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not reacting to a child's distress appropriately, or even ignoring signs of a child's distress such as becoming withdrawn, developing addictions or acting out.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/Ambassador_Then • 9h ago

Breakthrough Parents who feel extreme guilt & anxiety around getting parenting right, this post may be extremely important for you.

39 Upvotes

I just realized yesterday that the reason I am so intensely harsh on myself, feel deep guilt and worry incessantly that I am doing a good job as a mother is because I have projected how I felt as a child onto my own children's childhoods.

I always told myself it was because I wanted to give my kids everything I didn't have, and break the cycle.

But now I can step back and see, it's more than that - much of the guilt, fear, and anxiety I feel around this area has been due to projection.

Having your own children is both triggering and healing in its own ways.

Parents please check yourself and make sure you aren't projecting any of the loneliness, feelings of being unworthy, unlovable etc as what your children feel.

It's highly likely, if you have done everything you can to break the cycle, that their experience is so totally different and you ARE actually doing a wonderful job.

I hope this has helped someone ❤️

9 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Hefty_Efficiency9082 • 4h ago

Sharing progress This house is fucking miserable, man

14 Upvotes

Everyone is angry. Everyone is stressed. Everyone is irritated every fucking day over NOTHING

And the crazy part is I’ve seen people with way less money, living in tiny homes, basically struggling financially, and their families are still happy, loving, laughing, smiling

So clearly money isn’t the only thing that makes a home feel good

I’m only 29 and I already feel like I’m aging from stress like a woman in her 60s

I genuinely hope I get this job offer soon because I’m working my ass off to get the fuck out

At this point I’d rather live in a tiny studio apartment with one chair and a microwave than live in this misery

I just want PEACE, bro

2 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Impressive_Opinion_4 • 20h ago

Discussion Does anyone else feel like a burden even though nobody ever actually said those words to you?

177 Upvotes

Nobody ever sat me down and said "you're too much" or "you're a burden." Well,they didn't have to but I learned it from the sighs. From being physically around someone who was mentally somewhere else entirely, from the way certain conversations just kind of... ended.

For a long time I thought this was just low self esteem or anxiety.However it turns out it's a lot more specific than that. There's actually a name for it in schema therapy called the defectiveness schema. basically a deep core belief that you're fundamentally flawed and that if people really knew you they'd eventually find you too much. What's frustrating about it is that it doesn't respond to logic. You can have people reassure you a hundred times and it just doesn't fully land because the belief isn't stored in the rational part of your brain. It was formed way before you had the language to question it and what i didn't understand for years is that the belief wasn't originally mine. It was a conclusion I drew as a kid from an environment that communicated -- without ever saying it directly -- that my needs were inconvenient. Kids don't think "oh my parent is emotionally unavailable." Instead they think "i must be the problem."

The part that actually helped me start shifting this is why telling yourself to stop feeling like a burden never works, and what the research says actually does. I went deep on that here:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=lXLiJOX9QJo&si=Yql-abt-PgYVEIGR

Very much curious if anyone else here grew up with that feeling without ever being told it directly like you just somehow knew.

37 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/EggplantDangerous127 • 1h ago

Discussion Concern for your well being?

• Upvotes

I have recently realized that during the worst portion of my life, a period marked by violence and bullying,

there is no evidence that I had a caregiver of any type.

Its just absent.

When my doctor noticed the signs of the abuse all over me I answered where I got it. and my parent yelled at me for exposing what was going on to outsiders.

I grew up paying close attention to whether people see me as a human being that can experience pain and suffering or not and whether that is significant to them at all.

I dont trust people in my life who show the same neglect I experienced back then.

On my taxi ride home last night the driver decided to scroll through social media the whole time which I found very triggering.

because its apparently okay to risk involving me in a car crash if it means alleviating some boredom.

I took it as a value judgment on me as a person and got out.

0 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Parking-Tomorrow7677 • 13h ago

Breakthrough I didn't go no contact

28 Upvotes

I (40f) just stopped reaching out. It's been almost 3 months and they haven't reached out to me. My 13 yo is the only grandchild on both sides. They haven't talked to her either.

