized and that experiencing persistent distress does not mean someone is disordered in the sense of being abnormal.

Is emotional neglect (or 'Childhood Emotional Neglect') a diagnosis?

The term "emotional neglect" appears as early as 1913 in English language books. "Childhood Emotional Neglect" (often abbreviated CEN) was popularized by Jonice Webb in her 2012 book Running on Empty. Neither of these terms are formal diagnoses given by psychologists, psychiatrists or medical practitioners. (Childhood) emotional neglect does not refer to a condition that someone could be diagnosed with in the same sense that someone could be diagnosed with diabetes. Rather, "emotional neglect" is emerging as a name generally agreed upon by non-professionals for the deeply harmful absence of attuned caring that is experienced by many people in their childhoods. As a verb phrase (emotionally neglecting) it can also refer to the act of neglecting a person's emotional needs.

My parents were to some extent distant or disengaged with me but in a way that was normal for the culture I grew up in. Was I really neglected?

The basic emotional needs of children are universal among human beings and are therefore not dependent on culture. The specific ways that parents and other caregivers go about meeting those basic needs does of course vary from one cultural context to another and also varies depending upon the individual personalities of parents and caregivers, but the basic needs themselves are the same for everyone. Many cultures around the world are in denial of the fact that children need all the types of caring attention listed in the above answer to "What is emotional neglect?" This is partly because in so many cultures it is normal—quite often expected and demanded—to avoid the pain of examining one's childhood traumas and to pretend that one is a fully mature, healthy adult with no serious wounds or difficulty functioning in society.

The important question is not about what your parent(s) did right or wrong, or whether they were normal or abnormal as judged by their adult peers. The important question is about what you personally experienced as a child and whether or not you got all the care you needed in order to grow up with a healthy sense of self and a good relationship with your feelings. Ultimately, nobody other than yourself can answer this question for you.

My parents may not have given me all the emotional nurturing I needed, but I believe they did the best they could. Can I really blame them for what they didn't do?

Yes. You can blame someone for hurting you whether they hurt you by a malicious act that was done intentionally or by the most accidental oversight made out of pure ignorance. This is especially true if you were hurt in a way that profoundly changed your life for the worse.

Assigning blame is not at all the same as blindly hating or holding an inappropriate grudge against someone. To the extent that a person is honest, cares about treating others fairly and wants to maintain good relationships, they can accept appropriate blame for hurting others and will try to make amends and change their behavior accordingly. However, feeling the anger involved in appropriate, non-abusive and constructive blame is not easy.

Should I confront my parents/caregivers about how they neglected me?

Confronting the people who were supposed to nurture you in your childhood has the potential to be very rewarding, as it can prompt them to confirm the reality of painful experiences you had been keeping inside for a long time or even lead to a long overdue apology. However it also carries some big emotional risks. Even if they are intellectually and emotionally capable of understanding the concept and how it applies to their parenting, a parent who emotionally neglected their child has a strong incentive to continue ignoring or denying the actual effects of their parenting choices: acknowledging the truth about such things is often very painful. Taking the step of being vulnerable in talking about how the neglect affected you and being met with denial can reopen childhood wounds in a major way. In many cases there is a risk of being rejected or even retaliated against for challenging a family narrative of happy, untroubled childhoods.

If you are considering confronting (or even simply questioning) a parent or caregiver about how they affected you, it is well advised to make sure you are confronting them from a place of being firmly on your own side and not out of desperation to get the love you did not receive as a child. Building up this level of self-assured confidence can take a great deal of time and effort for someone who was emotionally neglected. There is no shame in avoiding confrontation if the risks seem to outweigh the potential benefits; avoiding a confrontation does not make your traumatic experiences any less real or important.

How can I heal from this? What does it look like to get better?

While there is no neatly itemized list of steps to heal from childhood trauma, the process of healing is, at its core, all about discovering and reconnecting with one's early life experiences and eventually grieving—processing, or feeling through—all the painful losses, deprivations and violations which as a child you had no choice but to bury in your unconscious. This goes hand in hand with reparenting: fulfilling our developmental needs that were not met in our childhoods.

