r/emotionalneglect • u/limduria • 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not reacting to a child's distress appropriately, or even ignoring signs of a child's distress such as becoming withdrawn, developing addictions or acting out.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.

136 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Fennix16 • 9h ago

Discussion Did your parent's empathy feel fake?

134 Upvotes

To this day, if I vent or complain about something to my parents, they'll "comfort" me using all the right words, but it always feels forced and fake. It's always been that way. They've never felt genuinely empathetic and not once did I feel actually comforted.

I remember telling my mother when I was a kid that I felt like I was the only human and everyone else were robots. She laughed, said the idea was silly, and brushed it off. I felt so strange after opening up to her that I never mentioned it again. Looking back, it's no wonder I felt that way. I couldn't connect with my parents on an emotional level that felt genuine and not fake.

Now that I have my own children, I constantly struggle with showing them appropriate amount of emotion and hoping it comes across as genuine. I feel resentful that they somehow broke that part of me that should come naturally with my own kids.

44 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/DrunkManTf2 • 19h ago

Discussion I Think I Understand Why a Lot of My Relationships Feel Unsatisfying Now

237 Upvotes

I have had several friendships over the past few years and although I always like my friendship partner I feel like they don't care about me as much as I care about them. In response to my feelings, I have blamed the other person for being uncaring or I blamed myself for not being good enough to deserve (platonic) love.

What I recently realized is that I am asking for a lot more than people normally give in friendships. People with good childhoods had adult that encouraged the child to build self-confidence and provided comfort and a safe space for the child to express emotions. When the child grows up and the caregiver is no longer around, the caregiver's residual imprint allows the new adult to feel secure even while alone. My childhood had none of those elements, but that does not mean the longing for such a positive relationship disappeared.

Instead, I tried to meet these via close friendships. The problem with this strategy is that the biological impulses inherent in parent-child relationships do not exist in regular friendships. Raising children is objectively speaking quite a hassle, which is why parents, and especially mothers, are given intense biological signals to love and care for their children. These signals do not exist in friendships. So in other words, no one will love someone as unconditionally and as much as a healthy parent, a fact I will likely mourn for the rest of my life.

This is not to say though that finding safe relationships where one can learn what they ought to have as children is a fools errand. I am simply saying that an average friend may not be ready to help one overcome such deep-seated issues and that does not necessarily mean they are bad.

17 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Important_Quiet_2921 • 10h ago

What helped you heal from emotional neglect? (Looking for unhinged/real/raw advice)

40 Upvotes

I have recently started to write about the emotional neglect from my parents and I bet I have 100 more things to share on this topic, cause they still haunt me. I probably will still write about it. Today I've been grappling with the question - What's next? Let me explain - I'll write about my experience, verbalizing it may help, maybe seeing I'm not alone in it may help but also makes me sad that so many of us are in this shit. How do I move ahead from this? How do I heal/ do better for myself? Because currently I feel stuck in rage and grief. This time it's been hard for me to hold two contradictory emotions for them - empathy/ love (cause they did the best they could, they had a difficult life too) and rage (cause I deserve better and have to suffer because of them and am emotionally so damaged).

If you're someone who has surpassed this stage even a little bit tell me somethings that helped you do it intentionally, give me your hacks/ unhinged advice/ no filter things that helped you in your journey 

21 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/IAmFinishedLol • 10h ago

Seeking advice My mom doesn't stop talking and it's driving me up the wall...

34 Upvotes

I love my mum, I understand she has done absolutely everything she could and I'm lucky to have her... But I really can't stand talking to her and I feel so incredibly guilty.

I told her I have to catch up with a lot of material (studying abroad after saving for 10 years from my jobs), I had a lot of tasks today, so I told her to just have a quick call. Well, that quick call turned to an hour and a half...

It wasn't even a conversation, it was her own monologue and if I tried to say something she would interrupt me and change the subject. After I finally closed the phone, I was so exhausted, I didn't have any energy to study and just went to bed.

I understand she is lonely, has no friends but I really don't know how to support her. How can I better manage my emotions?

9 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Brilliant_Cookie_143 • 6h ago

Seeking advice Grieving a family you never had

13 Upvotes

So, I have always been the overachiever in my family. First to do advanced degrees and go abroad on full ride scholarships but my family has never been supportive. I remember even as a kid, I was always chosen to represent my school at spelling bees and science expos at which I won but when I would go back excited to tell them about my wins they'd roll eye and ignore me - not even a single congrats. This obviously made me grow to be scared of sharing my achievements coz it can be seen as "attention seeking".

Fast forward now, I got a full funded PhD and I started last week in ANOTHER country. And guess what? None of them have even called, not even text but they I told them and I also post statuses on whatsapp which they see.

I feel so completely alone and rejected. How do I cope?

5 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Intrepid-Willow-3093 • 10h ago

Discussion Parents getting agressive/angry when I cry

19 Upvotes

It happened to me so much. They would get angry at me when I cry, instead of comforting. I remember my mom hitting me when I didn't stop crying after I tripped and injured my wrist when we were outside. It only happened one time I was 6 but when I watched cartoons or tv shows and a child cry, parents would comfort them, so my situation felt weird.

This agression led to fights in my teenage years, like I am already crying, they saw it and now I also have to deal with them.

