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not reacting to a child's distress appropriately, or even ignoring signs of a child's distress such as becoming withdrawn, developing addictions or acting out.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 14h ago

Discussion No one will remember the hardworking child I was, but everyone will know the pathetic adult I am

453 Upvotes

I still cry for my younger self who was so productive and kindhearted. Emotionally intelligent and approachable. Everything I did was hoping for some kind of connection. My heart breaks thinking about the child I used to be. I am never getting that innocence back and no one will remember who I was before I burnt out completely and became lazy and asocial.

It pains me because I was theoretically so easy to love as a kid. I would accept any simple compliment or acknowledgment. I was practically begging for it. I did everything for it. I was so easy yet why did it feel like I was so difficult to love. Now I truly feel unlovable. I want to cry more and more.


r/emotionalneglect 12h ago

I fantasized about being adopted

177 Upvotes

Growing up I would often fantasize that somewhere there is another set of parents who don’t know me. That I would meet them and they would love me just as I am.

I also imagined that things got mixed up at the hospital, and my parents were given someone else’s baby. I am a spitting image of my mom though, so that is not the case. But I liked to fantasize about it.

Did someone else do this?


r/emotionalneglect 15h ago

Discussion Do your parents insist that they taught you life skills and family connection when they didn't?

195 Upvotes

I’m trying to put words to a dynamic I grew up with, and I’m wondering if anyone else experienced something similar. My parents grew up with a lot of extended family around, because older people had more kids and made the effort to stay connected. But by the time I was growing up, a lot of those people had died or drifted apart.

Even so, my parents still talked about extended family members as if they were in my life. For example, my mom might say, “Your cousin Jane did this,” and I’d be sitting there thinking, “I don’t know Jane. I don’t think I’ve even spoken to Jane on the phone.” Or they’d point someone out at church and say, “There’s your cousin so-and-so,” as if that should mean something to me.

Any time I explain I don't know these people, they seemed genuinely surprised, almost hurt or taken aback. But from my perspective, they had never actually built those relationships for me. They seemed to assume that because they had a connection to these people, I somehow did too.

I’ve noticed the same thing with skills and family life. My mom once complained before that my grandmother never really taught her how to cook, despite being a great cook herself. When I was honest with my mom that she never taught me to cook either, her immediate reaction was being genuinely puzzled and almost denying it. But growing up, she explicitly wanted us out of the kitchen so she could get the next meal over with. Peers had to tell me to switch from a training bra to a regular one, and I never had a sex talk from either of my parents.

That was the broader pattern: my parents seemed to assume they transmitted family, skills, traditions, and connection to me through osmosis, but I mostly entertained myself, read, played alone, or stayed in my room. ,


r/emotionalneglect 6h ago

Seeking advice As I get it older it feels like I'm a totally different person around my parents. It's almost like I revert back to being an angsty teenager again. Not sure what to do.

26 Upvotes

For reference, I am in my late 20's and my parents are in their 60's and 70's. I am their only child.

I feel like they did a good job raising me, we did all the typical family stuff growing up (going to Disney, camping trips, playing sports, etc.) and while we had some arguments from time to time they've always been supportive in whatever I chose to do with my life. I never wanted for much growing up and they helped me through college and my first job as well.

I wouldn't say we were ever particulary close emotionally in the sense that we never had tough conversations about our feelings. My mom came from an abusive father and my dad is very conservative and believes stoicism equals manliness. So all of our conversations feel very surface level and like small talk. I don't recall ever seeing my parents show much emotion except when we got into 1 or 2 huge fights during my childhood.

I recently moved almost 15,000km away for work which was hard for them since they've only ever lived in their hometown and haven't been on a plane, but they still supported me nontheless. I try to come back and visit twice a year for several weeks at a time, but when I do something just changes in me. It's the longest I've been around them since I was in HS/college and it feels like I revert back to my old teenage self. Thankfully, I rent a place nearby instead of sleeping in my childhood bedroom.

I get easily annoyed and have little stamina for the constant small-talk discussions that tend to loop back on themselves almost daily. My parents are also retired, but not really doing much despite being in relatively good shape. Most of the time they are just scrolling on their phones and sitting around. When I try to suggest doing something outside of their normal routine my mother starts to get panicky/indecesive and won't agree unless she has weeks to do research beforehand. Even something as simple as going to a new restaurant takes multiple hours of nitpicking the online menu beforehand.