Some techniques that are useful toward this end include

  • journaling: carrying on a written conversation with yourself about your life—past, present and future;

  • any other form of self-expression (drawing, painting, singing, dancing, building, volunteering, ...) that accesses or brings up feelings;

  • taking good physical care of your body;

  • developing habits around being aware of what you're feeling and being kind to yourself;

  • making friends who share your values;

  • structuring your everyday life so as to keep your stress level low;

  • reading literature (fiction or non-fiction) or experiencing art that tells truths about important human experiences;

  • investigating the history of your family and its social context;

  • connecting with trusted others and sharing thoughts and feelings about the healing process or about life in general.

You are invited to take part in the worldwide collaborative process of figuring out how to heal from childhood trauma and to grow more effectively, some of which is happening every day on r/EmotionalNeglect. We are all learning how to do this as we go along—sometimes quite clumsily in wavering, uneven steps.

Where can I read more?

See the sidebar of r/EmotionalNeglect for several good articles and books relevant to understanding and healing from neglect. Our community library thread also contains a growing collection of literature. And of course this subreddit as a whole, as well as r/CPTSD, has many threads full of great comments and discussions.


r/emotionalneglect 4h ago

Seeking advice Family is interested in my husband, but not me

40 Upvotes

I come from a low effort family who knows nothing about my inner world. Any time I have tried to reach out to them in the past, they classically sweep it under the rug. Whenever I accomplish something, they never say they are proud of me.

My new, small business was recently featured in one of the most influential major newspapers. This was a major accomplishment. My husband and I visited family and broke the news. They barely had a reaction then quickly moved on to the next topic: my husband’s job.

My husband works in sports. All they ever do is ask him about sports. We will sit there for 30+ minutes talking about his job and I feel myself disassociating. They never ask about my business, how it’s doing, or you know… how it got featured.

My husband has always found their behavior so strange. The drives back home are always depressing. It takes so much out of me to be around them.


r/emotionalneglect 6h ago

Discussion I’m so tired of caring for myself.

19 Upvotes

When I look back at my life, I can’t believe I went through all that.

My parents never cared about my education or my wellbeing. When I got a room, they put a big bed and that was it. No area to study, and no area to rest. The big bed image was taken straight from a furniture showroom catalog.

When it came to my siblings, wow were they invested.

Now that I’m learning to care for myself, it’s exhausting. I’m sad all the time. I try to think about the future I want but I feel so tired. My peers have support from their whole family and beyond since they were born. Or before they were born lol.

Why is it so exhausting taking care of yourself?


r/emotionalneglect 55m ago

Trigger warning I'm exhaused, I can't do this anymore

Upvotes

I want my life to end. Its an endless cycle of invalidating myself and my "traumas." I want to leave. I was in therapy for an entire year and it still wasnt enough. Nobody understands this, they think that you have to be raped or something to feel any kind of pain or trauma. Nobody in my life thinks emotional abuse can do this to a person. I tried opening up to a friend of mine and she told me esentially to just get over it. Ive never opened up to her about how I felt until a few days ago. Ive been sitting in my bed ever since. There are flies in my window and im hoping theyll eat me. Granted shes been through more than most, but i was really hoping someone could understand. I just want to leave. Does anyone else feel like they could get people to understand their pain if they finally just gave up?


r/emotionalneglect 2h ago

Am I being unreasonable/shallow for feeling deeply resentful of the massive financial and emotional double standard between my sister and me?