When I ask them why they get agressive when I cry, they would say "we love you so much, you being hurt means us being hurt, it makes us angry" etc. I mean, maybe? But the incident happened, the hurting happened and getting angry doesnt change the fact.

I am 20 now and honestly now when I cry I want to be alone and if someone tries to comfort, I feel so weak and drowned/trapped. They still get angry if they caught me crying (I try to hide as much as possible) and we still fight but, currently I started to say to myself "it is not my problem it is their problem"

Note: I was never a child/teenager who cried very often

2 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Aropia2 • 4h ago

Seeking advice Am I unable to feel love?

7 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I have seen this question before, but I really feel lost..

I have always wondered what the feeling described as "love" was like. I know I really deeply appreciate my friends and family, yet, when I say "I love you", I cannot feel it. Even worse, I cannot seem to say it in my native language as it feels awkward. I have to admit, in any way shape or form, saying "i love you" feels weird to me. Like I don't mean it even if I do really enjoy this person's presence, and actually really appreciate them.

I have also never felt actual romantic attraction to anyone, male or female, and even just loving my friends feels unauthentic to me. However I KNOW I appreciate them deeply. BUT I have found people attractive?!

I guess my questions are: am I incapable of feeling love? Does anyone feel like this?

I have had an amazing psychiatrist since I was 18 (I am now 24), and am on sertraline. I wonder if this has an impact...

Anyhow, thanks to anyone who took the time to read this. It felt nice to write it!

2 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Baymenbyle • 8h ago

Real World Realizations Decades Too Late?

9 Upvotes

tldr; I'm finding that I'm way more capable and skilled that I was lead to believe and feeling lost in my career.

I was one of those kids who grew up feeling I could never do anything right. Because I couldn't. Everything I ever did had my parents over my shoulder criticizing, nitpicking, adjusting, or just screaming and telling me to move. Even elementary school homework was interrupted and delayed by probably an HOUR because my father didn't approve of me lying on the floor while doing my worksheets so he told me to stop working until he could pull a desk from the basement, find a lamp, set it all up to get the right lighting, and then once I was allowed to begin my homework again, smacking my lazy wrists and barking at my posture every few minutes. I was 8. But I digress. Just setting the scene. Throughout my schooling I was frequently told I was bad at the things I didn't really think I was bad at (mainly math and science). I was told I was irresponsible, I was lazy, I was messy. I was told I wasn't applying myself when I felt like I was. I was also told I was good at things that I wasn't, like art, which was a total mindf*ck bc I knew in my heart I wasn't even above average at it but if they were impressed then maybe the rest of the world was just that gullible? So I resigned to stick with their narrative and went to art school. Performed absolutely average and got the degree. Then I had the hardest time finding work. Sure, this was right after the financial collapse but my peers seemed to be leagues ahead of me. They had a plan. They had confidence. They had drive. Apparently I did not. I got brutally rejected by so so so many people, including one woman who yelled at me and insulted me during a phone interview, saying she was going to change the job posting immediately after our call to include "no fresh out of college candidates". I felt so worthless after dozens of rejections so I went to my school's alumni career services office. The person I talked to really seemed bitter and uninterested in our conversation and told me to apply to a vague job posting that I found for part time work at a gallery. I expressed my concerns getting stuck somewhere I didn't want to be and how unclear the posting was about the actual work. She gave me some stock advice of "part time can turn to full time" and "experience is experience" and shoved me out the door. Applied for the job. Met the boss/employees during the interview process. Red flags everywhere. "We're a family here", "it's a fast-paced environment", "we need someone who plans to stay here long term". Oh btw It's not an art gallery, it's a frame shop. I dismissed all my misgivings, took the job, and spent nearly TEN YEARS at this nightmare place. Hired in at $12/hr (which was HUGE for me at the time but quickly became a slap in the face) and within 4 months was practically running the whole business. Boss had me flying to conferences, sitting in meetings with CEOs, schmoozing clients over dinners (he told me to use my debit card to pay for and he would pay me back). Boss went on an around-the-world two month long vacation with his wife and left me to take care of everything. I even took care of boss's father's nursing home and medical bills on top of the business. Still making $12/hr. Plus besides the underpaid, above my pay grade duties nonsense, there were my employees I "managed". All a decade plus older than me, treated me like a kid, didn't listen to me, refused to do things I told them to. Some were just plain lazy and constantly tried to pass shoddy work through in hopes I wouldn't catch it (I always caught it). I constantly had to appeal to the clients and tell them something was "just not possible" because my employee told me "nah I don't wanna do that". And the clients, oh lord. They were nightmare people. Uppity boomer ladies who treated me like a doormat. I was screamed at frequently over their mistakes or misunderstandings. I was constantly apologizing to everyone for everything everyone else did. I was absolutely miserable and tried so hard to get away. I applied for other jobs frequently and each time I was rejected just made me feel less and less capable and worse and worse about myself. All I could do was put my head down and just do my best. Thankfully my upbringing of hypervigilence and people pleasing kicked into high gear and I became otherworldly. I still got screamed at and disrespected constantly but I solved every problem myself, sometimes before the problem even happened. If my employees said no, I would just do the work myself. The less horrific clients took notice and started leaning into that, recommending me to others, bringing in more work and a great reputation for the business. Some of the tantrum boomers started having less tantrums with me once they saw I could be trusted and that I had the power to anticipate their meltdowns (like I did with my parents growing up). I turned my trauma into a superpower and I kicked ass... but boss man still paid me the least he possibly could and made sure I felt small. Eventually everything broke down when boss man hired a new guy at the same rate it took me 9 years to make and gave him more vacation time and more benefits than he gave me right off the bat when this person had zero experience. I also falsely assumed that just because I was running the business that I was able to chime in with my opinions on business decisions. Basically for boss man it was all "figure it out yourself" and "you're the boss" until suddenly it wasn't and I would get brutally smacked back down and put in my place. After a very emotional and toxic last few months I finally had enough and quit. But I was lost. I was convinced nobody else would hire me because I had no skills... because that happened. All the time. Nobody wanted me and I felt unemployable and worthless. Eventually a friend of a friend reached out and asked if I could help her out with her shop. I said yes and have been working for her a couple of years now... and my god I am stunned. I am constantly catching her mistakes, watching her do things in the least efficient way possible, and witnessing gaps in knowledge I didn't know were acceptable for anyone let alone a business owner. The other employees are a wreck. Can't focus on a task, take forever to do simple things, human error after human error. I'm absolutely culture shocked and feeling like... is THIS how most people actually are??? Are most people absolutely fallible and inconsistent and unreliable? But for some reason everyone else has always been allowed to be like that but I'm never allowed? I cannot understand. Now I'm sifting back through my whole life and thinking, holy cow, could I have actually done that if I hadn't listened to everyone else who wanted to crush my soul? Then the other question arises in my mind: why did they think they could treat me like that? What about me screams "please verbally abuse me and take advantage of me"? WHY did everyone want to crush my soul? And what do I do now? I am woefully under-utilized at this current job and I'm finding myself constantly trying to win her over on doing things more efficiently and with more organization and I keep being met with resistance and dismissal. I just don't get it. I prove myself over and over again. I'm not incapable! I'm paying attention! I do good work consistently! What about me makes people just not believe it despite all my efforts to express the contrary? HELP!

