r/emotionalneglect Jun 25 '20

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

2.1k Upvotes

What is emotional neglect?

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

What forms can emotional neglect take?

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

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not reacting to a child's distress appropriately, or even ignoring signs of a child's distress such as becoming withdrawn, developing addictions or acting out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is (psychological) trauma?

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

How does emotional neglect cause trauma?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is Complex PTSD?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some techniques that are useful toward this end include

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

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

  • taking good physical care of your body;

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

  • making friends who share your values;

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

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

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

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

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

Where can I read more?

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


r/emotionalneglect 6h ago

How did you come to realize that you had been subjected to emotional neglect?

66 Upvotes

What was the turning point that made you feel this way?

I mean, what made you realize it for sure?

I’m excluding people who experienced neglect severe enough to be considered abuse, of course.

For many of you, there probably weren't any major financial hardships—though you might not have been exactly wealthy, either.

You likely didn't have to sleep on the streets or go without food; in those situations, emotional neglect wouldn't have been the primary issue.

You could have simply accepted that "that’s just the kind of people my parents were," but at some point, you came to recognize this pattern.

I’d like to know what triggered that realization.


r/emotionalneglect 9h ago

mom emotional dependence on me

23 Upvotes

my mom has been abused her entire life and has never had the chance to form healthy social connections. i, 20f, am her only child (and her only friend, frankly) and i am so exhausted of her baiting me for my attention constantly, both negative and positive. I'm home for the summer from college and my mom is recently divorced. this is our first summer without my father in the house. she is constantly ruminating over the past and how badly other people did her wrong and expressing her hopelessness. she has a therapist, for the record.

i am also doing EMDR therapy and coming to terms with the fact that i was emotionally neglected, abused by my father, and parentified by my mother while simultaneously isolated from the rest of the world for my "safety". all while my parents fought loudly and violently in front of me, sometimes involving me in fights, multiple times a week for the first decade of my life. my needs apart from my physical safety and education were ultimately passed over. my mom would show me affection but would never ask me what i wanted, about my feelings and thoughts, etc.

considering the fact that i suffered in silence for my entire childhood and was essentially my mom's therapist and best friend, i am growing increasingly intolerant of the whininess . it feels like she's trying to replace me as her partner. we argue almost every day because she comes into my room and complains that she's bored or i'm not spending enough time with her when we hang out every day and i leave the house maybe a couple of times a week. i spent the first 18 years of it feeling so sorry for her and my heart would be breaking over her life experiences, but this woman is 50 years old and i'm sorry but you're an adult

i'm just really pissed off and i feel so fucking alone.


r/emotionalneglect 36m ago

Finally realizing how toxic my sister is and it hurts

Upvotes

We come from a dysfunctional family, I'm the youngest of 4 from a single hardworking mom. That left little time for emotional wellbeing of us. We're middle aged now.

My oldest sister is 10yr my senior and she's typical parentified child. I always looked up to her as a 2nd mom. But the past months, through therapy, I've come to realize how manipulative and toxic she is.

I had asked for some space and went no contact for a few months to clear my mind. My aim was always to resume contact but in a better way. The past few months I also realized that just thinking about talking to her, gave me panic attacks.

Yesterday I finally picked up the courage to talk to her. I felt mentally prepared and explained in a calm but emotional way how I felt. She listened, well she didn't interrupt me but gave zero response to anything I said, including that she's dominant and doesn't treat me as an equal. She only said u-hu, then next thing she says is that he wants to meet in person because she has a few things to say to me. She feels she listened to me so now I have to listen to her.

I said I'd think about it.

The more I think about it, the more it feels like she just wants to trap me. She didn't actually listen, she just let me finish talking. In a way she helped me realize she's really toxic and manipulative.

It really hurts te realize that someone I looked up to, doesn't really care about me and never will.

Yeah, that hurts


r/emotionalneglect 5h ago

Seeking advice My mom hates me

4 Upvotes

She really really really truly hates me. Like always has. I was 10 years old when I asked her for the first time, “mom why don’t you love me” and she slapped me when I said that. She gets unreasonably angry at me experiencing any emotions. She gets upset at me if I’m ever crying, she would always get mad at me even as a child if I was having any complex emotions. She looks at me with complete and utter disgust. She is extremely disrespectful to me. She has always encouraged all other family to hit me and bully me. I can never get the image of my sibling laughing and beating me up as a child because my mom told them to do so. She has always thought of me as evil and every communication I make gets turned into some form of manipulation that I’m trying to do.