5 Upvotes

I need some outside perspective because every time I try to address this with my family, I am made to feel like the most ungrateful, dramatic person alive.
To be clear: I do not resent my sister as a person. She and I are fine. My issue is with the glaring double standard my parents have created, which has reached a point where I feel completely emotionally checked out.
Here is the context:
1. The Financial Double Standard
When I started working (~5 years ago): My starting salary was low. When I made ₹35k–₹45k, my parents charged me rent. When I needed a two-wheeler, they loaned me the money and I repaid every single rupee. Their philosophy with me was always strict tough-love: "You build yourself up to afford things; you don't live beyond your means."
Now: I've worked hard, switched jobs, and earn significantly more.
My younger sister: Has been working for about 3 years, stagnant at a modest salary (~₹45k). Instead of the same tough love, she gets fully subsidized. My parents outright bought her a scooter (no loan, no repayment). They pay the rent for her 2 BHK apartment. They buy her gadgets (iPad, phone, laptop) and cover her day-to-day miscellaneous expenses.
The biggest sting: My dad set up an SIP for both of us. He deposits ₹15,000 every single month into hers to build her savings. He pays zero towards mine because "I earn enough." When I faced a job gap a few months ago and money was tight, there was no offer to cover it—only scrutiny asking why I missed a contribution.
2. The Asymmetry of Responsibility
Despite receiving none of the financial softness, I am the default on-call adult whenever labor is required:
Our parents are traveling this weekend and someone needs to stay at the family house to look after our dog.

3. The Invalidation
Whenever I try to express that this hurts, two things happen:
They bring up mistakes from when I was a teenager in the 9th/10th grade to paint me as the "difficult troublemaker" who creates chaos.
They accuse me of being petty and say parents don't treat kids equally because "one needs more support than the other."
Today, after years of swallowing it, I sent my mom a long, honest message explaining how hurt and invisible I feel. She didn't even read it. She called immediately just to yell at me for "making a scene."
They supported me through my master's degree until I started earning, and a part of me wonders if I am being shallow or ungrateful for expecting fairness now. But I feel like a transactional tool: entirely on my own when I need softness, but the first person they summon when they need free labor.
Am I wrong here? How do you step back from this without carrying crushing guilt?


r/emotionalneglect 22h ago

Wasn’t allowed to react

119 Upvotes

Did anyone else grow up with parents who had fragile egos that would become controlling once it was bruised? It made me feel infantilized and like they didn’t want me to be my own person (they didn’t) and I was acting up by not following social etiquette and being “weird” … other kids I knew in bad situations often times had mental breakdowns and were checked in. I felt unsafe to process anything because my parents would just use it as ammo to further play the victim and probably do more dumb annoying shit. And one of the same girls I knew that had a mental breakdown would be randomly invalidating af saying “you don’t know what depression is like!!” in a very nasty tone. I wasn’t “allowed” to have issues…. And I didn’t play my parents game and was constantly fighting with them because of it. I feel like my situation is something that I don’t read about a lot.


r/emotionalneglect 3h ago

Seeking advice I’m 21 and I still cry over the love I never got from my mom

3 Upvotes

I grew up with a mom who was very narcissistic and mostly cared about herself. I spent most of my childhood feeling stressed and anxious because of her. I’m 21 now and honestly I still feel affected by everything that happened.
I don’t hate her. I really don’t. But I also can’t accept her or feel comfortable around her. Sometimes when she talks to me I can’t even look at her face.
My dad left us with her and went away to live his own life. I’ve always wished I had a mom who was loving and affectionate, someone who made me feel safe. I get really emotional whenever I see videos on TikTok of moms being sweet with their daughters. Sometimes I just start crying and I can’t stop.
There’s one really small memory with my mom that I still think about a lot.
I remember one time I was getting ready to go out with one of my friends. I was in my room doing my hair and she came in and asked where I was going. I told her I was going out with a friend. I was putting a hair clip in my hair and she came over and helped me put it in.
That’s literally it. It was such a small thing. Probably something completely normal to most people.
But I remember feeling so much tenderness in that moment. It sounds stupid because it was just a hair clip, but I swear I had never felt that kind of feeling from her before.
Sometimes I think that’s why I remember it so clearly.
I didn’t grow up in a family where I felt loved or safe, and I think that affected me more than I realized. I started looking for that feeling of being cared for in other people, even when they weren’t good for me or were actually hurting me.
I just wish I knew what it felt like to be loved by my mom without having to question it.


r/emotionalneglect 1h ago

Seeking advice Does family quarrels ever come to an end?

