- We often think of abuse in a very outward,
or physically damaging way,
but abuse can also be caused by what's not there.
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Like when a parent doesn't ask us how we're feeling,
or listen to us when we tell them.
They could also not support us when we need it,
or hold us when we cry.
And this lack of emotional support and attunement
leads to what's known as childhood emotional neglect.
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And today I'm gonna walk you through the nine signs
that you have experienced it.
If you're new here, my name is Kati Morton,
and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.
I talk about depression, anxiety, eating disorders,
and really anything mental-health-related.
So if you'd like to subscribe, we would love to have you.
I promise you will always leave
with some helpful information for you or someone you love.
Okay. Let's jump into today's topic.
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Before I get into the signs,
I just wanna say that most parents
who fall into this category
aren't doing this to be harmful or malicious.
They usually don't even know
that they're neglecting their child's emotional needs,
because they aren't connected to their own,
and have never cared for theirs
or anyone else's emotions before.
And this doesn't mean that what they did is okay,
or that we don't have the right to be hurt
or traumatized by it.
I just wanted to give you a fuller picture
of what's going on.
The first sign that we've been emotionally neglected
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is that we have a difficult time regulating our emotions.
Because they are so foreign,
and something we've never been allowed to have,
we can stuff everything down,
and then erupt on people later,
or not be able to recognize
when we're feeling a strong emotion,
something like anger or frustration.
Sign number two.
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We have a pattern of unhealthy relationships,
and these are usually relationships
where we are dependent on, like co-dependent,
or where there aren't any boundaries,
otherwise known as enmeshment,
where their emotions are our emotions,
or we could possibly find ourselves
in another abusive relationship,
where our emotions are ignored, shut down, or minimized,
and we'll find we have relationship after relationship,
whether it's romantic or friendship,
that looks just like this.
I was taking a yoga class online last week,
and the teacher said something that stuck with me.
He said that when we're anxious, stressed, or scattered,
we waste energy, and can feel more tired as a result,
but when we are clear and focused,
the energy we put out goes toward the things
that are important or valuable to us.
And that is why I am incredibly excited
about today's sponsor,
the guided meditation app, "Ten Percent Happier."
I've always struggled with meditation,
because as you know,
I'm a more anxious type of person,
and trying to just be still and quiet
can sometimes feel like torture,
but the "Ten Percent Happier" app
offers guided meditations on specific topics or goals.
I chose the ones by Oren about emotions,
and becoming more emotionally agile,
because as he says, we all have emotions,
whether we wanna admit it or not.
And while I know I have emotions,
and I'm incredibly aware of them,
I don't always feel like I manage them well.
There was something powerful
about not feeling like I had to do something, just reflect,
that kept me coming back to the app every day.
I know meditation can feel scary,
or for some it's a little too woo woo,
but "Ten Percent Happier" breaks it down,
and makes it more accessible.
I hope you can give it a try
and see what it can help you with.
Get your one-month free trial
to the "Ten Percent Happier" app,
and access simple exercises
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Just go to tenpercent.com/kati.
The next sign
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is we can have a difficulty engaging in relationships,
meaning that we can isolate ourselves,
or struggle to connect with people.
It's hard to let people in,
so we can feel like no one really knows us.
And this can be really hard, right?
We can actually feel extremely lonely and isolated,
but not feel safe enough, or okay enough
to be with anyone else,
so we kinda feel stuck in this catch-22,
where we want the connection, 'cause we need it,
'cause all humans need it.
It's okay to need people.
We can need that, ugh,
but then it feels so dangerous and unsafe,
so we don't do it,
and we're kind of in this pickle between the two.
The next sign is that we can feel numb or empty.
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And this happens as a result of the fact
that our parents never checked in on us,
never asked us how we were doing, and really listened.
Never taught us how to check in with ourselves,
so we can lack what is known as emotional intelligence,
which is really just what it sounds like,
our understanding of our own emotions,
and the emotional landscape of being a human, right?
And so if we've never learned how to do that,
it was never okay to do it,
and maybe even if we were trying to check in with ourselves,
our parents were like, "Da, da, da, da.
We don't have time for that," right?
"Stuff it deep, like I do.
Move on."
So we can essentially feel nothing.
We never had that opportunity,
therefore we think no emotions are okay,
and we can struggle to connect with any of them.
and feel just completely void of anything.
Feeling empty and numb
is something I've heard over and over again,
from members of our community, and from my patients.
And so it's almost like,
because we don't know how to identify anything we feel,
we don't feel anything, or at least we think we don't.
But I'm here to tell you, spoilers, you actually do.
I also wanna mention that this can be a sign
of our depression and PTSD as well.
And just so you know,
childhood emotional neglect can lead
to things like anxiety, depression, PTSD, et cetera.
So this could be part of a bigger picture as well.
Now the fifth sign is
that we struggle with any self-compassion,
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and can have a really difficult time nurturing ourselves.
And if we think about this,
this is an obvious side-effect of emotional neglect, right?