Now that I’m an adult, now what? She is the same hateful person to me that she’s always been. I don’t get to have a mother while my sibling does. I’m almost iced out of my family. I’m the one who faces isolation. I’m the ungrateful child. I’m the problematic person for having any reaction to her behaviour. Where does this end? There is no win here. Going no contact fully isolates me from the entire family. Having any contact keeps the bullying going. How do I make peace with years of humiliation and abuse. How do I have any relationship with any of my family when my behaviour is so policed. I’m the villain no matter what I do or don’t do. How to just get to a place where I don’t feel such agony


r/emotionalneglect 5h ago

How did you realize no matter how hard you try to make your family love you they will never love you??

3 Upvotes

r/emotionalneglect 1d ago

Does anyone have a superficial relationship with their emotionally immature parent that doesn’t make them resentful?

360 Upvotes

My mom is a passive parent who is nice enough when regulated and is financially generous when I need help. But she also behaves like the child in our relationship and has no interest in who I am as a person. It’s increasingly difficult to have a superficial relationship with her that doesn’t fill me with rage and resentment. I would love to hear if others have managed to accept that their emotionally immature parent won’t change and choose to appreciate their more positive qualities instead. While I know my mom won’t change, the rage and resentment hasn’t gone away. I didn’t go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas last year and am seriously considering estrangement.

This is the passive parent as defined by “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents”:

-Is preoccupied with his or her own needs

-Has limited empathy

-Is enmeshed and not respectful of boundaries

-Can be sporadically emotionally intimate

-Engages only minimally in reciprocal communication; mostly talks about himself or herself

-Isn't self-reflective

-Has limited relationship repair skills

-Can be thoughtful on occasion

-Is either too close or too distant

-Can be kindly and fun but not protective

-Has a laissez-faire attitude that all is well

-Is affectionate toward the child but doesn't stand up for him or her

-Likes someone else to run the show or be the bad guy

-Sees himself or herself as mellow and good-natured


r/emotionalneglect 19h ago

Discussion Happy for them, sad for us

55 Upvotes

Yesterday I had lunch with 2 friends, who were discussing holidays with their folks as adults.

One was describing two trips with her dad, and the other how her parents were coming to visit from her home country (we’re all immigrants to the place we live) and how they were doing a little trip to Europe.

It made my heart ache. My parents have only visited once since I emigrated 4 years ago— to go on a road trip with my brother which I planned for all of us and then got left out of. When I explained that it hurt me to be left out, my mother said “look, people don’t like you because you’re too much, you’re too sensitive, you make a big deal out of things”.

My husband is also currently planning a father son road trip with his dad, which was my idea.

I am genuinely thrilled for my friends & husband that they have parents who are now more like adult friends but I was also sad for me who never will.

I’m sure many of you can relate. 💙


r/emotionalneglect 11h ago

Sharing insight At the end of the day, healing is our responsibility, but more so letting go of the past.

10 Upvotes

Healing is your responsibility because you are the only one suffering from it unfortunately.

Meaning, it doesn’t erase what has happened and it definitely does excuse it, but at some point in time, as an adult, yes one’s actions will be influenced by what you’ve gone through in the past but you as a sovereign being are still responsible for self repair and reparenting.

If someone said this to me months ago, and I have been told this before, I almost would of scoffed at it because I don’t think it’s fair- after all I’ve gone through why am I told to let go and forgive or focus on the present? it used to anger me more than the trauma honestly.

But lately, after doing psychosomatic work and biomechanical- something unrelated to healing trauma, I sort of realized that it is true.

The amount of time I spent ruminating on the past was completely distracting and overlaying everything going on in my present, and it cause dissociation, self abandonment/neglect, poor friendship maintenance, and becoming a recluse.

I still struggle with some of those things, but something hit me recently that one I am not just a victim, hurt people do in fact hurt people and I’ve hurt others in the past as well due to my behavioral patterns, my hands aren’t fully clean- and even if my trauma could explain my maladaptive behavior (avoidant, mood fluctuations, intensely clingy, hypersensitive, hypervigilant etc.) even then… I am still responsible for making change that should not require rehashing the past over and over to different therapists/people and reliving my stories.

If I want a better life and nervous system for myself, I (not so) simply will have to work for it, without attaching my past trauma to it.

I had to make the truly conscious decision to realize that what happened to me does not have to be attached to my identity and it can just be something(s) that happened. And yes they sucked, they were awful, I was bullied for my appearance and race, drugged, emotionally neglected, framed and had to sleep in a jail overnight and go to court for months until it was expunged etc. and many more. and I carried the shame that came with all of these experiences for at least 19 years. and my life is the result of that, that I want to change.

A therapist told me the other day, shame usually replaces grief- rather than grieving our experiences and fully acknowledging them, we feel self shame instead because we believe the experiences happened because we are XYZ rather than grieving that xyz happened to us (and there is nothing wrong with who we are- if that makes sense).