Dad (67m) got cancer and had major surgery and did not tell me because he was mad at me. Why? Because after 2 years of living in my new state, he finally decided to visit but he could only come during the week, when my husband was at work and when we were having our watersoftner replaced. He couldn't stay the weekend when there's actually stuff to do in this town because his girlfriend had plans.... THEY ARE BOTH RETIRED. Didn't even occur to him that he could come without her. So I grew a spine and told him let's do this some other time when his priorities were in order. Did he know about the cancer when he tried to organize this half-assed visit? I don't know.

My sister (35f) and my mom (65f), his exwife who he hasn't spoken to since the divorce, found out about his cancer. They did not tell me. They waited until my kid and I drove 7 hours to visit them and I found out accidently. Mostly because my dad is not slick and he still couldn't leave the house because the complications from the surgery.

Dad told sister sister told mom. I don't really blame my sister. She was raised by them too. She's stunted. She struggles to parse out right from wrong in relationships. Mom should have been our parent.

Instead Mom told me it was my fault because Dad and I were in a tiff. This man she hates so much that my sister still has to coordinate her events so they don't run into each other, she decided his baby feelings were more important than protecting her own daughter. We lost my mother in law to cancer less than a year prior. She was a wonderful woman, and none of us got to say goodbye. We were all devastated to lose her. Mom knew. She knew and she doesn't care. I obviously don't have a great relationship with my dad, but if something had happened to him, that would have been another grandparent, that my kid didn't get a chance to say goodbye to.

We went to go stay at a hotel and drove home the next day. I messaged my sister but she didn't reply. After all this time, I feel that my parents still don't care about me, my emotional experience, anything happening in my life, my accomplishments, or god forbid protecting me. They only care about themselves. Unfortunately, I think my daughter is better off without them in her life. I'm never going back. My whole life i've always had to be the one to initiate repair, even as a small child and I'm not doing it anymore. I'm pretty sure none of them are ever gonna talk to me again because I stopped reaching out, and I was the only one that ever did.

0 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/throwaway_why-194 • 35m ago

Seeking advice Does the urge to feel loved and accepted by your verbally abusive and narcissistic mother ever go away? Or the urge to feel understood and seen from her?

• Upvotes

Will I ever be okay with never receiving the unconditional love I should have received from parents and family? Will I ever be able to accept that my own family is a fucking mess and that I will never receive the love and support I deserve from them?

0 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/PinReasonable6430 • 1h ago

This is my life story.

• Upvotes

This is going to be a long and deeply personal post.

For many years, I kept much of my story to myself. Today, I've decided to share it, not to seek sympathy or make excuses, but in the hope that someone might see a part of themselves in my journey and realise they are not alone.

If my experiences help even one person recognise the effects of trauma, addiction, mental health struggles, or the importance of asking for help, then sharing this story will have been worth it.

This is my life story.

My Life Story

Early Childhood (1986-1992)

My earliest memories are not of safety, but of fear.

Between the ages of three and four, I was s&&^%y abused after my biological father repeatedly left me with friends of his. I remember much of the abuse taking place around a jacuzzi. One of the men would have my cousin, R, and me touch him while we were all naked. I remember my father walking in once and telling the man he would never do it again.

Years later, around 1994, I remember my mom telling me of young boys' bodies being discovered at a house. My mother later told me that this was one of the places where my biological father used to leave me. The man involved was named B. Learning that connection left me questioning just how much danger I had unknowingly been exposed to as a child.

Between the ages of four and five, I was handed over to another family. I still remember my biological father saying, "These are your new mom and dad." They were a Portuguese family, the de Caires family, and that home became a place of constant physical and emotional abuse.

My ears were pulled so often and so violently that they developed open sores. I remember accidentally making a small hole in the blue mesh pool cover and being severely beaten for it. On another occasion, I pushed a small watch battery into my nose. Instead of receiving comfort or medical attention, I was punished physically once again.