0 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Pure_Owl659 • 2h ago

I'm 18 and I feel like I don't know how to be a person on my own

3 Upvotes

I don't really know how to write this because I feel like there's so much to explain and I don't even know where to start. There's honestly a lot more to my situation, but I don't even know how to put everything into words or explain it all without making this ridiculously long.

I'm 18 M, turning 19 next month, and lately I've been realizing that I genuinely don't know how to be an independent person. I don't have a bank account. I don't know how jobs work. I don't know how people figure out what career they want or how they even start working. I don't know how to navigate the world by myself, and I feel like I'm supposed to already know all of this.

I feel really embarrassed saying that because I'm technically an adult now, but I genuinely feel like I was never taught how to become one.

I did go to a Catholic school and I completed my schooling and board exams and higher secondary exams, but even though I was physically around other kids every day, I never really talked to anyone or made friends the way kids normally do. I never got into trouble either. The only things my teachers really complained about were that I didn't talk to anyone and, after the pandemic, that I was absent from school too much.

Then the pandemic happened, and that's when I really got into the internet. I became chronically online and spent more and more of my life on social media and online communities instead of actually being out in the world.

After I graduated high school and finished my board exams and higher secondary exams, a friend of my parents suggested that I should do college online instead of going to a physical college. And honestly, I agree with the reasoning behind it. My social anxiety was already really bad, and I genuinely don't think I would have been able to handle physical college at that point. My parents knew that too, which is why their friend suggested online college to them in the first place.

The problem is that online college also meant I stayed at home. I could study, help my parents, and work in church while doing my degree, but I also didn't get the opportunity to gradually learn how to be independent or socialize outside of my family and church.

So that's what I ended up doing.

And now I feel like I've gone from being a sheltered child, to a sheltered teenager, to a sheltered young adult without ever really getting the chance to learn how to exist independently.

I grew up extremely sheltered. I spent most of my childhood and teenage years indoors and didn't really have friends. My parents were very protective and I was raised with the idea that a lot of people outside our family and church were bad or untrustworthy because of how they talked, dressed, lived, etc. I think that has affected me a lot because now I have really bad social anxiety and I don't know how to talk to people or make friends. I don't know how to go out and interact with the world normally because I basically never learned how.

I'm also chronically online and have spent a huge amount of my life on the internet and social media. I'm basically a stan Twitter and I know so much about online culture and pop culture but at the same time I feel like I know almost nothing about actual adult life.

It's such a weird feeling.

My family is also very religious. I am religious myself and I'm still a Christian and accept Christ as my Lord and Savior, so this isn't me saying I don't believe anymore. But my dad is a preacher, and for most of my life I was expected to eventually become one too. I never felt called to that. The thing I actually feel called to is music.

I want to be a singer, songwriter and producer and eventually become an independent music artist. That's what I actually care about and what I want to build my life around. I told my parents that I didn't want to become a preacher and wanted to pursue music instead, and although there were arguments about it, they eventually said they would support me.