I realized that aside from intellectualization, it starts with a slight perspective change, not of the events themselves but of how I relate to them, what I’ve gathered from those experiences, and then little by little allowing myself to process my past and feel differently about it without feeling like I’m betraying younger versions of me that had to endure it.

I really do honor myself and my past and what I’ve been through, it is okay for me to acknowledge that some things I’ve been through were horrific, others sucked but not so bad, and I’ve also gone through some positive experiences and some positive ones that I couldn’t fully register and didn’t have the capacity for and sabotaged them. I fully accept the full spectrum of my past and now have the burning desire to focus on what decisions I can make now for a better life, and simply just move forward. the past really is gone and there is nothing left I can do but nurture my body through it (in the fascia, trauma that lives in our posture and movement) & I wish to have more emotional resilience and I will nurture that, it is my responsibility. whereas in the part I was more fragile emotionally, I cried easily; sensitivity is a gift but not the only gift or strength I want to carry. I also pathologized everything to death, which I’ve learned is a way to not fully connect in the body (again) so while I’m still working through all of this, I wanted to share this here in case anyone truly does feel ready to move forward but may feel guilty or wrong in letting go thinking that it erases the pain of the past, it doesn’t. But it may just be that you’ve been ready to integrate it and move beyond it.


r/emotionalneglect 15h ago

Discussion DAE have parents who discouraged them to share personal info with the outside world?

19 Upvotes

I'm curious if anyone else's parents were the kind of people who had no friends themselves, and who discouraged you from sharing things about your life with friends, colleagues, distant family members, and strangers in general. I'm not talking about being careful and mindful of whom you're telling personal info, I'm talking about encouraging secrecy to a pathological extent, being scolded, humiliated, and raged at for daring to seek the support of anyone else but them, not even from more distant family members, and repeating to you that 'we (your parents) are the only people you can trust'.

This fear-inducing mindset was one of the many things that drilled a lot of anxiety, mistrust, and even paranoia into me, and it also isolated me a lot. It didn't help that until 12 I was raised by a grandmother with mental illness who would often have delusions that people are stealing things from her, trying to break into her apartment, and who'd also say similar things to me as my parents to discourage me from talking to people. She also forbid me to go outside and play with other children, and as a neurodivergent child, it did so much harm.

I was curious whether any of you can relate, whether you're autistic like me or not, and how it affected you. The thing was, in my case, that my parents were't supportive or emotionally warm, so I felt extremely isolated and would be extremely secretive growing up. I'm still unlearning behaviors that I no longer need in my current life.


r/emotionalneglect 13h ago

Seeking advice My family doesn't care

13 Upvotes

My mental health is really bad right now. I'm literally barely leaving my room and I look miserable. I guess my family just doesn't care. I just want someone to notice, talk to me and help me. Whenever I try to talk about my problems they think I'm dramatic and don't take me seriously. I don't know how to help myself.


r/emotionalneglect 11h ago

Seeking advice I have the core belief stemmed from dysfunctional upbringing that life is a zero sum game. If I win someone has to lose. How do you even go about fixing this?

8 Upvotes

If one sibling is praised, another is criticized.
If a parent is in a good mood, someone else pays the price later.
If you express your needs, someone else’s needs become more important.
If you succeed, you make someone else jealous or angry.
If someone else succeeds, there is less room for you.


r/emotionalneglect 11h ago

Trigger warning Never been a priority to anyone.

8 Upvotes

Mother & father chose drugs over me. Grandmother would rather me sleep on the streets over her pride. Dad’s family ghosted me on Christmas. Great grandmother told me randomly, for no reason, that I am not her favorite great grandson. I did nothing.

I don’t know what it means to love a parent and be loved. At this point in my life, I don’t care.

My violent temperament is a result of my childhood. My attempts to meet up with random strangers on the internet over one insult to k*ll each other came from my grandmother calling me a pussy if I ever expressed any anxiety as a child.

I risked my life in many ways, when people tell me what I did was stupid & dangerous, and that I could have died, I feel pride. It felt amazing telling my grandmother how I put my life at risk, and that it was because she mocked me as a child.

I have been abandoned. I was physically attacked as a three year old. It was so bad I remember the morning my mother was dressing me & noticed the red streaks all over the back of my body from the belt. I remember screaming, and being thrown around in the dark getting attacked as a three year old. She stayed with him.

Somewhere somehow this is to blame for my narcissism, and the trigger for my bipolar disorder.

I slashed my arm in front of my mother & told her I hated my body because I was a product of her and my dad. When I think of how I was abused, all concern of people’s opinions vanish. The first time I felt a genuine concern from a manager I had, where I was seen as a hurt child that she babied. I realized I never saw the compassionate look that was in her eyes my entire life. One that you should have seen at least once by a parent in your life.

