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- Hey, everybody.
A few years ago, I did a video
addressing emotional neglect,
and how painful that kind of abuse can be for us
as we grow up.
Hey, everybody.
Today, we're gonna talk about
how to overcome childhood emotional neglect,
which from now on, I'll just call CEN.
Let's jump into this topic.
First, I want to define what I mean
when I talk about childhood emotional neglect, or CEN.
Now CEN really means that our parents weren't there for us
emotionally in the way that we needed.
Anytime we needed them to rub our back,
or to hold us, or to comfort us, they just weren't there.
It could mean they were there physically,
but not emotionally, or they weren't there at all.
This could also mean that we were raised in an environment
where everything was given to us,
that we quote unquote needed,
like clothing, food, transportation,
maybe we went to a great school,
but the emotional side was just completely left off.
Now that I've defined what CEN really means,
let's talk about how to know if we suffer from it.
When we grow up in an emotionally neglectful environment,
it can cause us to believe that our thoughts,
feelings, and desires just don't matter.
And this can in turn,
cause us to question anything we've experienced,
and struggle to trust how we actually feel.
We can even find it difficult to let people in,
and constantly, constantly worry what others think about us.
Not having our emotional needs met while we're growing up
leaves us without a secure foundation to grow from.
We can even struggle to know who we are,
or what we want, and that we are valued.
Those who have suffered from emotional neglect
often don't even know that it is happening.
That's because this type of neglect isn't overt,
or intentional, and therefore can go unnoticed for years.
Many parents who were emotionally neglectful
gave their children every material thing that they needed.
And therefore, from the outside,
they can look like amazing parents,
but if their child needs comforting,
or to talk something out, they're just aren't there at all.
And for this reason,
because our needs were really never truly met,
people who struggle with CEN
can find themselves in abusive or unhealthy relationships,
while many others
struggle to get into any relationships at all,
for fear that it will be just like that relationship
they had when they were growing up.
There were so many great questions and comments
on that video that I wanted to talk about
some of them in today's video.
So let's just jump right in.
The first theme I saw in a lot of your comments
revolved around this question.
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How should I handle things with my parents?
I've mentioned before that there are no real shoulds
around how you engage with your parents
when you identify emotional neglect in your childhood
Many of your comments were sharing things
that have worked or haven't worked.
and one member of our audience, Stacey Arnold, shared this.
It says one of the things I've learned
is don't confront your family about these emotions.
They'll just undermine you,
and try to spin it, so that they're the victim.
Stacey is right.
That in a lot of situations,
confronting can be setting ourselves up for failure.
Sometimes it might be appropriate, but you get to decide.
And I will say that if your parents have shown you
that they're not equipped to navigate emotions
or conflict in a healthy way,
that's not likely gonna suddenly change
when there's even more on the line.
And I'll also say that sometimes
we want to talk through things with our parents
to change our past, but we can't do that.
Even though we're not responsible for causing our wounds,
we can take responsibility for healing them.
Another theme that I saw was this question.
Why was I such a good kid?
And a lot of you like Fen Hoffman,
mentioned being really well behaved or good kids.
Fen's comment says I used to pride myself
on how independent I was, how much I didn't ask for things,
how quiet I was for a kid, how I didn't bother my mom.
Now I realize I was being neglected.
It's not my mom's fault.
They had to keep two kids alive on a low budget.
I was just old enough to understand that,
and my brother got his attention, I didn't.
Sometimes our coping mechanisms for emotional neglect
show up in ways that are praised by society.
And we end up adopting these qualities into our identity,
even priding ourselves on them.
In reality, we were just doing our best in a bad situation.
And our way of coping was to be a quote unquote good kid
when in reality, it was a response to abuse,
and possibly trauma.
The third reoccurring question I saw in the comments is,
it says why do we recreate dysfunctional patterns as adults?
And I noticed some of you mentioned
that these patterns still play out in your life.
And here's one comment.