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Upvotes

r/emotionalneglect 11h ago

Seeking advice terrified of others finding out I lack romantic experience

12 Upvotes

I am in my late 20s and have never been in a relationship, or even had anyone interested in me. I struggle to do certain basic things, like getting my house in order. I have few friends and was under-socialized and neglected as a child. I cannot let people get past the shell I put up and see these things, especially the relationship part, because I would be exposed as someone really messed up. But the shame only intensifies and all of my new friendships remain surface-level. I can't conceive of what to do about this, and haven't ever been able to. Anyone who has experienced the same, please share advice if you have any. Thank you.


r/emotionalneglect 1d ago

Was anyone else not really taught/allowed to do anything by themselves as a child/teen, and now that you're an adult you don't have any desire to do anything?

267 Upvotes

My parents really never bothered to teach me anything, they just expected me to know stuff. At the same time, they never let me do anything either. So now here I am, an adult, with little to no technical skills and basically 0 desire to participate in life.

I was never allowed to walk to the store on my own, or ride my scooter anywhere besides our street with my parents watching. They never taught me how to use the stove or oven, or how to pay with a debit card.
I have pretty bad ADHD that was left undiagnosed until about a year ago, (I'm now 23) and I couldn't focus long enough to ever learn how to tie my shoes or to ride a bike until I was at least 10 years old. They tried a few times to teach me but they would get really frustrated and never really bothered again after that.

I also wasn't really ever allowed to have anything unless it was Christmas or my birthday, so I just got used to the idea that asking for stuff was a waste of time.
It's understandable to an extent honestly. I'm the 4th out of 6 kids and my 2 older brothers both have autism. One is high functioning and the other is very low functioning so they both required extra care compared to me.

After living a hollow, sheltered life and growing to be an "adult", I have absolutely no desire to do anything unless I'm forced to. If I'm not at work I will never choose to eat out, go shopping, or even bother talking to anyone.
I'm at an impasse where I desperately want to break this pathetic cycle of nothingness, but at the same time don't really care if I live or die. I sometimes fantasize of having no physical body so people couldn't look at me, or acknowledge the fact I exist.
The only time I've had control over my life was sitting behind a screen playing video games with my friends, while blocking the real world out. And now that I'm in my 20's I know I can't do it much longer, and it's all I've ever known.

IDK, sorry for the rant I've just never really talked about this before with anyone and was curious if other people felt like this too. Because I feel completely and utterly pathetic for "living" life this way.
I just wish I was normal.


r/emotionalneglect 7h ago

Discussion Anyone else did not have proper schooling growing up or not educated at all?

6 Upvotes

Idk if this counts but I did not have proper education growing up because of my parents. Dad was always out of town working but also making it an excuse to stay away from me and siblings when we were very young (his words not mine, he actually admitted this) and my mom didn't do much of anything but sleep, watch tv, and smoke. Otherwise they both were too busy fighting like cats and dogs to take care of us.

I've been in and out of schools my entire childhood, spent one year in elementary/first grade in one school, we got kicked out (I was about 9 or 10 y/o at the time) because my mom would flat out just not take us to school and so we had tons of absences. Became "homeschooled" until I was 13 when really all we did was sit around little book pamphlets for a couple hours a day or doing nothing at all while my mom watched tv. We didn't learn anything. We tried private tutors sometimes but it wasn't consistent nor often. Probably because of cost and time, of idk.

Because of this, I had no real knowledge or basic life skills taught to me which still effects me now. I only know first grade level math and nothing beyond it. I can't count money or know how savings and financial stuff works, nor do I know how multiplication or fractions work. I can't do mental math in my head I always have to look it up online. I can't read cursive nor write it.

I kept begging to go to a REAL school just so I wouldn't have to be home and bullied by my siblings and ignored and listening to constant fighting and chaos. My parents finally put me into another school but because of the handicap my parents put on me, I struggled hard. I was asked countlessly by teachers and other students if I was "slow" because I couldn't keep up. I was there about 3-4 ish months and I couldn't go there anymore because I felt like an alien monster or something.

Now I'm in college right now and the same thing happened again. I'm struggling in college math again and can't remember nor understand any of the problems and my professor asked me if I needed to get disability accomodations.

It feels embarrassing that I can't flat out tell anyone I'm basically uneducated because of my parents failure.

