What Is Emotional Neglect? And How to Cope
What Is Emotional Neglect? And How to Cope
Emotional neglect – the withholding of parental love during childhood – can have a psychological impact no less profound than other forms of abuse. Before we can start to recover, we first need to acknowledge the scale of its effects.
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“When we imagine the difficulties involved in a so-called ‘bad childhood’, we most readily think in terms of children who are physically harmed – beaten, underfed, sexually abused – or else treated with active contempt: screamed at, blamed, put down, mocked and tormented.
Such harrowing images make it hard for us to picture that there might be another, in many ways more prevalent yet just as damaging form of injury to which children may be exposed. In this case, there is no physical violence, there is no taunting or shouting. It looks – at first glance – as if all must be well. But that would be to miss the particular kind of wound that can be inflicted through what psychologists term ‘emotional neglect.’…”
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My mother is in her late 70s and she has never got over her childhood. Even now its left her desperate for validarion and she is desperate to please. She will let anyone walk all over her.
Emotional neglect, witnessing abuse verbal and physical…
I think "OR" is an extremely important word here. You don’t have 5o experience every or most of the things, it could just be one again and again.
My stepmom yelled was emotionally abusive, but right now, I’m focusing on my dad’s emotional neglect and my mom’s abandonment. I am 31 years old, but this describes me.
just by watching this video, I felt very emotional and I don’t understand why
My mother adopted another child and then completely forgot about me . I saw her giving him nicknames loving him supporting me and doing everything i always wanted to do with her. Every kind word she’s given every small talk she has with her every ‘How was school sweetie’ and ‘Dear do you need something ‘ always makes my heart rench . Why did i have to beg for my mothers love but someone else got it for nothing. Every small talk i try to have is replaced by how’s your brother I have work or no response and its heart breaking.She got another child but how can i get another mother
I think it is also worse if you are an only child. When I was eventually referred to a childrens home as a disruptive adolescent it was not unusual for us to get a whack when we were out of order – but everyone was treated the same so it was not personal. As an only child on the almost daily receipt of shaming at home, I really thought it was just me.
I am so scared to talk about it. I hide it from my friends. Imagine I am 21 and my best friends(thank god for them) know for like 15 years. And yet, I never invited them to my house. Ive been to theyr’s but never allowed anyone to put one step into my house. I don’t have a girlfriend bcs I am scared to eventualy show her the place bcs she may think its fcked up. I always tell myself that I love my parents bcs they provide me with everything I need, but in this house, we all live like noone else is inside. We just walk past each other.
True
"we were not hit, but we were injured. we failed to receive the love that makes people firm and whole, that allows them to feel authentic and deserving, that prevents them from being impressed by those who mistreat them and that stops them wanting to kill themselves when they mess up."
these hits close to home.
Absolute silence and indifference. No smiles, no laughs. No caring. It can be hard to function as an adult. I am essentially reliving it. By being completely alone. At least it’s familiar I guess.
This is me.
never gave ways to cope just a link to buy stuff
"and stops them from wanting to kill themselves when they mess up."
Oh. Like it feels worthwhile.
Beautiful said and a beautiful ending to the video. Thank you
I originally developed hard drug addiction because of it. Been sober for almost 10 years now though.
And last year I got betrayed and backstabbed by someone who i thought was my best friend. He also promptly ended up isolating me from all my friends with manipulative and covert tactics.
I feel like absolute shit and undeserving of love or even companionship or friends. I’m more or less too tired to even stand up for myself anymore. It’s not worth it. Easier to rot in bed at home and wait. For what — i dont even know. I don’t wanna die that’s for sure.
My past and recent events (near death health emergency among others) are haunting me daily so badly that I’ve developed PTSD ..even though i don’t really want to admit it.
I know i need medication for it to heal back to somewhat normal, but it’s impossible because my doctor refuses to properly treat my debilitating panic attacks. You wouldn’t put a claustrophobic person into a coffin underground and tell them to "just breathe, it’ll go over soon" either.
Blessed to have my parents and family
As someone who went through this, i find the hardest part about it is trying to get people to take you seriously. Ive had so many ppl tell me shit like "thats nothing compared to others". Im always comparing myself to other’s suffering.
I have a friend whose dad beat them with the metal part of his belt. I have another friend who has a narcissistic nutcase for a mother. One time when i tried complaining about my life, my ex friend told me about a person she knew who was abandoned by her parents in a mental hospital, then stopped paying her bills, so she was kicked out and had to walk to the nearest gas station to beg for help. After hearing that i literally just went "alright, guess ill never talk about my troubles again". And to this day i still havent talked about my struggles to any of my friends.