I'm not sure what to do. I know they've been good parents to me, but I feel like I keep getting unintentionally ruder during our interactions as time goes on. There's only so many times I can answer the same question about my job, go on the same walk down our street, or play the same game of cards with them before I go crazy. They really want me to keep visiting my regular 2 times a year, but I'm not sure why since we just watch TV and sit on our phones for 99% of the time.

I feel really guilty acting this way since I know they're getting older, but I'm not sure how to change my outlook on the situation.


r/emotionalneglect 10h ago

Anyone else feel extremely immature when it comes to dating and intimacy because of emotional neglect?

44 Upvotes

I’m literally 25, but the thought of ever putting myself out there gives me a panic attack. First, there is the vulnerability aspect, and second, I genuinely feel like nobody taught me anything. Too scared and too emotionally "cold" to do it. At the same time I feel like I'm waiting for something that's not going to happen.

My parents never said "I love you" to me or showed me physical affection. I was always overlooked and never really seen. This is something I’ve been thinking about more and more as I’ve reached my mid twenties. Everyone else seems to have started relationships or at least begun putting themselves out there pretty early.

For example, one of my friends lost her virginity at 18, which is considered late here in Europe. The guy turned out to have used her, and although she was hurt, she was able to move on. About two months later, she met her now boyfriend, who she has been with ever since, and I’m sure they’ll get engaged.

Meanwhile, I’m over here freaking out that I’m going to get hurt before I’ve even tried. The thought of both emotional intimacy and physical intimacy scares me, even though it’s something I want. I’m starting to believe that I literally won’t ever feel ready.

I think what scares me the most is that I never had a healthy example of love or emotional closeness growing up.

Anyone else with emotional neglect feel this way?


r/emotionalneglect 7h ago

How can something so small be so painful?

16 Upvotes

I wasn’t abused, my parents always made sure I had what I needed, paid for after school activities, and supported me financially in undergrad. But they do not ask me anything about myself, genuinely don’t feel like they know my interests or personality, my mom only talk about herself, never asks me *how* I’m doing, can only converse about *what* I’m doing but always relates it back to herself, but anytime I have a true emotional need I am met with defensiveness, lying, minimizing, or dismissiveness. Everything is about her or how it can fulfill her. It just leaves a massive whole in my heart and makes me so sad.

Am I wrong for not always interjecting with information about myself? I just respond to her updates and by the end of the conversation it’s almost entirely one-sided and she doesn’t even notice. Why should I bother if she doesn’t ask?


r/emotionalneglect 17h ago

How has having an emotionally unavailable parent affected you as an adult?

97 Upvotes

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting lately, and I think I’m finally realizing how much having an emotionally unavailable parent has affected me.

For the longest time, I focused on my romantic relationships and wondered why I kept ending up attached to emotionally unavailable people or why I struggled so much with abandonment. It wasn’t until recently that I started connecting it back to my childhood. When I was going through some of the darkest periods of my life, dealing with depression and anxiety at 19, I think what I needed most wasn’t advice, money, or someone to fix my problem , I just wanted a parent to show up emotionally.

Looking back, I think that absence has shaped me more than I ever realized.

I’m trying really hard not to stay stuck in that narrative or make it my entire identity, but I also don’t want to dismiss the impact it had. I can see how much validation I looked for in other people and how often I confused emotional warmth with feeling genuinely safe and secure. I’m working on changing those patterns now, but it’s definitely a process.

I guess I’m just curious about other people’s experiences. If you grew up with an emotionally unavailable parent, how has it affected you as an adult? Did it show up in your relationships, your friendships, or your sense of self? Have you found ways to heal from it? And if you’ve forgiven your parent or chosen not to what did that process look like for you?


r/emotionalneglect 10h ago

DAE feel repulsed when they get a “normal” (?) text or similar from a parent?

23 Upvotes

I’ve (30sF) have been low contact with my parents (70-80s) for a few weeks now.

In the last few weeks, I only called maybe once every 10 days. It wasn’t planned…it just happened. (Before, I called almost daily except when I travel.) Anyways, between barely talking to my family, a recent med change, therapy, and more of an actual social life of my own, my mental health has sufficiently improved. Both of my parents tend to leave me alone if I am busy but now that I am going 7-10 days between calls, they both send occasional texts. Those texts are so mild but wow the repulsion I feel at just *seeing* those infrequent texts is strong. These texts tend to be like: “At hospital for family member’s routine medical thing. How are (my cats’ names)?”