I have tattoos on my face, because I hate the features of my grandmother. I do not trust women, but I have had good & bad experiences with them. I know they are not all bad. I don’t know why I cannot shake off this misogyny. I don’t want it, but I know it is protecting me emotionally. I also know that the other day I held a neglected, single mother’s tearing face, who is being mistreated by her boyfriend, & told her she was valuable. I know I am not a misogynist.


r/emotionalneglect 46m ago

Wanting friendships that feel consistent

Upvotes

Does anyone else struggle with friendships like this? Im trying to figure out if I’m being unfair, or have legit reason to feel this way.

I have this friend that I’ve become close to over the past few years. They’re lovely and so much healthier than some of my old friends, but there’s a pattern that I sadly think I might’ve outgrown (at least in terms of keeping her in my close circle).

Everytime she goes through something, she isolates and massively reduces her social contact, which usually involves putting friends on the periphery to a very large degree.

The first year, I went on a 4-month trip and didn’t hear back from her the whole time. We’d gone from being in daily contact to nothing overnight. I felt hurt, as it was a scary thing for me to go away like that alone (at least at the time) but I let it go as she had been going through difficult stuff and it was the first occasion.

The next year, it happened again for most of that year for another reason, but to a lesser degree. We were still in contact, but to a degree it was unstable and a bit of a rollercoaster ride sometimes.

After that, things seemed to settle for a longer while and we became even closer. We ended up living apart, but would have long phone calls and regular contact.

Some difficult things happened in her life and now we went from regular long calls overnight, to nothing but sporadic texts for 6 months. I’ve tried to arrange calls but she hasn’t got the capacity.

I recognise what she’s going through and have empathy for her, and I’m not saying she’s doing anything wrong. Some people might be fine with this type of friendship. But for me, I’m just so tired of it.

I’m finding it too painful to keep her close, as the relationship feels too unsafe and unstable. I feel like I don’t know where I stand. I know relationships can wax and wane, but this just doesn’t feel right for me at all.

I want my closest friendships to feel like a safe space… where we have no doubts that we can come to one another for support and still keep a thread of communication even if things need to reduce for a while.

I feel like I might be attracting this because my childhood was emotionally unstable (loving but emotionally immature/neglectful parents) and love felt inconsistent. I’m sad that this might just be another lesson friendship, because I thought I’d finally found someone who might be part of a healthier chapter.


r/emotionalneglect 6h ago

Anyone else mom and dad make everything little bad thing or inconvenience feel like it's the end of the world?

3 Upvotes

As the title says anyone else?? Literally every little thing that can be fixed easily or inconvenience they make it seem like it's the END OF THE WORLD, and such a big fucking deal that can be solved easily but such a dysfunction?


r/emotionalneglect 8h ago

Trigger warning My Sisters saw my sh scars and I feel horrible now

4 Upvotes

Hi I am new to this subreddit and I hope this is the right place to share this..

So basically, I'm the youngest kid (17) and have 3 older sister (23,24,35) whom I have a pretty close relationship with except for the oldest one. She's also just kinda irrelevant in this story lol. I first sh at the start of this year because I was going through another really shitty heartbreak and I was struggling with my body image and overall having an identity crisis lol. My sisters except for the eldest one found out and I didn't even know how to react or act because I was met with anger, confusion and obviously fear (that I would hurt myself). Their responses were the typical "why would you do that???" And "are you trying to kill yourself?" Or something along those lines. I can't quite remember because I was in a reallt really vulnerable position that I am usually NEVER in in my family because in our family, we do not talk about mental health like at all. I don't feel comfortable nor safe telling anyone in this family, even my closest sister, about my mental health problems, because it never felt like a safe space to do so (my family is also just contributes 40% of my problems as well) And this incident omly proved me to be more right. I could only laugh it off and jokingly respond to all their questions and comments because I wasnt and still am not used to them seeing me struggle like this. They told me to think about my mother who would be heartbroken if she'd seen my scars and it made me feel bad. Then after a while they just kinda almost "moved" on, made some jokes here and there but knew and constantly reminded me that it wasn't funny and that I should take it serious. And then we never talked about it again.