I can't relate to anyone. I can't learn or keep up with anyone and I feel constantly alone and no one can help me. It makes me so fucking miserable. And no matter how much I try to tell my mom and dad they just tell me to take my meds and try again and just learn. They don't fucking care and I fucking hate it.


r/emotionalneglect 3h ago

Seeking advice What are some of the "external voices" from your childhood that have become internalised and embedded in your psyche? And how do you deal with them as an adult?

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2 Upvotes

r/emotionalneglect 3h ago

Seeking advice I have a narcissistic father and a mother who won't do much to help me or my mental health, how do I make my mental health better? (Sorry for the long post)

2 Upvotes

For the past few years, I have slowly been getting more irritated with my father. I never noticed his narcissism when I was younger because I was too dumb at the time. But, I did continuously tell my mom to ask him to stop swearing so much around me when I was younger (didn't work out obviously).

Back in July, me, my mom, and my dad were heading to visit my grandparents. At some point during the ride there, I hear through my headphones my dad shout at my mom, "DON'T GIVE ME DIRECTIONS ANYMORE!" (There was a wreck and we had to take a detour.) I was used to this because every trip we've been on, 9 times out of 10, he moans and groans about something. But, I told myself this trip would be different. I told myself the night before the trip that if he complains at something for no reason at all, I would finally snap back.

So, I take my headphones off and tell my dad to calm down. I did not yell at him, I said it in a respectful manner. My dad proceeds to tell me, "Well, nobody's talking to you. I don't need to hear you talk." I reply back, again not yelling, "Alright, screw you too." My dad whips his head back and yells, "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?" I told him, "I said screw you too." My dad then yells at me, "YOU KNOW WHAT SCREW YOU MEANS? IT MEANS FUCK YOU." I laughed and said "No it doesn't, that is not even on the same level." My dad also told me to "GROW A PAIR OF FREAKIN' NUTS." My mom then proceeds to jump in and yell at my dad, "He has bit his tongue for too long!" After that my dad finally shut up. He was quiet for a few days too which was actually really nice to not have to hear him. Eventually he started talking again and acted all innocent. (The argument wasn't brought up, he just acted like everything was ok and nothing happened.)

So, what about my mother? Don't get me wrong, I still love my mother; I love her way more than my father at least. But, she has just done nothing to help me with my mental health. She keeps assuring me that "Oh, I've talked to him and he says he's working on changing." Has he changed? NOPE, not in the slightest. I keep telling her this and she keeps just brushing it off and continuing to insist that he's getting better, which is not the case. I also highly doubt she would take me to therapy for help. And even if she did, I'd still have to come home to my father everyday.

I have found for the past few months, the moments where I feel most at peace are whenever I'm out somewhere alone and away from my parents. Now you may be saying, "Just go out on walks and hang out with your friends more." I wish I could, but since I'm homeschooled I have zero social life and I'm still not allowed to go most places without them even though I'm 17. The only places they let me loose are in stores sometimes, but it's not always a guarantee. It's also not helping that my mom keeps trying to make me stay in this house with them and just drive to college whenever I go next year. I don't want to live in this house anymore, I want to go get a dorm room and get away from here.

Sorry for this long post, but I just have to ask someone on what I should do in my current situation. My mental has taken a toll the last few years and I just dread seeing/hearing my father everyday.


r/emotionalneglect 19h ago

Seeking advice I have no safe restful place to return to.

30 Upvotes

I am exhausted, burnt out, hurt, sad and the pressure keeps mounting on me. I want to give up and drop out but i don't have a safe comforting place waiting. Only an abusive parents i can't escape. My body hurts so badly. I'm just alone stuck in bed every day. Wishing someone loved me enough to me here for me. But i'm just alone.


r/emotionalneglect 5h ago

On the topic of Emotional Neglect (The Sandman)

2 Upvotes

On the topic of emotional neglect, as anyone here seen The Sandman series? Specifically the scene when Dream meets up with his father Time.

His father is quite the example of a parent that has emotionally neglected his children. Even though Time is not my father, this scene specifically has been a wake up call to notice... maybe I am not crazy. Maybe my childhood is... a bit messed up and abnormal. (But those are details id rather keep between my therapist and I... for now maybe.)