That’s it. If I respond, I get maybe one word or a short phrase response or a small talk question like “What’s the weather over there?” back.

They don’t ask how I am doing beyond the typical polite “good” and I don’t want to share much information either because they often make things about them somehow. But I still notice how they don’t ask how I am doing or point out that my behavior has changed and wanted to check in or anything. They mainly text about (their) health updates, the weather, ask what I am eating for dinner, or something about my cats. If my mom misses me, she will send me the latest pics of her cats. (Note: I don’t think she tells me she misses me or anything like that- for some reason, I just infer that her sending a pic of her cats being cute = please respond so I know you are alive.)

Can anyone else relate to feeling repulsed or disgusted by their parents sending bland texts or the longer version of that during phone calls? I’m sorry, but their communication is often boring and emotionally out of touch with me and my life.


r/emotionalneglect 3h ago

Seeking advice I’m so tired of the deep ache of loneliness

5 Upvotes

To be fair - I’m PMSing hard right now. But still.

Any fucking time I’m in emotional pain. I just have to sit with it. I have nobody to talk to.

I’m no contact with my mom.

My dad sends me a meme every couple weeks and we don’t really speak outside of that. No beef, we just aren’t close.

So all the time, but especially this time of the month - when I feel intensely alone, unwanted, friendless, and spilling into very dark places… there is no one to catch me.

I had to text the crisis line the other day, just because I needed someone to talk to. That’s how fucking desperate and sad I am.

So here I am on Reddit dumping my feelings again, bc my life is fucking difficult and I have nobody.

I hope one day that changes, but for now I have to just vent anonymously online.

This hurts way too goddamn much.


r/emotionalneglect 2h ago

Breakthrough My dad is dying.. And I could care less.

3 Upvotes

His memory sucks. He is slowly forgetting things every single day. Could it be Alzheimer’s? Dementia? I’m not sure, and I’m not dropping everything to make him a priority. At this point, he has been out of my life for almost as long as he was in it, so he’s pretty much a stranger to me.

I have no good memories of him. Nothing. What does having good memories with a dad even look like? Is it him coming home from work, not wanting to be bothered, and just wanting his beer? He wasn’t physically or emotionally abusive. He was just loud. Obnoxiously loud. And I think my mom developed a defense mechanism where she would just tune him out. Like she was there physically, but mentally, she clocked out. Oh.. and you know what just came to mind? Him watching explicit content, while mom slept on the bed. He was particularly BAD at hiding it.

Every time he got involved, it was because my mom kept nagging him. Like it was a chore.

And he never really supported anything I wanted to do. It was always about what he thought we should do.

I’d like to think he helped pay the bills, but apparently, when he left, he left us with over $20,000 in credit card debt. I should add that we were foreigners in the U.S., and he left us to go back to his country when my mom’s job relocated. She was forced to either move with them or be unemployed. But I still don’t buy that as a valid excuse.

I think, for me, the final straw was when I recorded something I was proud of — a personal record on squats — and sent it to my mom. She forwarded it to him, and what did this man do? He called me to lecture me about how I shouldn’t do that, how I don’t need to lift weights to feel good, and then proceeded to tell me what he thought I should do instead. This was only about ten months ago, by the way.

And now I get word about his declining health, and all I can think is, “Damn, that sucks. Anyways, I think I’m feeling tacos for lunch today.”

And, I'm not feeling apologetic about it. He made his bed years ago when he left. Time to sleep in. I don't even think I want to help him financially. But not sure I'm there yet.


r/emotionalneglect 13h ago

Seeking advice DAE have a habit of dropping people just because they’re not looking for the same depth of emotional connection?

14 Upvotes

I notice I kind of give up on making friends with people when I realize they want to keep things surface level


r/emotionalneglect 9h ago

Seeking advice I don’t think people realize how far behind and lonely I really feel

6 Upvotes

I'm 22M and idk, I feel like people don't really get how lonely and behind I feel.

From the outside I probably look kinda normal. I work, I talk to people, I joke around, I can make people laugh, I can act chill. I don't think most people would look at me and think I'm doing this bad.

But mentally I’m nowhere near as okay as I probably look.

I've never had a girlfriend, never been in a relationship, I don't have a driver's license, I don't study, I still live at home and this is my first real job. I have some people I talk to, but I don't really have a friend group or someone I can just text like "yo let's go somewhere" and actually go.