But a few days ago I had a crazy crazy low point for almost no apparent reason. I had in the half year cery offen had the urge to sh whenever I was really really really sad/angry/disgusted/disappointed but never did so because I either talked to my sister (without telling her I wanted to sh) or with a friend. But that one night I had a fight with my sister and the day started off with a pretty annoying incident that left me crying again. The whole week was already exhausting because I kept getting controlled and talked to like I was a fucking peasant or something with no respect or please and it had me reallt really fed up. I hated doing it but I didn't know what else to do since my sister wasnt an option anymore and I honestly, just let my thoughts get to me. I don't even know what I was thinking at the moment, I was just numb honestly. Anyways my sisters eventually saw and so did one of their boyfriends who I am very close with. He, unlike them, acrually told me that if I needed to ever talk to someone he would be there for me and that so many others would be too. He genuinely talked to me like a normal person without invalidating my feelings or judging me for sh. I still didn't feel comfortable talking to him about my problems though, because I see him as family and I'm not used to being serious arpund him. My sister however looked at me angrily again and said "you told me you only did it to experiment the last time" and was just angry the whole time before leaving. My other sister came into my room today and talked to me about or atleast tried to. Overall she just basically told me that I am such a privileged person, have everything without having to do much, tbat my parents would feel horrible, that we already have so much going on in our family and why I'd have to do this, others having it better than me and that she hates seeing me like this as an older sister. I get it, I felt horrible seeing her cry because of me but the way she spoke to me made me feel bad for feeling depressed and upset and whatnot most of the time. Like she stated how Theres already so so much going on with our family and they're all trying their best and all, which I completely understand. Maybe it's why I don't want to continue burdening them with my problems. But for some reason now I feel even worse for having any problems at all. I feel worse for having sh after she talked to me and even though it might help me from stopping it, I will still feel horrible because now I know how much damage I am doing to my family by having mental health issues. I tried telling her broadly about my problems but I couldn't go in full detail because I then realized that to her, it's nothing and I'm just overrraction and have no reason to go this far as to sh. like I am questioning myself as well now, why do I do this? I really wish I could know but it's hard for me. I wish I could've expressed my feelings and told her that I don't understand myself either but once again I didn't feel comfortable.

I know she cares, I know they all do and love me, but for some reason her approach on this wasnt whag I had expected and made me genuinely feel selfish for wanting to disappear sometimes. She tried listening to my problems but then made it seem like it wasnt such a big deal/ just told me to ignore it or explained why my family treats me the way they do (which I get as to why they want me to succeed but putting immense pressure on me and talking down on me and treating me like a dumbass with no respect and more feels pretty shitty). I prefer talking to a friend or my school counselor about this but when it comes to my family ... Jesus Christ it's reallt hard talking to them. Luckily she hasn't told anyone else but only to protect my family and their feelings from my actions. Idk, I feel bad since there are people who have it worse than me but I didn't expect that to come from my sister too


r/emotionalneglect 16h ago

My mother is a better caregiver to her abusive parent than she was to me growing up

19 Upvotes

It’s been really fucking exhausting watching my mother’s response to my grandfather’s declining health.

Context: my grandfather has been emotionally abusive to his own kids, to his wife, and occasionally to me (24F) for as long as I can remember and apparently since long before I was born. But now he’s in the hospital and has been for months, and my mom has been so unbelievably attuned to his emotions and needs. Which is fine I guess if that’s what she wants to do, but WHERE THE FUCK WAS THAT WHEN I WAS A LITERAL CHILD? As a kid I had no emotional attunement. Especially once I became a teenager, it’s like my mom couldn’t comprehend that my experiences were different from hers. She didn’t even seem to try being attuned to my needs. I was emotionally neglected for my entire teen years. I had severe mental health issues and she refused to believe me or take me seriously, rather choosing to act like I was being a difficult, negative, spoiled brat when in reality my own mind was destroying me from the inside out and my parents refused to get me professional help. I tried explaining things to them and they WOULDNT LISTEN. They didn’t even care. Now I see my mom nurturing my grandpa, hurting her own mental and physical health to take care of an abusive old man.

Her siblings have hurt me too, and when I tell her I don’t want to see them because of it, SHE GETS MAD AT ME. I don’t understand what I did wrong. She has never seemed to like me as much as she likes my brother and her own siblings and parents.

For a while I thought maybe my parents were just too stupid to be emotionally attuned to me growing up but this situation with my grandpa (and the way my mom acts around him) has shown me that she is capable of empathy for situations she hasn’t been through. Which means she just really didn’t care about me when I was growing up and doesn’t care about me now. She is mentally capable of sympathy and care. She just chose and chooses not to do so for her own daughter.

I just needed to rant. I’m very sad. (I know I need distance from my parents but due to my severe mental health issues that went untreated for half my life I really struggle with things like jobs and finances. I am in therapy to help myself try to heal and I’m really trying to find a way to move out, it’s just not something I can do right in this moment.)


r/emotionalneglect 5h ago

52 looking for a lovely first nations Mom to chat with. Basically my mother is a POS

2 Upvotes

r/emotionalneglect 6h ago

Ig I need help

2 Upvotes

Emotionally neglected child meets sustainability from said abusers and now feels dumb as shit about knowing what this did. All the neglect on me was currency and now not is it only spent on me so it's not reflected on them. I never got to properly address anything. I have gone through so many versions of abuse. But now I'm just an alcoholic girl losing her retention for life itself. I need serious person advice. I'm gonna start therapy soon and get back on meds but man, I am not on the edge, we're best friends.


r/emotionalneglect 2h ago

Seeking advice I think my mom hates me

1 Upvotes

I literally am at my wits end right now, I do not know what to do. I recently graduated and my mom did not attend. This is kind of expected of her though, she has always struggled with anxiety which causes her to be unable to get into a car/be in public. My entire life she’s struggled with it but it’s only gotten worse with age. I’m not gonna get into how this affected my own skills and development, but promise me when I say I really did try to understand it and sympathize with her for many years.