But now I'm also being told that I need to go out and get a job, and I honestly don't know how I'm supposed to do that. I feel like I wasn't really taught to think about careers or jobs because for so long I thought my future was already decided. I didn't spend high school thinking about what I wanted to do with my life because I thought I was going to become a preacher.

Now I'm suddenly expected to figure everything out and I feel completely lost.

I also really want to eventually move to the United States and build my life there. I know that's a huge thing and I'm not expecting it to happen tomorrow. I know I would have to figure out money, work, education, immigration and everything else first. But even thinking about it feels impossible because I don't even know how to start becoming independent where I am right now.

And then there's my relationship with my parents.

I feel like they have always had a hard time accepting that me and my sister are our own people. We have our own interests and preferences and sometimes we just want to be left alone in our room. But they often seem to take that personally.

I've started distancing myself from them because I don't feel comfortable around them sometimes. If I'm watching something on TV and they come into my room, I might turn it off because I've experienced them criticizing what I'm watching or telling me I'm becoming a bad person because of the language or content. I sometimes leave the room when my mom comes in because I expect to be criticized or lectured about something.

From my perspective I'm trying to avoid conflict, but I think they see it as me rejecting them.

This all blew up on my sister's 16th birthday. We were celebrating at midnight and cutting her cake, and my dad suddenly started saying that if me and my sister don't like him and my mom then they would leave the house on their wedding anniversary and send us money to live here. He also said they wouldn't pressure us about church or college anymore.

My sister started crying, and then the conversation turned into how I'm the distant one and how I've apparently caused our family to stop doing things together, like praying and eating together.

I was just sitting there thinking, how did my sister's birthday turn into this?

I don't feel like I've become distant for no reason. I feel like I've been withdrawing because I don't feel understood or comfortable around them. I feel like I'm constantly being criticized or told I'm wrong, and when I try to explain why I do things, it becomes an argument about how I think I'm always right.

There are also problems with church. My dad can get really angry when me or my sister can't participate in church activities because of exams or academic pressure. There have been times when he's threatened to kick us out of the house over things like refusing to participate. He also talks publicly about how strict our family is about church. But at the same time we're told academics are important, so it feels like church is actually expected to come first and we're just supposed to somehow figure out our exams ourselves.

There have also been situations where things that were given to us as birthday gifts were taken and used for church purposes, even when we didn't want them used that way. One thing that was taken from my sister wasn't even something my parents had bought. She had bought it herself with her own pocket money.

I feel like I've spent my whole life being told what my life should look like, and now I'm suddenly realizing I don't actually know how to build a life of my own.

Sometimes I genuinely feel like my parents made sure I would always depend on them so I could never really leave or become independent. I don't know if they consciously did that or if that's just how things turned out, but that's genuinely how it feels.

And I hate that I feel this way because I don't want to hate my parents. I don't want to be angry all the time. But sometimes I genuinely feel like I hate them because I feel like I was never allowed to become my own person.

And honestly, I do feel hopeless sometimes.

I know I'm only 18. I know, logically, that I'm still extremely young and that it's not too late to change my life. But emotionally, it doesn't always feel that way. I feel like I wasted my childhood and teenage years. I feel like I wasted the years when I was supposed to be making friends, figuring out who I was, learning how to socialize, trying different things, and slowly becoming independent.

I know people will probably tell me that 18 is young and that I have my whole life ahead of me, and I know they're right. But knowing that logically doesn't completely change how I feel. Sometimes I genuinely feel like I've already wasted so much time and that everyone else is so far ahead of me.

At the same time, I know I'm not completely helpless. I know I'm 18 and that I can learn things. I just don't know how to start. I feel like everyone else already knows how to be an adult and I'm standing here with absolutely no idea what I'm doing.

I don't know if I'm looking for advice or just looking for someone who understands. I think I need both.

If anyone else grew up extremely sheltered or had parents who controlled a lot of their life, how did you eventually learn how to become independent? How did you learn all the things your parents never taught you? How did you figure out jobs, money, socializing, and just... life?

I don't need someone to tell me to "just move out" or "just get a job." I genuinely don't know how to get from where I am now to that point.

I just feel really lost right now, and I don't know where to begin.

1 comment

r/emotionalneglect • u/Anna_Sun7202 • 5h ago

Seeking advice How to be low contact with a parent

4 Upvotes

Hello, I (30F) am asking for some advice as I am going to go low contact with my father. I'm too weak and cowardly to go no contact, but after an argument with him that was a 'straw that broke the camel's back' moment. I realized he isn't going to change. He has told me I'm hard to be around and too emotional (that I feel is going to stick with me for a long time). Has dangled money and gifts and monetary items over my head to guilt trip me. He claims he doesn't remember the things he said and did to me that have haunted me for years. Showing any emotion in my house as a child or trying to stand up for myself meant I was a brat and disrespectful. Ive been called a b*tch, ungrateful, inconsiderate, etc. I've spent my life making myself small to keep the peace. I've ignored my emotions so he felt better. I constantly question myself because I think im a horrible person for standing up for myself or feeling angry. I'm also recently postpartum and have been struggling with postpartum depression (I was diagnosed at 2 months postpartum) and learning to be a mother. I don't reach out to his side of the family, I don't call him, I've ignored his texts (which I know has not been helpful and makes the situation worse, I own up to that). Truthfully, I don't want to. And during the argument I've told him that. I don't want to keep him from a relationship with my child, but I also know how he treats me and don't think it's fair for him. I feel so stuck and weak.