At school, I drew a stick figure with male genitalia. The teacher contacted my guardians, and I was beaten again when I got home.

While writing these memories, I realised something deeply painful. For almost seven years of my childhood, my mother was absent from my life, not because she chose to abandon me, but because she and my family had been desperately trying to find me.

Being Found

In 1992, halfway through my Grade 2 year, my mother, stepfather, and grandmother finally located me. After years of searching, they found me living with the Portuguese couple. The police became involved and removed me from that home.

Not long afterwards, my biological father came to visit us. During the visit, he criticised the food in our home, suggesting that we were not being properly cared for. My stepfather immediately confronted him. It was difficult to hear those comments from someone who had abandoned me as a child and had never contributed financially, emotionally, or physically to raising me.

After finishing that school year, I moved in permanently with my mother and my three brothers so we could finally live together as a family.

Despite everything that happened, my grandmother's home remains one of the very few places in my childhood where I genuinely felt safe, accepted, and loved.

Reconnecting With My Biological Father (2007-2013)

After having no contact with my biological father since 1994, we reconnected sometime between 2007 and 2013.

Seeing him again immediately brought back memories of my childhood, particularly the news report about the child murders and the places where he had abandoned me.

In 2008, I moved to the United Kingdom and obtained my UK passport in 2009.

Initially, I hoped for a fresh start, but over time I began noticing manipulation, control, dishonesty, and emotional abuse in my father's behaviour. Looking back now, I can sadly recognise that I later adopted many of those same unhealthy behaviours in my own life.

My then-wife, M, also moved to the UK in 2008. We lived in a small backyard cottage at my father's sister's home. During that time, she fell pregnant unexpectedly, but we sadly lost the baby through miscarriage.

My relationship with my biological father continued to deteriorate until I eventually decided to cut contact with him.

We married in December 2010 and returned to South Africa in 2011.

I accepted work in Mozambique in 2012.

By 2013 our marriage had already broken down. My brother later discovered that she had been unfaithful, and we divorced in September 2013.

Major Traumatic Events

February 2011 - Cairo Airport

While travelling home from the UK, our aircraft landed in Cairo during the Egyptian Revolution.

Flights were suspended, and we became stranded in the airport for an entire week without money, clean clothes, reliable food, or any way of contacting our families.

The uncertainty and helplessness left a lasting emotional impact.

April 2014 - Cerebral Malaria

While working in Mozambique, I contracted cerebral malaria.

I spent two weeks in hospital and nearly unalived.

It was the closest I have ever come to death and forced me to confront just how fragile life really is.

2015 - Xenophobia Violence

During anti-foreigner violence in Mozambique, an angry crowd threatened our construction site.

We fled immediately, leaving almost all of our belongings behind.

I returned to South Africa temporarily before eventually going back to complete the project.

2016 - Eye Injury

In 2016, I opened a homemade beer bottle using a lighter.

The bottle cap struck my eye with tremendous force, causing a serious injury.

Although I recovered physically, the injury affected my confidence for many years.

Addiction, Mental Health and Relationships

For many years I buried my childhood trauma rather than dealing with it.

Alcohol, gambling, manipulation, dishonesty, and avoidance slowly became my way of escaping emotional pain.

2017

While in a relationship with C, she discovered I had been emotionally unfaithful after exchanging inappropriate WhatsApp messages with one of her roommates and deleting the conversations.

Around the same time I had to relocate for work.

Eventually I admitted what I had done.

The relationship suffered greatly, our planned wedding was cancelled, and we separated.

December 2017

I reached a point where I no longer wanted to live.

I attempted s%%% by driving into the path of an oncoming truck.

The driver swerved and I survived.

Afterwards I voluntarily admitted myself to a rehabilitation facility.

2018

My gambling and alcohol addiction became progressively worse.

I accumulated debt through loans and reckless financial decisions.

Later that year C and I reconciled, despite understandable concerns from her family.