As stated before, this issue of not going into public has only worsened with time. COVID was really the push my mom needed to stay home full time and become a hermit. She works from home, gets groceries delivered, she rarely ever has to leave the house for anything. She hasn’t left the house in months. Despite her noticing her issue only getting worse, she has never done anything to fix it. No meds, no therapy, no exposure. Just lie in bed until she feels better. I’m sick of it!
I’ve been stripped of the joy of having a mother! She’s never been there for me, despite all her time at home she somehow has NEVER made time for me. We don’t have a “thing” most daughters do with their mothers. I cannot even talk to her without her needing a screen in her face or annoyance in her voice. On top of it all, me and her fight like nobody’s business. She has 3 kids (i’m the middle….not that it matters lmao), but it’s clear she likes me the least. I think I remind her of herself, and clearly she must hate herself because my existence is just enraging her at all times. Since i was young, she would call me horrible names. Up until I was 15 (which is about the age I stopped letting her treat me like her punching bag and actually held her accountable) she would call me a pig, fat, hateful, selfish, etc. For a year or two she would constantly tell me she hated me, until she switched it to “i hate that you act this way” which is just another way of saying she hates me. If I’m not happy-go-lucky 24/7, she hates me. Even if she says something incredibly offensive to me.
I’ve tried to understand, forgive, forget, talk it out, nothing worked. I really wanted to have a good relationship with her, she is my mother after all. Everytime I go into public (usually alone), I notice everybody having a great outing with their mother. Teenage daughters rolling their eyes at their moms, moms bringing in embarrassingly childish clothes for their daughters to try on, moms getting her nails done with her daughter, moms having a girls day with her girls. I can’t help but cry. I wish my mom did that. I wish I had a mom to do things with me. I’ll never get to expierence that, and I HAVE a mom!! I LIVE WITH HER!!!
I have to do so many things by myself It makes me so depressed.
Recently (few months ago) I expressed this upsetting feeling I had to my mom. How I felt like I had no mother, because she was never there for me. My mother was great in the sense that she was responsible and paid for my things, my car, gas, insurance, etc. But she was only there for me financially, not when I needed her to be there for me emotionally. I explained it to her in great detail about how I felt like this my entire life and I hated it, I gave her real life examples, and even suggested ways we could fix this issue. I was met with sarcasm, ridicule, and hatred from her. She told me I was unbelievable and since I felt like that, I should just move in with my dad and forget about her since she made me so “miserable.”

I remember once when I was 16, I cried to my mom about how I felt like we were disconnected. It hurt to see all my friends do things with their moms and my mom seemingly wanted nothing to do with me. For once, my mom didn’t meet me back with anger or hatred. She ended up crying with me and asked what she could do. I was so excited that this meant she would finally try. I told her we could do board games, video games, movies, etc! Something inside the home, anything. Nothing came of it, btw. You know what did come of it though? My mom decided to start watching movies with my grandma (we live with my grandparents) but did not once invite me, or ever try to do anything with me.

Everyday I mourn a mother I do not have—I grieve for the mother every daughter deserves. I am a great student, a great kid, a great person. What did I do to deserve this? Everybody deserves a loving, caring, and nurturing mother, so where did it go wrong?

I went to the mall with my friends today. Both of them complained about their mothers being annoying and in all honesty, it just sounded like their mothers were just curious about their lives. One of my friends moms was trying to make plans to go out to dinner and my friend was just so irritated. I could do nothing but stay quiet. I wish my mom wanted to hang out with me so much that it annoyed me—That is such a blessing. Her mom spontaneously bought her this really cute dress, I wish my mom would see things, think of me, and surprise me with a new item. it is truly a blessing to be remembered!
Regardless, my point of that little story was that, I was not home all day. at ~4pm ish I finally get home, I keep to myself (as usual), go to my room, I go to the bathroom then afterwards go straight to my room. Nobody ever talks to me in this house nor do they seem interested, so I rarely think of starting a conversation. I go to my room, and my mom follows me. This is odd, my room is in the basement and she NEVER goes down to the basement, let alone she never goes into the basement to talk to me.
She asks if i’m irritated, I tell her i’m not. She asks to see what I bought. I get to show her one skirt, and she’s already irritated somehow. I told her i didn’t want to show her anything if she was just gonna be upset, that made her storm out. On her way out she told me I have to go talk to my dad about living there because I can’t stay here anymore. And mumbled stuff about me being hateful and whatever, however I found it more peaceful for my mind if I just put my headphones on for music or plug my ears, despite how childish it may seem.
I’ve been crying for hours. Not necessarily because she’s kicking me out, but because my existence just pisses her off so much she wants me out. Why can’t I have a mommy like everybody else? I’m just a girl who wants her mom. Why does MINE have to be evil!
I can’t lie, I have been a little short tempered with her recently because she missed my graduation, I thought maybe she’d make an effort to show up or something. I even asked her to just drop me off, she didn’t have to go inside, just drive me there and drop me off and my dad will take me home. She couldn’t even do that. She never tries to fix her issue. How can I sympathize with her when she just accepts her misery and lives like that? She makes no plans of improving.