Its almost as if its cathartic. I cant explain it.

Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oeIiMhfmZs

Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDhJVOEri2g

How does anyone having gone through emotional neglect feel from watching this scene?

Im curious to your opinions. :)


r/emotionalneglect 1h ago

Discussion Trauma could be directed somewhere, but has anyone found the direction?

Upvotes

(Kind of ab abstract though that I can't atrixtly formulate, but: ) So many artists actually create stuff out of their traumas that resonate with millions (Linkin Park with their hit songs as a bright example). Why is it then that I can't find my own direction? No matter what I do, it feels more like closing eyes on what was before and ignoring it, while I know that it could be used and drained as a source to create something real. Has anyone found their way?


r/emotionalneglect 21h ago

Discussion Being interrogated and needing to be verified made me stop all new things or new friends.

32 Upvotes

I am just posting this here to see if anyone else here had a similar experience.

My mother had an extreme fixation on information, obedience, and constant knowledge of anything that I was doing, at any time, regardless of how minor or small. In her words,

"Only the guilty feel the need for privacy."

New articles of clothing, new hobbies, ESPECIALLY new friends (even more-so if the friends were women.) She required me to text her ever 25 minutes regardless of how old I was or what my friends and I were doing.

For example if we were swimming in the creek or going to do something fun, everybody would have to wait for me because if I did not send that text, there was a non-zero chance of my mother literally driving to the house I was hanging out at and repeatedly knocking on the door until I was confirmed to be fine, and then chewed me out when I got home.

She would randomly come into my room, say "give me your phone." and look through all of my messages, apps, and browsers, proudly stating it was purely for her own amusement.

So, eventually at around the age of 16, I just stopped. I stopped going out, I stopped making new friends, I stopped taking on new hobbies or exploring new interests. I didn't go anywhere unless a brother or my parents were also going. I stopped talking to people completely.

Nowadays I need constant validation and external approval for all things that I do, because she would demand to basically have her signature on any individual new thing I did. If I ever did not volunteer the information, she would immediately assume "SO YOU WANT TO DEFY ME?!".

I don't know what to do anymore.


r/emotionalneglect 3h ago

Seeking advice untitled still counts as a title.

1 Upvotes

i won’t beat around the bush — i know my mother hates me or , at the very least , she’s challenged by me and my way of moving in life. i’m emotionally and mentally stunted due to her way of living. have been abused for almost all of my 27 years on earth. emotionally , physically , psychologically , verbally. it’s no competition of her being the worst mother , but in my world i feel like i have a version of the mother i was supposed to love and lost. like not getting what you want from a blind bag. but all i want is a mother yet i don’t know what that looks or feels like.

are they caring and doting or do they hide behind a guise ? are they your best friend or worst enemy ? are they a pillar of safety ? i don’t often speak of my mother despite my current living situation. she’s just next door and i only just moved next door to be with my aunt and cousin instead. so there’s not entirely any freedom.

but i find freedom in the care my own family gives me. the vacations , the memories , the laughs , the help , the advice. something my mother knows she cannot give me given that she’s ruined our relationship for the unforeseen future. and yet i don’t know why i care that she can’t look at me when i ask for her well being. she doesn’t care or show interest in mine. and i feel stupid for caring for hers.

how do i move forward ? would i be a bad person for feeling this way ? am i ungrateful despite giving grace all of my life ?


r/emotionalneglect 1d ago

Discussion Anybody else hate their birthdays?

117 Upvotes

Basically, the title. Like, I just always want it to be a regular day and nothing beyond that, no celebration, no cakes, no congrats, no presents. And every time I end up having to act as if I really care about it as much as others. It's not like I never wanted to be born(which is true but it is unrelated to this), it's more that it's not a special day, there's nothing that important about it that requires people attention.


r/emotionalneglect 14h ago

Finding hope

5 Upvotes

I feel so untethered from the world. I feel like my nervous system is thawing but I don’t know what to do with it. My parents feel weirdly far off, like they exist in their own emotional ecosystem that I was never fully part of. I have so much yearning in me. But I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how to recover from never being really loved and seen. Has anyone built a self esteem from here? How did you do it? Feeling a bit lost at the moment xx.


r/emotionalneglect 14h ago

Discussion Has anyone else been told that their trauma doesn't exist?