Is there any advice on those who went low contact. What did you do? What does it look like for you? How do you manage? Maybe someday I'll be strong enough, but right now I'm just trying to hold myself together.

3 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Bitchassmom21 • 2h ago

I am resentful toward my partner after our son’s autism diagnosis because I feel like I went through it alone

Thumbnail
2 Upvotes
0 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/CODufaux • 2h ago

Am I being too intense, or is this a real need? Panic attack + reaching out and getting nothing back

2 Upvotes

I want an honest outside read, because I genuinely can't tell if I'm the problem here.

A while back I had a panic attack while driving — hands shaking, sweating, attention totally gone, actually scared for my safety on the highway. In that state I called someone I'm close to, someone who had told me for a long time that if I ever needed her she'd be there in a heartbeat. I wasn't asking for much — just a minute of her voice to help me slow down enough to finish the drive safely.

Instead of picking up, she texted, left voice messages, and started contacting other people about me — anything except the one thing I was asking for. When I tried to explain how bad it was, what I got back was basically "your emotions aren't as important as my work," and later, "if you keep acting like this I won't want to talk to you anymore." That took me from a manageable panic attack to a full-blown one, and left me feeling like I was the problem for needing anything at all.

The part I can't get past: I kept calling over and over because I couldn't break the loop I was in. In that state I couldn't think clearly enough to stop, or to call a crisis line, or to do anything but reach for the one person who'd promised she'd be there. Afterward I spiraled for days.

So I'm asking honestly: was I being too intense? Is calling repeatedly when you're in that state a red flag on my part — or is it fair to feel let down by someone who promised they'd show up and then didn't, and made me feel like a burden for needing them?

I'd rather hear the truth than just be told what I want to hear.

1 comment

r/emotionalneglect • u/Infinite-Ad-122 • 6h ago

How to heal and move forward from dealing with Emotional Immature Parents?

5 Upvotes

When it comes to dealing with my emotional immature parents, I want to open up and talk to my parents out of love and understanding and I try my very best, blood, sweat and tears to do so but the way how my parents are its nearly impossible to help them understand how their poor choices still affects me in a negative way even in my adulthood. They seem to be dellusional or in denial of needing the help they need such as seeking therapy or counseling, take time to self-reflect to heal and find peace and fulfilment, or being genuinely honest with themselves on a deeper level.

It has gotten so bad to the point where it has affected my entire livelyhood constantly experiencing so many unpleasant emotions steady trying to process it. They've been stuck in their old ways since my childhood which prevents me from moving forward with my own life continue being stuck as well with no direction and it hurts so bad that I can't live because of the pain I still have to carry with me of the hurtful words and actions that was done to me by them, even til this day. I just don't know what to do at this point even after constantly pouring my heart out to them on so many occassions but I'm still dealing with the same old shit (please excuse my French its the only way I know how to express myself about it at this point).

I am not perfect......FAR from perfect at that and I'm not saying I am "holier than thou" which would be a complete lie if I did I'm only human when i say this.

I'm sorry to type so much I just had to vent on this topic at hand, whoever is reading this comment and who can relate and may have more experiece than me when it comes to it, any advice, knowledge, wisdom, encouragement and ways to overcome this I am open and really do appreciate it!

1 comment

r/emotionalneglect • u/PreviousAd7056 • 1m ago

I need help sorting this out.

Thumbnail
• Upvotes
0 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/shaybeautyyy • 7h ago

Seeking advice I’m starting to resent my mother

3 Upvotes

Recently my grandmother passed (mom’s mother) and my mom has started bringing up very strange topics. She stopped me one day and begged me to make sure she looks beautiful in her casket. It was so odd and annoyed me so much. We’ve had such a rocky relationship over the years. She’s belittled and gaslighted me countless times. It’s like having a toddler for a parent sometimes when you just need love and guidance. I feel like it’s guilt that must be eating her up to make a comment like that. She must have a feeling that I don’t like her as I much as she thinks I do. If you’ve dealt with a parent like this, how do you manage it?

2 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/redqueen94 • 39m ago

My mum started love bombing me when I got older

• Upvotes

So my mum was a massive source of neglect through my childhood, she never even did the barest of I love you to me as a child. I still remember multiple moments where I would go to her for comfort and she would tell me to stop crying and look at me with either disgust or annoyance. If I wanted a hug it was the shortest and most uncomfortable hug possible. I feel like a lot of the time I was treated like a pet to parade around the town we lived in because for some reason being a small child with ginger curls was exciting to many of the old women my mum visited.

She was also incredibly critical of everything about me but especially my weight and what I ate. From the age of 9 I was being sent to school with meal replacement shakes. As I became a teenager my mum became extremely controlling and tried to turn me away from my best friend's because she thought me standing up for myself was a bad influence from them. She refused to ever comfort me when I came to her about being bullied at school she just made me change schools and that happened twice in the middle of the year not even with any asking if I would like to change school. She never once got me any kind of therapy for any of the assaults I experienced and simply just acted like it didn't happen. And if I said something wrong she could elevate to violence and yelling very easily.