It’s like my suffering isnt bad enough to be taken seriously. After all I have a cut, while other people have bullet wounds.
Emotionally neglecful parents just keep appearances up. That’s all they do. When it comes to teaching life lessons and leading their kids in the right path, forget about it.
"impotent dispair" …damn…
My parents treated me with indifference growing up, I went through multiple potential partners who treated me with love and now that I thought I had found the one, he began to treat me with indifference 8months into the relationship, I feel like it’s my fault
we are almost a year into our relationship now, I’m clinging to nothing as it seems, feels like I’m destined to be treated as such
yup sums up my entire childhood. it has had effects on relationships with significant others as well. I have ptsd but it’s hard for me to admit to myself.
Great video – the only bit I would add is that the neglect doesn’t have to constant for it to have an effect. For example some children may have one parent that was neglectful and one that wasn’t and still wear the emotional scars for years to come. Or, a child’s parent or parents may have inconsistently tended to their child’s needs. Sometimes being present and available and at other times closed off and/or ambivalent. These scenarios can add to the complexity because we will often remember the ‘good memories’ and think we had a great childhood yet still be plagued by unhelpful defense mechanisms that are no longer useful. We may also feel like raising such difficulties will make us seem ungrateful or whiney and as such the shame of even considering such thoughts gets pushed down deeply. No one can realistically expect parents to get everything perfect, but also, we must learn to listen with open hearts and minds when children speak up as adults to talk about neglect.
It’s the most subtle form of abuse me thinks
I am crying as I write this comment. Everything resonates to me. I never had the chance to experience hugs, cuddles, or kind words from my parents or sibling. In fact, our household is so toxic everyone wants to leave in it. Unfortunately since they’re still family I feel that I still need to support them on the basis of filial piety. But that’s it. Emotions I don’t remember a time that my mom or dad ever ask me how’s my day been or even gave me life advices. When I was growing up, my parents fought so much that I had to attend the graduation alone while everyone else are accompanied by their parents. We were well off at the time, my dad was a womanizer and my mom focused on the business. Yes they provided me with material things but that’s it. All I got was criticism and yelling. Throughout the years I became sensitive to yelling and began to isolate myself. I do try to mingle with people but I always have this feeling that it’s better to be myself because people will never like me at all. I longed to hear "good job" or anything positive from my parents. I never did. Even if people say I am doing good, my mind is telling me that they’re faking it. I don’t know how to escape this hell of a life I am in. I want to say what’s on my mind but I don’t want people to hate me. I’m very frustrated with myself because I simply accept insults and not defend myself. I’m so scared of me lashing out an innocent person because I know myself that I still have an active and enduring trauma from my family. I tried to communicate with my family and connect with them. But they never care. They only ignore me and talk to me when they needed something. These days suicide is definitely on my mind honestly because throughout my adult life, I became so fearful of people’s rejection and comments that I fail to form lasting relationships. Who would even want to talk to me and be with me? Heck I don’t even like myself. I don’t know what to do anymore. I feel like I’m drowning in the depths of my depression that all I can think of is suicide.
There’s no such thing as emotional neglect. It’s a catch-all term invented by anti-family activists. Stuff that is classed as emotional neglect is normal parenting pre-1960
In my dads funeral 2 different elderly people didnt even know i existed, i felt so hurt
I was unintentionally crying I couldn’t stop
What makes it worse for me is that my Dad was a great dad, he really loved and cared for me and would encourage me to do things. I got into gaming and hockey cards thanks to him, my mom only did things cause my dad wanted her to do things for me. When he was out of the picture, she grew cold and distant, it was like someone swapped her out for some alternative reality version of my mother. She still did some stuff with me, all while pretending I didn’t exist. It didn’t help she married another man that also pretended I didn’t exist, I hate that the neglect I suffered from lead to me developing chronic illnesses due to a tic bite that they didn’t care about.
It took so long to understand this, It was cause I was left alone to fend for myself and I had no one to lift the blindness that I was suffering from. When I talked to my brother recently, I have to agree with him that it would have been better if we got orphaned. At least then, maybe we would have had the chance of actually having parents that cared for us.
just watched this video and cried (this is EXACTLY what is happening to me)
I feel so heart-broken while watching it. I sadly release suddenly that I got through all of it by my uncle which made us grew with my sister. He was narcissistic and he was giving her attention to my sister and everyone in front my eyes while purposely he ignore me. I forgot the source of my broken but this video reminded me everything
Ladies, gentlemen and the others, may i present to you a possibility that multiple forms of abuse can be experienced by a child at the same time!