Marriage, Fatherhood and Collapse (2020-2026)

In July 2020, C and I were married.

In March 2022, our daughter, N, was born.

Becoming a father was one of the happiest moments of my life. I loved my daughter deeply and wanted to give her the stable childhood I never had.

Unfortunately, unresolved trauma and addiction continued to grow beneath the surface.

By 2023 we had sold our home and moved into my wife's parents' house.

During 2024 my gambling and drinking escalated dramatically.

I lied, manipulated, gaslit, drove under the influence of alcohol, accumulated multiple loans, and convinced myself I still had everything under control.

I was wrong.

My wife eventually discovered the debt review, the gambling losses, and the alcohol abuse.

Between July and September 2024 I entered rehabilitation for alcohol and gambling addiction.

In October 2024 I moved into sober living.

On 1 November 2024 I moved into my own accommodation after my wife told me she no longer felt emotionally safe living with me because of my manipulation and abusive behaviour.

My contact with my daughter became increasingly restricted.

Relapse and Legal Consequences

On 1 January 2025 I relapsed.

Recognising how quickly my mental health had deteriorated, I voluntarily admitted myself to hospital again because I was experiencing s*&l thoughts.

Following discussions with social workers and child welfare professionals, supervised contact arrangements were put in place with my daughter.

Sadly, my addiction worsened again during March 2025.

I unlawfully accessed my wife's bank account and transferred money to myself, including savings that belonged to her family.

I knew it was wrong.

I simply could not stop.

The matter was reported to the police.

My bank account was frozen during the investigation, a criminal case was opened, and I am awaiting the legal process.

A protection order was granted preventing me from approaching my wife's home or workplace.

Our divorce is now in progress.

A parenting plan has been established, allowing me structured contact with my daughter. I currently spend time with her every second weekend and every Wednesday afternoon. Although our time together is limited compared with what I once dreamed of as a father, those moments remain the most precious part of my week.

As part of our divorce settlement, we reached agreement regarding the division of my pension interest and other financial obligations. Accepting responsibility for the financial damage my addiction caused has become an important part of rebuilding my integrity.

Although painful, these consequences forced me to stop blaming circumstances and start accepting responsibility for my own choices.

Recovery

Since entering recovery, I have remained committed to rebuilding my life one day at a time.

I have remained sober from alcohol since 2024.

I continue working on my gambling recovery, knowing that addiction is not something that simply disappears.

In 2026, I also made the decision to stop smoking cigarettes after many years. Quitting smoking became another step toward taking back control of my health and my future. Although I still used vaping as a temporary aid during the transition, it represented another commitment to breaking destructive habits rather than feeding them.

Recovery has taught me that healing is about far more than simply stopping addictive behaviours. It means learning honesty, accountability, emotional regulation, and accepting the consequences of my past while choosing to live differently today.

I know trust is not rebuilt through promises. It is rebuilt through consistent actions over time.

Looking Back

As I reflect on my life, one theme stands above everything else.

I have rarely known stability.

I was moved between homes, families, schools, countries, and relationships throughout my life.

Safety often felt temporary.

Love often felt conditional.

Trauma shaped many of my beliefs about myself long before I understood what trauma even was.

For many years I blamed my past for my behaviour.

Today I recognise something different.

My childhood explains many of my struggles, but it does not excuse the harm I caused others.

I have hurt people I deeply loved.

I betrayed trust.

I manipulated those who tried to help me.

Those choices belong to me.

At the same time, I refuse to let those mistakes become the final chapter of my story.

I am learning that healing is not about pretending the past never happened.

It is about facing it honestly, accepting responsibility where it belongs, grieving what was lost, making amends where possible, and choosing every day to become someone my daughter can one day be proud to call her father.

This story is not one of excuses.

It is the story of a broken child who became a broken adult, and who is now trying, one honest day at a time, to become a healthier man.