My dad was emotionally withdrawn most of the time I grew up though he also had anger issues that would be threatening towards me. But most of the time he just isolated himself away from us at work and drank at the pub.

Now that I am older well into my 30's I am in therapy and I was talking to my therapist that only recently has my mother started trying to be "nurturing" she would try to connect with me and for a time in my 20's I thought maybe she is turning over a new leaf. But as I have been lower and lower contact I know now it was never about connecting and all about her trying to draw me back under he thumb for her own personal punching bag. I was the child that she told many adult things to because "she had noone else" she talked about stuff I barely understood as a kid and she expected me to just take it meanwhile I am sitting there like a stunned mullet trying to process this massive lore dump of shit that was placed in my lap.

She keeps trying to pull me in with invites to go to lunch but everytime we go she just drops all her baggage onto me and expects me to just take it. I stood up to her recently like properly and it was both exhilarating and terrifying because I saw her face screw up just like the old times and it sent me back in time.

It really hit home for me that she really doesn't do anything out of real care, it is purely for her own gain. She will never change.

0 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/PeaSame4326 • 1h ago

I'm the dumped, tell me where I went wrong

Thumbnail
• Upvotes
0 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Specific_Bet_7466 • 6h ago

Discussion I’m tired of chasing and facilitating other people’s roles in my relationships…

2 Upvotes

… at least that’s how I have always felt I’ve had to operate in order for anyone to ever show up for me in any way. This shit is embarrassing. I’m almost 40. I’m so tired of it.

——> this ended up so long, and basically like a stream of consciousness diary entry. I am still posting because I finally put words to some things I have felt my whole life or at least most of it and I need it to exist. You do not have to read this. But if you do, I apologize for the lack of editing and idea planning. I would enjoy reading your feedback.

Here’s the dynamic I’m talking about.

Core Beliefs: I know these to be falsehoods, but I do not yet 100% believe they are false. Working very hard on this and I am seeing progress in big and little ways. I am not going to give up.
- I am inherently undeserving of… well, basically anything from anyone. If I am late to an appointment, I feel as though I do not even deserve to sit in their chair.
- I am not worth others’ effort outside of a transactional situation. The other person must be getting “the better deal” for it to feel actually safe, though. - I am not important or valuable enough for others to “hold me” emotionally. I mean this in two ways: 1) Support - to hold me and my internal experience/emotions safely and with authentic care. I might tell you what’s bothering me or what I’m going through, but only because I so desperately want you to care AND I must give you a fair chance to fulfill your role in the relationship. 2) Care - to be cared for, loved, and/or valued as the person I am to the point that someone would think of me all on their own without my involvement (ex: being physically present, text/call, physical evidence of my existence). I have a VERY difficult time believing this ever happens.

Summed up, my feeling brajn/nervous system believes I have no value or importance which would make me worthy of someone else’s resources without (over)payment. My thinking brain knows otherwise. I bring both of these fools to therapy and we’re working it out, but they’re still arguing constantly.

Why post about this now? I am in probably the healthiest marriage I have ever personally observed. Married almost 20yrs now and we truly enjoy each other. We live with daily circumstances that I have heard carry an 80% divorce rate. The things that break many of those marriages often are a catalyst for us to have the conversations that deepen or refine our connection and working partnership. I trust this man more than I have ever trusted anyone. I mean, the bar is so low that it’s hot from the flames of hell… but that doesn’t reduce how profound it is for me to trust him like I do. He’s a good man and father with a good heart and intentions. However, effort without my involvement is low. This is not all his fault - I have encouraged a system of low/no effort expectations likely by being unable to fully mask how guilty and undeserving I feel when receiving the effort and love I so desperately want and by accepting the bare minimum, especially for so long.

It hurts to feel like I have to chase and facilitate his emotional role. The one person who has consistently been the exception. I have accepted such low effort for so long, it feels unfair to now suddenly take my needs seriously and have expectations of him in his emotional role. To suddenly want to feel actively wanted, desired, witnessed, and like someone is curious about me and my internal experience. To want to be asked questions instead of making sure I share or it will never be known. I have allowed this and he has gotten comfortable. But I am not comfortable.

My core rejection wound has been learning to swim and is getting closer to the surface, where I hope to coax it out of the waters so it will live in the sun where there are rules and corrections. Things I would usually isolate through after my barely perceivable passive aggressive attempts to be noticed would fail are now demanding to be understood and dealt with. Which again, feels unfair to him.

But… this small thing happened this week and it’s hurting with the power of every instance like this before. I suggested, for the first time ever (ie: was vulnerable), that I would love to have a spicy fun video call while he’s away for work. His response was positive and interested, even talking briefly about some of the logistics. I knew his effort/involvement would end there if I didn’t do anything, so I researched to find an app for the call that would meet his standards and work on his device. Reported the findings. Nothing happens until I bring it up again at the exact right time, then he downloads it right then. I decide not to directly facilitate further. I have been VERY clear with my wants and reinforced for clarity and his confidence. So, I didn’t make sure he made an account and connected with me. Did it happen? I was engaging with him consistently while he was gone to make sure he knew I was still down. Took high effort sexy pics and sent them on several occasions. I pursued him. He will be home soon and he has said nothing about the video call since he left. I feel so rejected and hurt. Not because the call didn’t happen, but because nothing happened. He didn’t try to get an idea of my schedule or offer his in an attempt to plan the call, he didn’t tell me he was too tired to call, he didn’t say he was having doubts or uncomfortable with the idea, he didn’t ask about it or bring it up at all. I feel rejected, ignored, worthless, managed. Right now in this moment, I actually believe my feelings matter. Maybe I’m wrong, and I will get his input on all of this later, but isn’t the risk of hurting me or making me feel undesired/unwanted (feelings I have shared and we have been talking about right up to when he left) important enough even to say the uncomfortable thing? I feel like I should be worth that to him.

