How Emotional Neglect Shows Up In Adulthood
AS A KID, DO YOU REMEMBER REALIZING NOT ALL FAMILIES WERE LIKE YOURS?
That revelation is a shock because young kids can only make sense of the world through their perception, what their caregivers tell them to believe, and what they’re exposed to.
I remember when I found out that other kids got to eat Cocoa Puffs and plastic-wrapped “cheese.” My family ate homemade everything. I also remember learning that some of my friends' parents shouted at each other. Loudly. My family’s “normal” was quiet passive-aggressiveness and pretending everything was fine. And I remember feeling jealous about the very close relationships some friends had with their sisters. I desperately wished for sisters.
It’s like visiting another planet the day you realize other families eat dinner together every night when yours didn’t, or that not all parents use shame and criticism as their primary parenting tools when that’s what you experienced daily, or that gossiping and undermining siblings to earn favor is actually discouraged in other families.
Young kids believe that the whole wide world just reflects more of their little world, so they also assume:
anything hurtful is “normal” and must be their fault or responsibility since adults know how to do everything the right way
-and-
their only option is to quietly make the best of things and model exactly what they’re taught since this is simply how it is everywhere.
One pattern that happens to show up often in those I work with is realizing that they were actually emotionally neglected in childhood. What’s interesting about this is that it’s often only recognized later in life. Why?
YOU CAN’T MISS WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW IS POSSIBLE.
To overcome the emotional pain of neglect, most of these people became overly self-sufficient because they had to provide for themselves what their parents didn't.
They learned to adapt their behavior to not only do everything for themselves, but to also do more for others than themselves. All to attempt to be valued and secure safety and love through being needed. For them, noticing and meeting others’ needs became a way to earn love or acceptance or security.
YOU MAY HAVE LEARNED THAT YOU HAVE TO OVER-EARN LOVE, BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T FEEL LOVED JUST BEING YOUR AUTHENTIC KID SELF.
The pattern sticks and shows up in all relationships and situations. And it’s often not until adulthood when we might start to get a little suspicious of our own behavior.
One side effect of this particular wound is still, as an adult, not really knowing or being able to articulate what you need or want. Because communicating your needs- or even knowing what they are at all- actually gets in the way of prioritizing and meeting everyone else’s needs for them.
INHERENT IN PRIORITIZING OTHERS OVER SELF IS GREAT SKILL IN HIDING YOUR TRUE SELF {WHO ACTUALLY HAS NEEDS AND WANTS} FROM YOURSELF ALTOGETHER.
This pattern is driven deeply underground, into the unconscious.
Emotional neglect can be hard to talk about because it’s not nearly as overt as something like physical or sexual trauma, but the wounds go deep.
“Neglect” may feel like a strong word. Especially if you feel your parents didn't mean to hurt you but simply weren't able, for perhaps very good reasons, to be fully present with you. When you have compassion for how they weren’t able to meet you emotionally back then, it can be hard to acknowledge that you also have real hurts from not being deeply seen and known by them. And societally, culturally, and familially, we often get told to just let it go because it's “not that big a deal” and “family is family.”
But it IS a big deal. Here's why.
Young, emotionally neglected kids will believe, way down deep, that they must have deserved it. They simply don’t have the life wisdom yet to see that maybe the adult has unhealed wounds of their own and it doesn’t mean anything about them that the adult is unable to meet them with any emotional depth. Instead, they learn to provide everything for themselves or simply go without. As adults they overwork themselves to meet their owns needs- plus the needs of everyone else.
AFTER DECADES OF REPLACING THAT ORIGINAL WOUND WITH OVER-GIVING, OVER-MANAGING, AND NEVER ASKING FOR OR RECEIVING HELP FROM OTHERS {EVEN WHEN OFFERED} YOU RISK COMPLETE BURNOUT.
This behavior pattern truly isn’t sustainable. On the surface, it will make you appear very successful in many culturally-recognized ways. People LOVE a giver, after all.
More precisely: people love what a giver does for them- not necessarily who they are independent of what they provide. The distinction becomes clearer only when you find yourself in toxic and co-dependent relationships and when soul-deep fatigue sets in. The cost of all that over-giving is unsustainably high.
BEING LOVED FOR YOUR BEHAVIOR- BASED ON YOUR PATTERNS AND MASKS- CAN NEVER FEEL LIKE TRULY BEING KNOWN AND LOVED FOR YOU.
When you unconsciously believe that you’re not worthy of being truly seen and loved deeply, your behavioral pattern of over-responsibility and over-giving will never be challenged without intentionally looking at how it’s really trying to serve you {to be worthy of the real connection you crave}.
And because over-giving is so valued societally, it feeds the ego and really can earn superficial connection with others, so it doesn’t often occur to us to question any of this. On the surface, it seems to be working out just fine.
CUE THE COLLAPSE. MAYBE IT OCCURS ON THE PHYSICAL LEVEL. MAYBE ON THE EMOTIONAL, MENTAL, OR SPIRITUAL. MAYBE ON ALL OF THEM.
The collapse isn’t the problem- it’s the symptom.
That collapse is your wise self prompting you to heal what’s underneath the pattern of trying so hard to earn relationship. Down deep, your “little self” still operates under the assumption that you aren’t worthy of love and care and need to do everything yourself, and for everyone else. The little self didn’t get the chance to learn to trust others and to express themselves as people who have needs and wants of their own.
I often hear, “I’m not sure I really identify with feeling neglected.” Here’s the thing.
Feeling neglected isn’t actually a feeling.
THE CORE FEELING UNDERNEATH FEELING LONELY, NUMB, AND INADEQUATE IS GRIEF.
THE CORE FEELING UNDERNEATH FEELING REJECTED, INSIGNIFICANT, AND ANXIOUS IS FEAR.
THE CORE FEELING UNDERNEATH YOUR CRITICISM, HURT, AND RESENTMENT IS ANGER.
Getting to know the base emotion that’s really being re-triggered all these years later is the first step to learning more about the conditioning and patterning underneath your unconscious patterns. The triggers that shift us right back to that original emotional wound show us exactly where to go next to heal on a deeper level.
Are you yearning for more freedom and ease and feel ready to clarify who you are and what you want in your own life? “Learning” emotions is your next step since you simply never learned to know and express them before.
YOU’LL CONTINUE TO FEEL A LITTLE STUCK OR LOST UNTIL YOU DIVE DEEPER AND MEET YOUR TRUE SELF.
This is your gentle invitation to honor that inner voice that’s asking you to go there.