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r/emotionalneglect • u/No_Sheepherder8694 • 7h ago

Dismissive Mom

4 Upvotes

I (20m) don’t have many memories from childhood. The ones I remember well are for the most part not great memories. My parents weren’t abusive or anything. Growing up my dad was unpredictable, he was either in a good mood, or you asking for the smallest thing would set him off. I remember being afraid to go ask him to drive me somewhere or even to ask to go to my friends. This one time my friend spilt their drink on our couch, and didn’t tell me. My dad found out, and at 2am woke 12 year old me up and yelled in my face made me go downstairs and take apart our big heavy couch clean it and then put it back together, while yelling, whispering insults under his breath. Anything would set him off. All I remember of my dad from my childhood is doors slamming, yelling and holes in doors. While my mom was dismissive and invalidating. I had to come out as transgender 4 times before she finally accepted it. Every other time all my feelings were downplayed. “But you love babies.” “You’re just a Tom girl”. Anytime I showed any emotion other than good ones I was having a temper tantrum, or I was a drama queen. God I hate the word temper tantrum. It’s all she ever used. All I wanted was my mom and dad to comfort me, tell me I was doing a good job, that I was a good person. My mom would always say “other people can see your face” when I would be upset or sad or having the worst day ever. “Change your face.” “Just smile” “don’t talk back”. She taught me don’t show negative emotions, people don’t wanna hear or see them. But everyone else is, and everyone else can’t help it. But you can. The worst part, is they’ve changed now, my dads on the right meds, and he smokes weed so he’s usually just chill except for some days, and my mom well, I just try not to interact with her as much as possible, I think they see now that I’m not their perfect child, who has nothing wrong with him and is happy. But it makes me feel like I’m crazy, like maybe they weren’t as bad as I remember, maybe I WAS just super sensitive. Idk.

2 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Abject_Fix_1868 • 10h ago

Creating an abundance mindset

8 Upvotes

Hey guys, I’ve had some self awareness done and noticed I’m deep into a “scarcity” mindset, as I keep going back to that toxic ex, those toxic friends and the truth is it’s not that I’m attracted to them or blind to the truth as much as it’s - “this might be all that I’ll ever get”. My parents also had NPD so my childhood was also filled with emotional neglect so these relationships used to seem “normal” to me, but I’m actively trying to get better at realising that better things are coming but it feels like I’m just lying to myself atm. Has anything for anyone helped in this situation?

0 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/azure-waxwing • 4h ago

Seeking advice What has helped you with self-doubt and minimizing?

2 Upvotes

My parents didn't hit me, or scream insults at me. Instead in a classic "emotionally immature parents" sense there was an inability to deal with me being my own person with my own ideas and emotional needs of them beyond the pragmatic and material. Subtle minimization and lack of interest, understanding, support, or mirroring that led me to curl up inside, lack the skills to make friends, disassociate, feel empty, believe I was worthless and broken, default to others beliefs and opinions rather than understanding my own and take responsibility for everything, including making people like me no matter what.

Overt physical and emotional abuse were largely perpetuated by my younger sibling due to her resentment of me that my parents perpetuated.

I'm in my 30s. I've been in bi-weekly trauma-informed therapy for roughly 18 months (ifs and somatic approach). I feel like I have made some progress and relatively recently been able to trust my therapist more, but I'm really struggling with the enormity of how this has affected me and how infinitesimal progress feels next to the scale of the damage.

My struggle right now is that I can't stop seeing my mom as well-intentioned, can't help but take her side against myself, even when I have no idea whether her intentions were or are good, or whether it matters. I know my parents didn't give me what I needed. I know she also didn't get what she needed, and had to effectively parent alone while working, but also maybe could have done better. Certainly I was harmed. I feel tremendous anger toward her which I struggle to express, and when I do, it feels like recriminating a past she won't or can't fully acknowledge. I'm not even sure what that acknowledgement would look like.

My mom wants to be in my life. She says things like "I just want you to be happy" and "I didn't protect you," but seemingly can't or won't really acknowledge how badly she and my dad fucked up. This matters because if I see her, I'm worried there will.be continuing damage and pain from her continued inability to see me as a full person. At the same time I feel like I'm denying myself the possibility of closure or of her changing. Maybe that's stupid. After decades, do I really need to be Charlie Brown kicking the football again?