Unclear about when and how I will initiate this conversation, open to input there. I’m nervous about his arrival. He will probably be completely clueless about how I’m feeling and come in heavy with affectionate desire in response to my teasing the last few days. I don’t want to crush the efforts he does make.

Aaaand just received a very sweet and sentimental text from him. Now I feel so ungrateful for feeling like this. He is so sweet and sentimental via text when we are apart. I wish it went beyond that.

Ok. If you finished this, rip into me. Let’s hear it.

2 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/OxidisedNitrogen • 9h ago

Did we really spread mental health awareness ?

Thumbnail
3 Upvotes
1 comment

r/emotionalneglect • u/AllDaysOff • 3h ago

Sharing progress Ruined my birthday... according to my mother

1 Upvotes

Things started off more or less like usual. Congratulations, here's some money, should we go to eat? I didn't want to eat and to be honest, I was hiding it a bit. My mom asked if my brother wrote me and I told her we don't write each other. She didn't take the hint and already had planned that he come over in the evening. Despite having him blocked on WhatsApp he sent me an SMS which I didn't reply to. I slept all day due to a bad sleep schedule.

My brother came in at about 11. Acted like all was fine, congratulated me, gave me a bundle of socks. That by itself would have been fine, we do gifts like this, but it was the exact bundle I gave to him for Christmas. It even still had that little cardboard sign attached to it which in faded handwriting said "for [brother's name]".

Today I went to university to take a test. I took a detour to come home late. When asked about going to the restaurant (our ritual for birthdays) I declined saying I was tired. I told my mom about the socks. Later my brother came up to me saying I shouldn't act psychotic so quickly and showed me an online receipt for socks for 2 seconds that didn't match. I asked about what shoe size I have and he took it that I was mad about the socks being the wrong size. I didn't comment further but I was angry that he'd try to gaslight me and it was far from the first time, too. Our mother said to me that I did so well ruining things for everyone, because I would not even have a drink with them, eat with them, nothing. I said it was my birthday.

After taking a nap I was still mad because of my brother and said to our mother that he was a liar. She said "I don't know" and that he ordered me new socks online (bruh). I said it wasn't about the socks and that he tried, again, to treat me like an idiot. I can't believe I used to look up to this idiot. Like you'd think he was a cartoon character with the sheer amount of smugness and the schemes that never work out. Mom didn't really know what to say so I confronted her about how the last time we went dining out together, I talked about this story where I argued with some guy who called me arrogant, and that she took the guy's side, despite not knowing him, and echoed that I was arrogant. She said that I am kinda arrogant and then said that she doesn't remember that conversation. I confirmed that it indeed happened and asked her what kind of mother she was to side with some random dude. She said that she didn't know who I was talking about and I said that's exactly the problem; you side with someone you don't know over your own son. She kept repeating that she doesn't remember and that it didn't happen. I told her that she always denies everything or claims to forget and that is the reason I don't talk to her much anymore (which she complained about in the past). She had nothing to say.

I felt so sick of my family that I went out for an hour, walking around, buying random groceries. After I came back, my mom came to the kitchen and told me we had coke on the balcony. I asked her not to talk to me. She seriously had the nerve to innocently ask why and I said to her that we just argued. She pretended not to remember. I started talking about how she complained I ruined my birthday for us and that I need to cater to her feelings but when it's about mine it doesn't matter and she literally walked away to the living room. I simply followed her. She already sat down and watched TV. I said that I'm here and asked her if she wants to jump from the balcony next to escape me. She repeated she remembers nothing and asked me what I want. I flat out told her I want an apology. She gave an "if I hurt your feelings" and I said no, no "if", you did it and you need to own up ot it because things just don't disappear when you deny them. I remember. She did rephrase her apology but of course I knew it wasn't real, like always. She also said she thinks that I just want to argue lol. But I dropped it anyway and went back to the kitchen and she actually followed me back and said something about me keeping things with me for a year and then she immediately fled the scene again. I shouted through the apartment that I kept it inside because I knew she would ignore it and I was right. By this point, my enabler brother said some useless things but I basically ignored him. I told her she needed to got therapy. Enabler said I needed too and I told him that when I was in therapy as a teenager we talked about mom 90% of the time... Since then it's basically silence, but it also basically just happened.

At this point I feel like all bets are off. I simply can't go on pretending everything is fine, even if I wanted. And if she finally kicks me out, I would even accept it. I'd have to drop out of uni to sustain myself but at least I'd have some fucking peace.

I don't think I've ruined my birthday... I'm actually glad I stood on business and said what I wanted to say. For years I've let issues silently consume myself.