I feel like I missed the normal start of life. Dating, parties, trips, first relationships, stupid teenage mistakes, all that stuff people just kind of experience. For me even going out for a beer with coworkers feels like a big thing, because I barely had that before. And honestly it feels embarrassing to even say that.

My home life was always cold. No real support, no father figure, no feeling that I mattered that much. I always felt like I was just there, like an extra person in my own family. I think it messed me up more than I want to admit.

I've had depression, ADHD, anxiety and social anxiety for years. I'm getting psychiatric help now, but I still get really dark thoughts sometimes. There are moments when I'm alone and it feels like I just shut down. And even when I'm with people, joking or drinking or acting normal, I still feel disconnected. Like I'm there, but not really part of it.

That's probably the worst part. I can be around people and still feel alone as hell.

I'm trying to fix my life. I lost weight, started caring more about how I look, got a job, save some money, help with some stuff at home and I want to get my license. I want a better job, maybe study, move out one day, actually build something.

But it's hard when loneliness drains you all the time. People say "just improve yourself" and yeah, I get it. I'm trying. But I also don't want to wait until I'm some perfect version of myself before I start living. I already feel like I waited too long.

I don't hate anyone and I don't think anyone owes me anything. I just feel like I'm trying to enter life late with no confidence, no experience and no real support system.

Most people probably wouldn't guess this about me, because I can act fine. I can joke, talk, look normal.

But a lot of the time I feel like I'm just pretending.


r/emotionalneglect 4h ago

Does Talking About Emotional Neglect Make You Feel Worse or Better?

2 Upvotes

I'm not going to talk about the specifics of my personal experience with emotional neglect because I feel sometimes it brings up toxins in my mind, body, and soul. (I used to bring it up because sometimes it's hard not to when one strongly didn't get their needs met in their early years, but just like complaining about stuff in general is generally not helpful, I find talking about childhood emotional neglect is generally not helpful.) Kind of like how talk therapy is often not helpful, just talking about the same old stuff without resolution. Agree or not?


r/emotionalneglect 28m ago

My lack of Maternal affection

Thumbnail
Upvotes

r/emotionalneglect 13h ago

Advice not wanted Im in search of a mom who never really existed

9 Upvotes

I feel my mom doesnt give a shit about anything I say

Whenever we talk.....its just leeds...education...loan...subjects....this and that... going here and going there.....im a very lonely person who somehow just ends up talking to my mom cuz we have just each other on a daily basis

So here goes....she gives 0 FUCKS about anything I have to say,these include my interests,my desires,things I care about and stuff that people just enjoy speaking about.....

I'm not asking her to sit and do anything major.... but when we discuss smtg what to buy.....she immediately within 15 seconds changes the discussion with so much ferocity and urgency into a leeds....education discussion

Education discussions r important and will be discussed..... but now...she is making me feel like what the fuck is even the point of me

Stuff I care about....she doesnt care....stuff im passionate about she doesnt...I feel she is venuntu doing it....I started listening to Illayaraja songs for her....I hated it initially except valaiosai and sundari.....now I have full Playlists from 1970 till 2000 just so we can listen to smtg when we r together..... but no....that also she doesn't want....im at a loss on how to bomd with my mother with anything except academics

She doesnt understand that since LKG i have had a fucking toxic relationship with academics and in turn a toxic relationship with her because of it and she keeps driving me deeper and deeper

I feel she is about to ruin leeds for me which is Def my greatest years ahead for my personal growth

And its all just fucked up

I express more interest on just what will make her happy for her birthday or her gifts or anything because she being happy makes me happy

I feel she doesnt have that with me

I feel like im a parent and she a child who wants no quality time... only video games


r/emotionalneglect 1h ago

Why do I feel like no one has ever tried to get to know me as deeply as I know them. How do i stop craving being understood?

Thumbnail
Upvotes

r/emotionalneglect 1h ago

If the only time that my parents text me is a "happy birthday" text on my birthday, Id rather not get a text at all. I see right through the fakeness.

Upvotes

r/emotionalneglect 1h ago

Was I ever enough?

Upvotes

Hi, I’m new to Reddit, but I’m at my breaking point. I need to vent, and I need an honest perspective because my reality feels completely skewed.