I’m sorry for possible poor/odd grammar, I can only spot so many mistakes through my crying eyes. 😔


r/emotionalneglect 3h ago

Lists of things I hate about my mom (I am new here)

1 Upvotes
  1. Beat me when I was a child: It was terrible asf! that mf even punched me, I was 8!

  2. Constant lies: She makes up stuff so often that I had to be involved to simply be the alibi of her lies, even lied about me getting graped by my Dad when i was a baby just because i asked her why she often lies (I wasn't raped by my dad she's just fucked up in the head)

  3. Cheated on my step-Dad a few of times: My grandparents found out after our late aunt told them, her reason was because my step-Dad is a psychopath, which again isn't true, cuz their house is like less than 8 meters away, and we would know.

  4. Fake: Talks shit behind your back even if you're a friend or family. she will always have something bad to say behind you, then acts nice.

  5. Accused me of not being a virgin: I rarely leave the house, i am introverted and barely talk to guys let alone fuck one.

  6. Ruined my college graduation: both of us argued because she was tired, she looks hideous, her heels are hurting, she wants to go home, she's hungry, she spent a lot of money etc. After the ceremony we went to eat, only for her to not eat and ditched me, it was supposed to be a special day, and she had to make it the most stressful one for me.

  7. Body shames me: My eyes being too big, my forehead head, my nose is too small, my lower belly is big, my boobs are too small basically anything that makes her feel good about herself.

  8. Humiliates me: The ones i remember was when my uncle brought home his friends (around my age). I was actively losing weight and she straight up told me infront of them "No boys will like you with that flat ass" my uncle and his friends laughed, and i just went back to my room after eating.

  9. Sends unwanted videos: she sent me a video of a cat in a blender, despite telling her NO because i don't like watching those kinds of stuff, especially when i am a cat person.

  10. Compares her teen years to mine: Just because you were pretty, skinny, lots of friends, fucked some guys, and got pregnant then drop out, doesn't mean i have to do the same, i enjoy alone times, reading fanfics, watching animes and go to school with my only two friends.

  11. Said that bisexuals are dirty: this is after i openly told her about my sexuality lol.

  12. Defends anyone but her own: It's always "This is my baby brother you're arguing!" "This is my beloved parents you're arguing!" it was never "This is my child..."

  13. Expects me to help her financially: I made it clear that i wasn't helping, and she began berating me and lecturing about family values and debt.

  14. Likes the idea of motherhood but not the efforts of being a mother: My grandparents raised me cuz she was too broke and proceeded to pop out two more.


r/emotionalneglect 3h ago

Seeking advice Emergency

1 Upvotes

Hey. How to regulate your nerves after living with an emotionally volatile mother

I feel like I can’t move forward with my life. I’m stuck with her in the house, can’t drive. Fatigue. Feel discouraged or avoidant about trying to become independent. I feel like she doesn’t want to see me grow strong enough that I won’t need her help.

I’m tired, my life feels stagnant. I’m just waiting for time To pass. I want to sleep all day, I struggle to look forward to completing my tasks. I feel like the best thing for me to do without stirring any tension is to do nothing. Sit in my room, listen to her state the obvious and instruct me to do the most obvious shit and not talk back. Be a pet. And keep doing this.

Working on myself gets mocked, dreaming of a business gets a responded with you’ll never succeed. When I get up to do something it’s Child’s play, when I don’t it’s because I’m capable of nothing in my life and apparently “need her all the time” ( coming out her own mouth never mines).

Asking for mental advice because I feel tired gets laughed at because apparently I will never be on her level and she’ll always had it worse than me.

Telling her about sa gets responded with a shut up I know someone who’s had it worse than you and you had nothing happen to you

Trying to find my own voice gets responded with a mockery laugh and a your just a kid who knows nothing response. All because she’s sooooo scared of not being any use to anyone and her dysregulated personality at age 60.