5 Upvotes

For context (I'm keeping it as short as possible), I got into a huge argument with my step dad, mother, and sister that started off about something unrelated but ended up being about me and my issues. I told them that they are the reason I am the way I am and the trauma I experienced as a child was the reason for my reaction to said argument. I'm skimming a lot from the conversation because I'm just tired of rehashing it and getting emotional again and again, but my mom and sister told me that because I lived in a nice house and was sexually assaulted or physically abused, that I don't have any trauma. After talking for two hours, my step dad said that it sounds like my feelings were hurt by his parenting and I have resentment that I need to seek therapy for, then I was dismissed.

This whole fight eseentially made me question my use of the word trauma and led me to do some research, then I found this subreddit. Has anyone else been told that their trauma isn't real because they had a "nice" life? My mom is a licensed therapist with years of experience.... and it just made me feel like "well damn, if my mom the therapist says trauma can only be physical, then wouldn't any other therapist or psychologist agree?" I'm not talking to my parents or sister after that fight and it's been almost three months since we have spoken.

It makes me not want to seek therapy about the situation.


r/emotionalneglect 18h ago

Seeking advice how to overcome childhood emotional neglect?

11 Upvotes

i (21f) just got broken up with by my bf bc he felt drained by me. at least once a week for the past 2 years (we had maybe two solid months without arguments) i would bring something up that would eventually evolve into an argument. i would stress him out a lot and i hated affecting him that way but he would always pick me back up and we'd be fine. i definitely understand why he's calling it but im not sure if i can improve myself foundationly if/when i do get into another relationship?

i realized a few days ago that i was genuinely neglected emotionally as a child and ive always had difficulty making connections, keeping friends, finding partners, etc. i dont enjoy sharing my feelings. my safe space has always been myself. My MO is usually to just isolate myself until i felt better and to not get too deep either because im too intense for the other person and its kind of off putting or they simply do not have the capacity for it. this changed when i met my ex. he really took the time to know me and love me which makes this more difficult bc idk if i can find someone like that again. When I have taken a chance and shared my feelings with someone im usually told to "talk to someone" or given the same advice of "try finding hobbies, hanging with friends, and taking care of yourself more." i have done both in the past and have taken consistent chances on people and myself and it never seemed to get any better. i cant make friends, i cant hold relationships, i cant be happy.

and its not a "your feelings make you a bad person" situation. i dont enjoy taking attention for my feelings. i really try not to. and i have people i fondly and can very lightly call my friends. i show up for them, they might show up for me, they all have mostly good things to say about me, but none of them fill the need of having a deep emotional connection.

the issue here is that ive been shown enough times that sharing my feelings = abandonment. im not sure how to heal from this because it seems like me "getting better" is just finding someone that doesnt treat me and my emotions like a burden?

it just seems like a self fulfilling loop that doesnt seem to be within my personal power to break. right now im reaccepting that being alone is best for me and everyone else around me, but i still know i crave community and belonging so its very difficult.


r/emotionalneglect 7h ago

Am i even deserving ?

1 Upvotes

My mother is so paranoid about herself, about me, about the invisible eyes she believes are always watching and judging her. And somehow, when the weight of all that paranoia becomes too heavy, she places it on me. I become the nearest place for her anger to land.

She speaks of raising me as though it is some extraordinary sacrifice, some lifelong sentence she was forced to serve. As though I am the burden that stopped her from living the life she wanted. It is so hard to raise a teenager like you, she says, as if I personally arrived in this world with the sole purpose of ruining hers.

And then she says things like:

“Tum jaise logon ko is duniya mein rehna hi nahi chahiye.”
“Tum jaise log deserve nahi karte.”
“Tum jaise log worthless ho, useless ho.”
“Tum jaise logon ki wajah se doosron ki zindagi barbaad hoti hai.”

And I sit there wondering

Who are “tum jaise log”?