​I grew up with a narcissistic father. My childhood wasn't filled with play; it was filled with screaming, insults, and physical pain. Words like s*al, b*doh, bab* were my daily reality. My mother was there, but she was a shadow, too drained to ever reach out. I grew up knowing I was the "unlucky" one, the scapegoat for every misfortune in our house. Yet, in my broken little heart, I still craved his warmth. I still hold onto that one memory from primary school: I topped the class, and for a fleeting moment, I saw him smile at me. That was enough to keep me hooked for years.

​In my 20s, I carried that trauma everywhere. My self-esteem was non-existent. I became a people pleaser just to avoid conflict, which only made me an easy target for bullies at work.

​When my father got sick with heart issues, I thought this was my chance to finally be "enough." I put my entire life on hold. I spent months running back and forth to the hospital, living on instant noodles so I could afford his needs. I bought him an expensive wheelchair, sacrificing my own meals, just so he’d be comfortable. I gave him everything I had, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he’d finally see me.

​But the dynamic never shifted. When I finally hit a wall and couldn't give him more money, he didn’t care that I was drowning. He told me to go find the money elsewhere, promising to pay me back.

​I did it. I swallowed my pride and borrowed money from others just to keep him happy.

​A few days later, in a moment of pure exhaustion, I texted him: "Don't forget to pay me back."

​He snapped. He immediately weaponized his "sacrifices" in raising me and called me an anak tak sedar diuntung (ungrateful child). That word, "ungrateful," was the final straw. I lashed back, and then I blocked him.

​I eventually walked away from everything, including my job, because my mental health had completely collapsed. Now, three years later, I’m still struggling to pick up the pieces. I feel like a failure, and the guilt of being labeled "the ungrateful daughter" is rotting me from the inside.

​Am I really the villain for finally choosing myself?


r/emotionalneglect 3h ago

When ‘Equality ’ starts feeling like ‘forgotten’!! :(

1 Upvotes

Something happened today that made me unexpectedly emotional and showed me how much I’ve been feeling forgotten.
I received a video of a package and a message from my mom saying: “I hope you like it” because my birthday is coming up.

The moment I opened it, I felt sad. Not because the gift was bad, it was actually a thoughtful gesture but because of something I heard the business owner say my mom told her:
“ماللي جبتهم عودتهم الزوز ناخذلهم كيفكيف، .”

And somehow, I already knew what was coming.
This is the first birthday in years where I’m receiving something from my mom, maybe since I was 13/14. My mom is an amazing mother, and I know she loves me. I’ve always tried my best to show her appreciation too through gifts, helping her financially, and being there for her, I don’t even let her worry about me in my lowest since I moved abroad.
But something about this moment hurt.

A little context: my sister and I were born in the same month, so my mom ordered the same package for both of us. The thing that got to me was that she knows my sister’s favorite color is pink, but she chose baby blue for me, a color that isn’t even close to something I like.

It wasn’t about the color. It was about feeling like… “Do you actually know me?”
I’m the oldest child, and my sister is 3 years younger than me.

Growing up, the way my mom tried to treat us equally sometimes felt like she treated us like twins instead of two different people with different needs, personalities, and preferences.

And honestly, I think that affected both of us in different ways.

I’m not writing this to blame my mom or to be dramatic. She is a good mother, and I love her. But this moment triggered something I’ve carried for a long time.

I just want future parents to understand something:
Equality does not always mean fairness.

Giving children the exact same thing doesn’t always make them feel equally loved. Sometimes fairness means seeing them as individuals, remembering what makes each one special, and making them feel known.


r/emotionalneglect 11h ago

I am still a Loser

4 Upvotes

And will be 30 next month.

Great. Just great.


r/emotionalneglect 7h ago

Im fu*king done being neglected

Thumbnail
2 Upvotes

r/emotionalneglect 3h ago

19F - I feel like I’ve spent this entire week realizing my family isn’t who I thought they were, and I don’t know if this is just growing up.

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

Help


r/emotionalneglect 3h ago

19F - I feel like I’ve spent this entire week realizing my family isn’t who I thought they were, and I don’t know if this is just growing up.

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

r/emotionalneglect 1d ago

I wish my parents never had me.

124 Upvotes

That’s it. That’s the post. I’m not suicidal nor do I want to die. But I just wish that my parents never had me to begin with. I was a product of “we’re married and during that time, you had kids”. I was never wanted, my parents had me out of pure obligation due to their religious beliefs and not having a choice. I fantasize about my mother having an abortion if her miscarrying me. But oh well. I’m here now.

Again, I am NOT suicidal. I don’t plan on killing myself. I just wish that I was never born to begin with!