0 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/easytoremembernick2 • 1d ago

Its absolutely insane to be born children of parents that are mentally stuck as children

396 Upvotes

My father is like a toddler, the difference is he never grows up and he has the power of an adult

A super toddler who is here to stay, different from a real toddler who eventually grows up

The biggest problem is that I was born to a FATHER like this. Its not my neighbour, its not my acquaintance. Its a FATHER.

Its so crazy? I didn't even got to have the freedom(and quietness) of having no father, no, I had to have a father which when I was a kid, treated me as an equal when he was more powerful, like a big kid bullies a smaller kid. And when I grew up he started expecting me to take care of him..! And grew attached to me like a toddler.

Like, I don't hate my father, but just as there are some mothers who love their children but are a bit tired of taking care of their children, I am exhausted. Its been decades... This toddler never grows up. I understand that he can't change that.

But its such a ridiculous situation to be. I have carried this shame for long.

15 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Big-Instance2094 • 5h ago

Lame bloomrs . Game

0 Upvotes

What processing speed games do you recommend . There are millions on play store i don't like math games (if i should i will) but im more inclined to puzzle games and pattern recognition .

I struggle with word recall and processing speed skills and attention span . I don't have troubles memorizing .

0 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/qu1nxotic3 • 17h ago

Seeking advice Are my parents actually bad or am I just a bad child? (Kinda vent)

12 Upvotes

>!TW!<

Ever since I was diagnosed with MDD (major depressive disorder) my parents have treated me like I’m crazy. They always held therapy and other treatments over my head, my mother even threatened to take me out of therapy all because we had an argument and I was “talking back”. She stopped giving me medication very early on after I got diagnosed, although they made me tired it helped and she never tried to talk to my doctor or even my psychiatrist about other options we could’ve discussed. Along with having MDD I was self harming, so when my parents found out they lashed out at me, telling **12yr old** me that I was selfish, I was doing it for attention and that if I really wanted to kill myself I should just do them a favor and do it already. So over a few years I just learned that I can’t trust my parents because they punish me if they find out I had a step back, and idk why they do this but both of my parents are going on and on about how they always try to be there, how they give me everything I want, everything I need I have, but it’s kinda the bare minimum? They constantly act like I came to them in a dream and asked to be born. Idk they just never gave off that they actually genuinely cared about me. I find it hard to believe that they say that they love me but they go and do all these hurtful things to me and say I’m the bad one, I’m always the “ungrateful” one, the one who doesn’t care, but it’s the opposite. Idk I just find it hard to be nice to the people who told me to just kill myself so it’ll be convenient for them.

(Note: I’m not saying I’m the perfect daughter, I’m 16 and Ive been struggling with my mental health for a while obviously I’m not going to be perfect so just keep that in mind)

4 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Unhappy-Bread-173 • 5h ago

Seeking advice I have trouble breathing

1 Upvotes

Hi, so umm i have no one to talk to so i had to download Reddit.

For context: around may i caught a cold, i got really really sick, my parents refused to take to hospital and my mother blamed me for “you did this to yourself” she said, i’m an adult yeah but i have no freedom i don’t know how to drive i don’t have car, nothing and i hate it.
My parents told me to be patient and the cold will go away, the cold was very weird i have never got a sickness like this, i didn’t have a fever i had throat pain i could hardly speak, my whole body was aching, and i woke up the next morning barely breathing, i was crying i was begging my parents to at least take me to the hospital to get an oxygen (i don’t really know what it call but it’s a big tank of oxygen, you wear a mask and it’s help you breathe) but they ignored me, they had that day an important meeting the afternoon i told them to take me with them and I’ll wait for them in the car, spoiler alert they didn’t they left and left me behind barely breathing (oh yeah they gave me a machine that do the same thing as the oxygen tank but i didn’t have any idea how it’s work! I got so numb from not breathing and they expect me to read a long instruction and build it and mind you iy needs a medicine to work too!) so I just gave up there and layed in bed i seriously though i was dying from low oxygen until my mother called me and ask about the machine but i yelled back saying that i can’t breathe! How could i know how it work. Later on like 10 minutes later she called saying my uncle is outside and he’s taking me to the hospital.

I know i yapped alot but long story short i have no clue what is wrong with me i did take an oxygen and i have never felt alive since. Few days later i asked my cousin how the oxygen machine works because my grandparents have the same thing and she’s the one who set it for them, she showed me everything and even my grandma gave me a whole pack of the medicine needed. I continue on with the machine because the sickness seriously ruined my lungs in some way.

Unfortunately the medicine didn’t last long and my grandma gave me her last supply of it (that was around june) my breathing start going back to normal little by little i had some hope that i was ok. Sadly it’s back and way worse than before i begged my parents again but again they ignored me…i even start coughing to get the air back into my lungs.

I don’t know what to do, i hate how useless i feel i can’t do anything and my parents ain’t helping at all, i wanna ask my dad if he could buy me the medicine so i could go back to the oxygen machine but knowing him he will brush me off saying that i’m fine or it’s not the time or I’m just paranoid. And no my mother isn’t an option a big “X” on her she’s worse, i don’t have an older siblings i’m the oldest and i can’t ask any close relatives they all sucks.

I feel so useless, breathless lol.

1 comment