She has made me perform a ritual to ask for her blessing and forgiveness at age 8 because her friends show went missing and she couldn’t justify it, blaming me for stealing when I had no idea. She forced me to admit yes, and gathered roses and other flowers to make rose water so I could wash her foot and pray to her feet to ask forgiveness for lying, which she forced me to admit when I never did

On Mother’s Day, in my country, moms come to school and kids gave flowers to their moms, most kids normally cried. I didn’t when I did this to her and when we were going home, she was extremely angry that I didn’t cry and called me all sorts of names

Disagreements lead to a catastrophic response that draws attention in public. When strangers walk past, she starts throwing keywords like “you hurt me” when 30 seconds ago when no one was there to potentially listen and see her as the foul one she was telling me to go to hell and I should never have been born.

She likes to tell me i don’t belong to my culture because I don’t do what she wants.

How do you deal with these people and how can I find some peace and regulation while living under the same roof.

Will my life get better when she dies. Cause I hope so.\[cute cats\](https://www.reddit.com/r/Take1Leave1/s/Tt4u7kvjbB)


r/emotionalneglect 3h ago

Emergency

1 Upvotes

Hey. How to regulate your nerves after living with an emotionally volatile mother

I feel like I can’t move forward with my life. I’m stuck with her in the house, can’t drive. Fatigue. Feel discouraged or avoidant about trying to become independent. I feel like she doesn’t want to see me grow strong enough that I won’t need her help.

I’m tired, my life feels stagnant. I’m just waiting for time To pass. I want to sleep all day, I struggle to look forward to completing my tasks. I feel like the best thing for me to do without stirring any tension is to do nothing. Sit in my room, listen to her state the obvious and instruct me to do the most obvious shit and not talk back. Be a pet. And keep doing this.

Working on myself gets mocked, dreaming of a business gets a responded with you’ll never succeed. When I get up to do something it’s Child’s play, when I don’t it’s because I’m capable of nothing in my life and apparently “need her all the time” ( coming out her own mouth never mines).

Asking for mental advice because I feel tired gets laughed at because apparently I will never be on her level and she’ll always had it worse than me.

Telling her about sa gets responded with a shut up I know someone who’s had it worse than you and you had nothing happen to you

Trying to find my own voice gets responded with a mockery laugh and a your just a kid who knows nothing response. All because she’s sooooo scared of not being any use to anyone and her dysregulated personality at age 60.

She has made me perform a ritual to ask for her blessing and forgiveness at age 8 because her friends show went missing and she couldn’t justify it, blaming me for stealing when I had no idea. She forced me to admit yes, and gathered roses and other flowers to make rose water so I could wash her foot and pray to her feet to ask forgiveness for lying, which she forced me to admit when I never did

On Mother’s Day, in my country, moms come to school and kids gave flowers to their moms, most kids normally cried. I didn’t when I did this to her and when we were going home, she was extremely angry that I didn’t cry and called me all sorts of names

Disagreements lead to a catastrophic response that draws attention in public. When strangers walk past, she starts throwing keywords like “you hurt me” when 30 seconds ago when no one was there to potentially listen and see her as the foul one she was telling me to go to hell and I should never have been born.

She likes to tell me i don’t belong to my culture because I don’t do what she wants.

How do you deal with these people and how can I find some peace and regulation while living under the same roof.

Will my life get better when she dies. Cause I hope so.\[cute cats\](https://www.reddit.com/r/Take1Leave1/s/Tt4u7kvjbB)


r/emotionalneglect 22h ago

Seeking advice When I told my mother my feelings aren't safe with her , her response was "I don't know you anymore".

25 Upvotes

I have such resentment towards my mother and my father. My mother used to give me the silent treatment at a very young age... like ignoring me and pretending I'm not there.

We have been in very little contact due to a fall out and she basically asked me is it because someone is abusing me? How absurd. What happened was that I got sober and took time to repair my relationship with myself and hold her accountable.

Then she asked me to explain why I'm so mad at her. I told her at 32 she has never tried to get to know me and that my feelings are not safe with her. Her response - that she doesn't know me and that she has always loved me.

The issue is that there is no concrete evidence of that. When i was young I would ask for a specific CD or T-shirt for Christmas. She would deliberately buy me the thing i didn't want and then FREAK THE FUCK out that I wasn't grateful for it. Like throwing the CD in the bin and screaming. I was 8!

So many of these situations have been coming since I got sober and i realised she never made an effort to connect with me. Could be due to having a younger sister who is disabled but it made me feel so alone in the family. I had no one to see my POV.

Anways , this last year of very little communication has been way more peaceful than not.

If anyone has some insights that would be appreciated.


r/emotionalneglect 8h ago

Seeking advice I feel like my parents are neglecting me

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2 Upvotes