I think that this requirement that you got to have perfect upper class family (with no others forms of abuse happening) to be able to be classified as being emotionally abused is just another bullshit to shit on ppl who got it worse with literally no reason behind it, like literally noone thinks that that one inbred noble family where children have youtube kids mode on their ipads has nothing going on behind the curtains, its classic cliche at this point, noone would disbelieve you if you’d confessed of being abused, so what is this shit
At this point classist agenda in psychology (some ppl have rich inner emotional life that can be damaged (and surely they got to have 50+ diagnoses going on, we HAVE to find something!) but other ppl , especially proles and minorities… Eh, they’d adapt (yay, we stan natural selection!) or become crazy beyond repair, but was there something valuable to lose to begin with?
In short, you all can do better
It’s not just parents who can leave these kinds of scars. I’m 10 years younger than my 2 siblings – who are a year apart in age so grew up as a team – and my parents showed me lots of love and attention but my siblings were so jealous they both emotionally abused me my whole life. They both acted like children, living with or near our parents and spending hours every day with them their whole lives, while I moved 300 miles away and created a good life and successful career. Instead of being proud of me they did everything they could to try to turn our parents against me. It worked on my Dad but never my amazing Mother, but Alzheimer’s took her and my siblings took my Dad.
It took me a long time to realize that my low self esteem, imposter syndrome and choosing partners who needed a mother rather than a partner stemmed from my brother and sister’s emotional abuse from zero to about 21, when I graduated college and moved away. Those were very formative years.
Despite loving, caring parents, I’m still working hard to manage the emotional issues this extreme but well-masked sibling rivalry created. I can’t understand why they felt so much competition with me, they are both as intelligent as I am but neither ever did anything with their abilities, choosing to be supported by others (partners or our parents) their whole lives.
When I confronted them about their emotional abuse they both professed love for me and they actually seem to believe everything they did was for my own good, meant to help me. Our parents seldom witnessed their mistreatment and truly didn’t know the extent of it until I finally opened up about it in my 40s. But the sibs managed to alienate my Father from me over time, he cut off contact after my Mom died and I learned about his death 4 years later from a cousin on Facebook. After much inner work I now consider myself lucky to be off their radar but there’s still much more work to be done to heal.
I’m blessed to have found an amazing husband late in life – I was 57 when we met. He is a true partner, a brilliant friend and caring listener instead of a needy child; his love and support has been a Godsend on my journey to better mental health. He’s helped me learn to set healthy boundaries, stop letting clients or supposed friends step all over me and learn to stop bending over backwards to help people who don’t deserve it just to feel like I have value.
SOL has taught me so much and helped me recognize the real basis of my emotional struggles. Thank you for your videos, books and for caring about those of us out in the world struggling to feel good enough.
Neglect is so subtle. I was one who was always left to “cry it out” all alone when what I needed was support. There are other ways I suspect I was neglected too though. My parents were financially stable, but in the winter they wouldn’t turn up the heat in our house in order to save money. My room was in the basement which was about 10 degrees colder. In the winter my room was usually only about 55 degrees and winters were 6 months long. I wore my winter coat when I spent time in my own bedroom and often complained about struggling to sleep because I couldn’t get warm. Yet, nothing changed. Neglect can be subtle, but I believe this falls into the category.
My parents attitude changed after my younger sibling came. Father began to distance himself from me, didn’t talk to me or answered any question whenever I asked it. It’s like he didn’t hear me. Mother…..well, she spent most of her time with my sibling (obviously, I don’t I can blame that) but she also compared me with everyone. Due to living in another country I forgot my mother language so had to learn everything at the age of 7-8 after coming back. Mother had high expectations, she wanted me to learn everything by myself, understand everything by myself, because ‘why should mother teach everything?’…..I received every basic needs. I was overweight too so add that to being compared by mother.
Currently I’m 28….my parents changed, suddenly they love me now and I forgive them secretly for how they behaved. But it impacted me heavily……years and years of depression, anxiety, low self confidence haunts me, I wish I lived somewhere else, I wish I was a better person so that my parents loved me back then. It hurts so much some times because I can’t stop crying whenever I remember my childhood. I had great time in school, watched so many cartoons but when it comes my parents….I really can’t remember any good memory. There is no good memory.