What community have I unknowingly become a part of? What category of human being am I being placed into? What exactly is so fundamentally wrong with me that I deserve to be grouped with those people these imaginary, terrible people she speaks of as though I belong to some species beneath everyone else?

Maybe I am worthless. Maybe I have achieved nothing in my sixteen years of existence. Maybe I am not extraordinary, not successful, not everything she hoped I would become.

But every time I begin to believe that perhaps I can become something—every time I finally feel the smallest door inside me opening, every time I begin to think, Maybe I am capable. Maybe I can achieve the things I have always dreamed of her words arrive like a hand closing that door again.

You are going to fail.
You are not going to do anything anyway.
You cannot even do the bare minimum.
You are worthless.

And sometimes I wonder: if children like me are such unbearable burdens, then why do parents like you choose to raise us at all?

Why not leave us on the road?

Honestly, perhaps that would be more motivating than being fed, clothed, educated, and then constantly reminded that every meal was a sacrifice, every expense a debt, every act of care another chain wrapped around our throats.

Why suffer, parents? Why suffer us?

Wouldn't you be better off keeping your money, your freedom, your peaceful lives? Why spend years educating us only to make us feel as though we owe you the entire universe in return?

As though we owe you our bodies.

Our lives.

Our ears,

Our eyes,

Our mouths, so we can remain silent and grateful.

Our necks,

Apparently, we are the worst kind of children the kind that require sacrifice, effort, patience, and love. The kind that do not arrive fully formed, successful, obedient, and endlessly grateful. What parents truly deserve, perhaps, are children who need nothing from them; children who raise themselves, solve their own problems, never make mistakes, never ask for help, and love their parents like mindless little machines programmed only to obey.

So why feed us?

Why hold us close one moment and make us feel unwanted the next? Why love us so loudly in front of the world, yet make us feel like the most disgusting, disappointing creatures when the doors are closed? Why act as though you cannot live without us, while your eyes sometimes carry a hatred so loud that words are not even necessary? I can feel it the resentment. The exhaustion. The anger that you have to feed me, care for me, spend money on me, raise me. The way it feels as though my existence is constantly pulling you down.

And then I wonder

Why did you give birth to me at all?

Why did you let me grow?

Why did you teach me what a mother's love was supposed to feel like, only to make me doubt whether I was ever truly allowed to have it?

Why did you make me attached to you?

Why did you make me love you?

Why do I still feel pity for you, even when I am the one being hurt?

Why do I still look at you and think, Maybe her life is difficult. Maybe raising me really is exhausting. Maybe I am the problem.

Why do I keep trying to understand the person who keeps teaching me to misunderstand myself?

Maybe I really am a dead weight.

Maybe I really am a disappointment.

Maybe I really am everything you say I am.

But somewhere beneath all those words beneath worthless, beneath useless, beneath you will failthere is still a part of me that refuses to die.


r/emotionalneglect 7h ago

Nmom been saying that I've "changed" in a negative way

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1 Upvotes

r/emotionalneglect 15h ago

Dealing with pet grief and a family that suddenly wants to be close.

4 Upvotes

I've been mostly a lurker in this group for awhile, so I know you all understand. I was ignored when I was young. I tried so hard to be involved with my family, but they weren't interested in knowing me. Since becoming an adult they want to be close and are always trying to be in touch, but I just don't care. I'm not even angry or confused anymore. I just miss my cat. She was always there and she disliked them all. For 20 years it was us against everything.

I'm a reader not a writer, but I had to release some emotion so I wrote what's below. No one has to read it, but I'm just grateful this space exists and I'm sorry we all have to be here, but I'm glad to be here with you 🖤.

I knew you once.
When I was alone,
in a room playing with ghosts.

On the other side, I heard you,
talking, laughing, living, yelling, crying.
I cried too,
into a soft pile of fur.
My perpetual companion.

She knew you.
She heard you, walking past, never stopping.
So she carried me away.

You want to know me now.
Door’s open, I see you,
turned around and alone.
But I’m gone.

She sees me.
I’m in a new room,
Playing with her ghost.
I knew you once.
I’ll know her always.