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It says from Laxy Bunny, I've searched for the affection
I lacked in childhood my whole life,
letting men walk all over me.
Now, it all adds up.
This is incredibly common.
For some of us,
we recreate our childhoods in our adult relationships,
because we feel most comfortable with what is known.
Even if that's not healthy.
Healthy relationships can actually feel unsafe to us,
because they're not our experience.
For some of us, we recreate our childhoods,
because we're hoping it will play out differently.
And it's like our brain is giving us one more chance to try,
and hopefully get a different outcome.
If dad didn't love us, well,
we'll pick emotionally unavailable men
hoping that if we get one of those men to want us,
it will heal that deep wound.
And unfortunately, the only way to heal that deep wound
is to first acknowledge that it's there,
and work to give ourselves the love and acceptance
that our father didn't.
I know this way is harder,
but trust me when I tell you, it's healthier,
and feels much, much better.
The fourth question I saw a lot in the comments is,
why does emotional neglect play out in missing memories?
And there's this comment from Audi I want to read.
It says, I think this is why some of my childhood memories
are shut down,
and I can't recall any loving moments from my parents.
I can only recall the rejection or put downs.
Some of you may relate to remembering the rejection.
Also, one of the common things that I hear from folks
when we're talking about emotional neglect
is I don't even remember my childhood.
Well research tells us that that can often
be a side effect of trauma.
Sometimes when something is traumatizing,
you can log memories in the emotional memory center,
but not in the hippocampus,
which stores the details of the memory.
So you have the emotional memory of the pain,
the loss, abandonment, and neglect,
but you have no memories to explain why.
The fifth question I saw a lot is,
is it me or them?
Now, Ruby Cubez said,
I recently started watching videos about this.
I honestly didn't realize this had a name,
everything resonates when I watch them.
And I wonder if I was born highly sensitive,
or if my childhood experiences made me this way,
or maybe both.
Now Ruby hit the nail on the head.
The nature versus nurture debate is incredibly complicated.
What we know for sure
is that both things impact us in substantial ways.
We might want it to be one or the other,
so that we can let our parents off of the hook.
But the truth is we know that sensitivity,
anxiety, depression,
all of these things can be things
that we're predisposed for.
And we also know that our childhood experiences
significantly contribute to our brain development.
The way I've had it explained to me
is that we can have the gene for depression, let's say,
but then we have to have an experience
or situation in our life that turns on the gene,
or makes it active.
So it's really nature, and nurture working together.
The sixth theme that I saw,
was a lot of you saying that it wasn't your parents' fault.
You commented on the reality that your parents
had experienced their own pain and neglect as well.
And here's one such comment from Ellie Mathews,
and it says was I emotionally neglected?
Yes, however, the older I get,
the more I realize why my parents were that way.
They both had unmet needs,
and they were also neglected when they were children,
and they couldn't give what they themselves never had.
And this can be difficult,
especially if we have a lot of empathy for others,
or find ourselves being a people pleaser.
We can always want to put ourselves in their shoes,
and in doing so, we invalidate, or minimize our own pain.
Sure, our parents could have had
their own shitty childhoods,
and not gotten what they needed,
but their previous issues
don't make their own actions in their life
any less hurtful or impactful.
Our parents aren't responsible
for what their own experiences were
of being neglected as children, any more than we are.
And at the same time,
they are responsible for their own choices,
just in the same way that we are.
Unfortunately, emotional neglect is incredibly common,
and is often overlooked,
because it doesn't leave any physical marks on us.
And it's the lack of something
that people find the most upsetting.
This can make it hard for us to take it seriously,
or we can tell ourselves
that we're just making it into something that it's not,
but know that if your parents weren't there for you
in the way that you needed,
you didn't feel comforted, or supported growing up,
that is emotional abuse, and how you feel is valid.
And of course,
getting the right help will be life-changing,
because we can heal from it.
Thank you so much for watching.
I hope this was helpful, and I will see you next time.
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