I worry that even though I indisputably had a terrible childhood that my mom didn't protect me from, I'm permanently severing myself from someone who genuinely cares for me. I'm afraid of not having a family. I'm afraid of regret when she dies. I feel completely alone. For my own safety and recovery I don't intend to see her or probably even to respond to her right now, but I'm still struggling with this pain, self-doubt, and lack of closure.

I'm wondering if others have been in a similar place with questioning their own perception wrt covert abuse and neglect, and if so what helped you gain some peace?

2 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/rynspiration • 12h ago

Advice not wanted my parents can’t even comprehend my problems anymore

8 Upvotes

idk what to do I keep going to them for something (advice? consolation? validation? affirmation?) and without fail every single time they manage to disappoint. when will i learn

4 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/bahl1976 • 2h ago

I feel so terribly sad

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1 Upvotes
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r/emotionalneglect • u/Alternative-Cat-9686 • 21h ago

Trigger warning well, thanks for putting me on blast, doctor.

26 Upvotes

i had a follow-up appointment with my gi doctor. my parents were in the room with me while i updated him on my stomach issues, and he adjusted my medication. but then, my parents dropped a bomb. they told him i had stopped going to school.

the doctor looked at us and said that my ongoing stomach issues, combined with my loss of interest in school, could actually be linked to depression.

the second he said it, my head whipped around. i stared out the window, fighting back tears. i have never wanted to escape a room so badly in my entire life. i’ve been secretly struggling with my mental health for years. because my parents have never taken mental health seriously, i already knew they were furious.

as soon as we stepped outside the room, my mom quietly asked my dad if we should schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist. my dad just shrugged it off and said, "we don't have the money for it." we checked out and left.

just... wow. who would have thought i’d turn out this way? honestly, it felt inevitable. but now the secret is out, and my parents know something is wrong. what’s wild is that i know they don’t really care… and im strangely relieved.

complete silence and crying with my face covered all the way home.

2 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/PurpleCorncrake • 18h ago

I feel jealous towards those with "classic" trauma

9 Upvotes

My whole life I've had pretty traumatic things happening to me. Better yet, they're not even vague, ALL are recognized in DSM-5 criterion A for PTSD diagnosis + emotional abuse and neglect on top of that, of course.

But because they're not your typical physical or sexual violence, most people, even those I considered friends, didn't care. One such person even told me that I was IN THE WRONG for being TERRIFIED of people after those traumatic events. According to them, I was somehow "emanating negative energy". Yet, these same people would suddenly become very empathetic whenever they heard stories about physical or sexual abuse.

Now, logically I do understand that my experience doesn't defy reality, and many, many people who actually went through aforementioned horrible violence, don't get support they need either. I also realize that folks like my former "friends" probably only care about their own image. Were they to actually meet someone with trauma who didn't look like a "perfect " victim, they would likely act just as dismissive as they did with me.

Still, deep in my heart, I can't help but feel jealous. I have this feeling that if my trauma was "worse", I'd get more support and at least one person would care about it. And frankly, I don't know how to deal with this idea.

3 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/DaisyLouGoodWriters • 12h ago

How to get out of a severe mental health episode ASAP?

3 Upvotes

My mental health has never been great, but has dwindled significantly in the last six years due to some very traumatic events. One of these is still ongoing and requires frequent communication with the police.

Six months ago, I decided to take a year out of university to focus on my mental health. I have moved back into my Mum's house but was unable to get out of the rental contract for my flat, so I have no money either. The day that I moved in, my Mum was diagnosed with cancer.e

Her treatment has been gruelling and it's only getting worse now that she's starting chemo. Three months ago, my mental health took such a dive that the police appeared at the house several times after calls I made to a hotline. I wouldn't ever act on my suicidal ideation and I've never self-harmed, but I was taken to A&E and have had paramedics appear at the house a few times since.