I found out recently when my Dad died, that he never wanted me….. made a lot of sense….. he never did wrong, and always put up with me as best he could…… but when no one was around or looking, I found out exactly what he thought, without words….. and as soon as someone was around when I was crying he’d suddeny act like a different person, give me a hug….. but would shoot me the look "if you say anything, this will get a lot worse" while treating my 3 older siblings like gods gifts, took them traveling all over the world….. and none of my family think its weird that I grew up without a bedroom and slept on a camp bed downstairs……
when he passed last year, my mom told me a lot, that I wasn’t wanted, she fought for me to have a room when moving when I was 7…… but he told her that he just resented me for taking up her time as I had a problem when feeding as a baby, and that he’ wanted nothing to do with me after that…… he only looked after me cause she wanted…… and my siblings still treat me like I@m nothing, even though I’m the one looking after since her died
I was unplanned and unwanted. I was never welcomed into my own family and treated as an equal. I was raised to never ask for anything and be grateful for anything I got. I tried so hard to be the perfectly amenable, adaptable, uncomplaining child that any Boomer parent would want. But all it got me was ignored. They preferred to pretend I didn’t exist and I did my best to accommodate that but golly gee, I just kept being there, needing things and silently making unreasonable demands for attention and love and support and guidance and everything else one is supposed to get from parents. As a result, I loathed myself intensely and even as a child often thought about suicide. I ended up basically raising myself. My only friend was television. School wasn’t any better. Nobody wanted me around there, either.
As a result, I have reached the age of 51 without becoming an adult at all. I’ve never had a job, never been in a relationship, barely ever had sex and that was mostly in the 90’s, and I have never lived by myself in my own place.
Grow up as soon as you can, kids. Because it ain’t guaranteed.
Oh, addendum : I was 25 before it even occurred to me that they had done anything wrong.
The physical violence was actually easier to handle than the neglect. If it didn’t kill you, at least you could see those scars physically heal…
Sounds like what I’ve experienced most of my life being neglected you get treated like a ghost
. You basically don’t exist especially on birthdays , Christmas etc .
As someone who’s been the caretaker of emotionally neglected kids in very well-heeled families, ICAN tell you this problem is “legion.” It is a future, next major societal mental health crisis waiting exposure to claim it’s already existence. We women, including myself, have swallowed our maternal emotions and pride, to subject our kids to daycare which has been often overcrowded, and in some way sub-par and emotionally deficient to what we knew we could provide at home for our children,in the attempt to “provide a better life for them”. Face it folks, no institution has ever loved a child, nor gestated, nor given birth to one . Lesson learned, don’t count on the Village, to raise your little one, that God gave as a precious gift to you. Parenthood is a calling, of love to raise another human being to fullness, and all love will require some sacrifice on our part towards the most vulnerable.
What makes it hard is the fact that your physical needs can all be met, and from the outside everything can look like a normal childhood. It makes you feel even more guilty for thinking you experienced CEN even when you know all the pieces fit. It also feels almost wrong that you know the truth and have to keep it a secret because you can’t ever talk about it with your family knowing that it would do more harm than good.
I ended up with complex ptsd. Emotional neglect and physical abuse can co exist.
Daddy didn’t give attention
To the fact that Mommy didn’t care
King Jeremy the wicked
Ruled his world –Pearl Jam
I felt that early image of the child turning into a ghost. I felt that with my whole being. Or feeling like a piece of furniture.
I feel so alone not only because of all the abuse I’ve face from my parents but the fact after all those years of abuse I’m suffering still in every category that love can received from, I have no friends, I don’t go to school in person anymore because I’ve been bullied all through out and a lot of it could’ve been prevented but no one listed. I don’t know if I’ll ever live because the worst pain is a life you never lived and I’m so tired. I’m only 16. What did I do so wrong to deserve all of this. I really want this to end. Don’t get me wrong all I ever wanted to do was life and now I wonder if I stay will I get to live?
Stop saying that neglect is the worst form of abuse. It’s just one aspect of abuse and physical abuse is nothing to minimize…
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It hurts like fire, but I can forgive her, she does her best, even if ithurts sometimes. God is with me. My grandma loved me a lot.
I belive i have been emotionally neglected as a child , now as an adult i feel like i am broken beyond repair, and i will forever stay that way
Hi. I’m watching this not for myself but for my boyfriend, whom i’ve broken up with for now because we’ve reached a point where we have to focus on healing ourselves before we ruin one another even more.
I know it isnt my job to heal or fix someone; but I want to provide comfort to him. He’s been emotionally neglected as a kid and its sort of showing up in his way of communication and esteem.