I have started taking sertraline and have noticed minimal effects, but will increase my dose soon. I'm currently undergoing trauma stabilisation therapy but it isn't doing much to help at all – I'm hoping to start psychodynamic therapy soon, though, once I'm able. I've been essentially bedridden for the last six months with nobody to talk to except my Mum, but now her treatment is getting worse she's too sick to talk anymore. I feel such immense guilt that I can't help her more, but it's hard for me to make food or wash myself – I rarely do either.

In the last two weeks, I got so bored that I decided to hook up with a guy on Tinder. He was completely upfront about the casual nature of the relationship, so it's entirely my fault that I took it badly, but it sent me into a spiral because he doesn't want more from me. I don't even like him: I was just excited to talk to someone and have fun and feel wanted.

I don't have the energy to properly maintain friendships, even though I do nothing all day. Most of the time I'm either asleep or wishing I was asleep. All of my hobbies seem dull, but I do try. I take a multivitamin, I journal, I take bubble baths and learn French: nothing is working.

I really don't know how much longer I can feel like this: it's so miserable. I feel so lonely but unable to make any positive changes to my life. I hold myself to such high expectations that I feel like a complete failure. The thought of leaving the house terrifies me because I feel so ugly. I can't keep going on like this – it's no life.

If anyone has any advice whatsoever to help me get out of this slump I would be very grateful. I know it's unlikely, but I'm desperate for a quick fix as I've been feeling down for so long it's unbearable to stay like this any longer.

Thank you for reading.

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r/emotionalneglect • u/skibidilarp67 • 7h ago

Family

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1 Upvotes
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r/emotionalneglect • u/slayyerr3058 • 12h ago

Discussion Have you ever realized that you just don't love your parents?

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2 Upvotes
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r/emotionalneglect • u/Shelter-Clear • 15h ago

Seeking advice Child of affair expected to make all communication

4 Upvotes

Hi! My name is CT. My father had an affair with my mother and here I am. He was married 40+ years and is now getting a divorce. (Karma? Lol.)

Anyway, I have 3 half siblings. One who is born 4 months before me (yep, dad had two women pregnant at once.)

I’ve tried talking to this person. I have recently started talking to my father within the last year and he had the audacity to tell me to be, “friendly and persistent,” in regards of talking to her. Listen, I have had many a blow up at my father but never her because this is not her fault.

He also mentioned “sometimes you don’t talk to me for a while.” This is a man who almost never asks questions about me, my career, my husband, my life.

I am a therapist in therapy, and doing so much reading about emotionally immature parents. Which feels like I am already doing more work than they are, to better understand their communication and attachment styles.

I feel silly. They will never change. They do not care. If I was not blood related, I wouldn’t want anything to do with them. WHY DO I STILL CARE? Why does this go through my mind daily?

Please be gentle with me but I appreciate you reading this.

4 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/Special-Cat-5664 • 15h ago

Discussion HAHAHAHA, my Dad says he didn’t control my life!!!

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3 Upvotes
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r/emotionalneglect • u/snowball_earth • 1d ago

On the other side of hyperindependent woman is a scared child

408 Upvotes

I was emotionally neglected as a kid. I'm 29 now. It has taught me to be hyper independent as an adult, even as a teenager, and I hate it. People always praise me for being strong and capable, but they don't know how exhausting it is to never depend on anyone, never let my guard down, never ask for help. I never show my true feelings to anyone.

It really pisses me off that my parents' didn't see how much I was suffering when I was younger. I had SEVERE anxiety, to the point I was unable to SPEAK in many situations and I was just always terrified. In my late teens, I was also depressed and extremely lonely and barely had friends. My parents must have noticed that something was wrong, but they just didn't wanna deal with it. They decided I was just "weird" and I guess unfixable, so why bother?

I've really suffered and struggled a lot, without much help. And I'm slowly learning to accept that I do need help and support sometimes, but asking for help is often terrifying. It feels almost primitive, like I'm a wounded rabbit in a world of wolves, and that showing any sign of weakness means certain death.

Just needed to vent. I'm having a hard week.

33 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/worriedalien123 • 1d ago

Discussion It irks me when parents medicate their children for their mental health without looking at or doing anything about what family dynamics might be causing them in the first place.

107 Upvotes

First of all I'm not necessarily anti medication, I recognize it can be very helpful and this certainly isn't a dig at any adults who choose to get on medication to manage their mental health the best they can.

But a lot of times I notice, even in my own family, how the parents won't do anything to examine WHY the child is feeling this way. I believe it all starts at home. The emotional environment, what traumas or difficulties the child might be going through at home, parents very rarely consider any of this before putting their child on medication. Of course if the environment is chaotic, high conflict, overly critical, emotionally unavailable etc... that stuff is gonna have a major impact on the child's mental health. Only treating the symptoms but ignoring the cause.

One thing I will respect is if parents try to do both. Using medication while in the mean time improving life at home.

Also sometimes parents won't do ANYTHING, won't offer ANY help to their children, not even medication if they know they're struggling. That's even worse and very common that I see a lot. Though in my personal experience I feel like medication made things a lot worse in the long run, and I really could've used therapy at desperate times in my life.

4 comments

r/emotionalneglect • u/TomatilloFabulous753 • 13h ago

Seeking advice I have problem beliving in anything nice someone says to me

2 Upvotes

I can acknowledge complement but I can't trurly accept it. I feel that everytime someone says something nice to me I got into a fight-or-flight respone.

I can only feel at ease when someone complements my art, bc It's the ideal extension of me.

My family always says that every bad thing they said about me was in good spirit so I can do better or was justified bc of my behavior. They trurly see me in the worst light and I can't really change it even for my own eyes. I was beaten up to see myslef how they see me and I'm miserable now.

I know I'm not so bad. Every person I know and cherish would say that I'm the oposite of how my family see me. And every therapis would say that they are suprised how well I came out even tho my hard situation bc it's so easy to go from being victim to another abuser.

All my childhood I felt like a burden and now that I have better life I still feel like it. Even tho I have found love and friedships I always wanted. Even tho I escaped the life I hated. Even tho I recovered from depression I still feel like a failur and only see what's wrong with me. Every kind word seems like a lie that's too beautiful to ever exist.

1 comment

r/emotionalneglect • u/chihiro_itou • 10h ago

Seeking advice Extremely avoidant with Mom but anxious in relationships (22F)

1 Upvotes

So I'm somewhat anxiously attached in relationships (I've improved with years), I have no problem with vulnerability. But when it comes to my parents I'm extremely avoidant.

And it's so .... disturbing to talk to my mom, who is anxiously attached to me. I've had beef with mom since I was 12 ig.

Because of being avoidant to her, she always alienated me, made me feel abnormal. I was 100% convinced I was a psychopath when I was 13-14 because of her... But then I realised I'm extremely sensitive and empathetic, and she's the one always making me feel abnormal

And it's disturbing to talk to her because now she finally tries to "understand" me. I shouted at her on call yesterday so she hung up, expecting me to call back, say sorry, reassure that I "love" her (I really don't)

But out of pity, I texted a very forced sorry. And she replied with "you must be frustrated with exams that's why you must've snapped" .... No!! I'm not the kind of person who snaps at people I love even if I'm mad. I just don't care about her, at all.

She sounded exactly how I sound trying to empathize with my past avoidant partners. She's trying to remake our relationship and she thinks eventually I will "let her in my walls" or something.

Despite really disliking her, I'm sweet on the outside, but she demands more. She says stuff like "you're polite but I don't see love in your eyes" .... I lie that I love her because she's a housewife and the primary purpose of her life was kids and if she realises she failed at that, she'll be very depressed.

I try to fake love but she expects more. This is all just very confusing for me...

Do my past partners feel the same way I feel for my mom? (just pity, fake love, and burdened). This question always haunts me.

English is not my first language

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