If no one's ever offered us support and compassion,
or nurtured us and showed us what that looks like,
we have no knowledge of how to give it, or how to do it.
And we can also get caught in this shame spiral, of like,
"Something's wrong with me.
I'm not deserving of this.
I'm not enough,
therefore, I shouldn't be taken care of.
No one should be compassionate with me."
Right? Something's broken and wrong inside.
And this can also lead to us being really hard on ourselves,
or having unrealistic expectations,
which, in my practice,
has presented itself
as my patients being really perfectionistic,
thinking everything has to be just right.
And sometimes we can even do this
hoping that if we do everything just right,
then, and only then, will we be worthy,
or be able to ask for things, and to accept them, right?
It's almost like we have to earn it,
versus what we should have heard growing up,
is that you are worthy of it.
You are important.
You are enough.
But because we didn't get those messages,
it can be hard for us to accept it.
An important piece of this
is also the fact that we tend to,
those of us who struggled to give ourselves compassion,
and to nurture ourselves,
can give that to other people in spades.
We can be extremely kind and compassionate for others,
and we can be really patient with people,
but we just can't give it to ourselves.
So just consider,
do you allow others to share what's upsetting them?
And you are loving and supportive,
but it doesn't feel okay to share what you're going through.
Just take a minute and consider that.
Sign number six
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is that we can have an unhealthy independence.
I want you to hear that again.
I didn't say dependence,
I said unhealthy independence.
Now, the reason that we can have this
is because we feel like we can't count
on anyone else but ourselves.
We have to do everything on our own,
because we don't trust other people
to show up, and to do what we need.
So we can really have a tough time asking for help,
and actually allowing people to help us.
And this is because
we don't think we can count on anyone else, right?
Everybody's always let us down,
told us that we're not enough,
or not listened to us.
Told us to stuff all of our needs, and our feelings,
and our thoughts just deep down.
Therefore, who can we trust?
Just ourselves.
And we can push people aside,
and not let people in, not let people,
even if people offer,
and are like already showing us compassion and care,
we can like pooh-pooh it, like, "No, no, no, no, no."
Or if someone gives us a compliment, this is very common.
Someone will tell us something nice about ourselves,
or try to check in on us,
and we'll be like, "They're just lying."
Or, "They're only doing that 'cause they feel bad."
We completely negate anyone offering support and help,
because we believe deep down, we can only trust ourselves.
This sign can also cause us to be hyper vigilant,
and lead to really unbalanced relationships,
where we give, but we never get anything in return.
The next sign, and this is kind of woven into every sign
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is that we can really struggle with shame.
We think something is inherently wrong with us,
or that we're deeply flawed,
and this can obviously lead to a really low self-esteem.
And this comes from a belief that how we feel,
and what we need, isn't valid or important,
and that obviously is directly correlated
with the fact that when we grew up,
our parents just dismissed it,
or told us to shut it down, or ignored it completely.
Sign number eight.
We can be sensitive to rejection.
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Since we could have grown up feeling constantly rejected,
right?
If we came to our parents,
and were asking for support and care,
and they're like, "You're too much,"
or, "That's not important,"
or, "Sit down and shut up,"
we can feel very sensitive
to anyone in our lives putting us down,
or not wanting us around,
or feeling like they don't accept us,
because it can remind us of what our childhood was like.
It can be extremely triggering.
And the final sign, sign number nine,
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is we can be easily overwhelmed or discouraged.
And this comes from the fact
that because we can struggle to identify
any emotions we're feeling,
let alone accepting any of them, right?
Those don't exist.
Stuff those down.
We'll ignore them.
When we do feel something,
or we have something big happen to us,
we don't know how to deal with it,
and we can quickly become overwhelmed by our emotions,
or our experience,
frankly because it's all really foreign, right?
And it can feel really uncomfortable.
We're like, "I don't even know what this is. Uh."
And we can kinda just wanna shove our head in the ground,
and like shut down.
This is honestly when a lot of people, like my patients,
and members of our community,
will report dissociating,
because our brain's like, "This is too much for my system.
I gotta pull the ripcord and disconnect
so that I can get through this."
So if you find this happening,
and feeling like you're going from,
"Okay, okay okay. Oh, overwhelmed. Dissociate."
It could be a sign.
Obviously, it doesn't help to just know the signs
that we've been emotionally neglected,
and we might have thought that for a long time,
what's important is knowing how to overcome it.
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And my first tip,
and I know you guys aren't gonna like this answer,
but it's the truth,
is inner child work.
Now in order to have our thoughts, feelings, and needs
finally listened to,
we're gonna need to get back in touch with our younger self,
and offer that up to him or her.
Now I know a lot of people feel like,
"But that's just weird."
And like, "I can't just give myself what I needed."
I'm here to tell you that you can,
and I am putting together an inner child workshop.
You can click the link in the description to learn more,
if you're struggling with this step,
but we can utilize tools like children's books,
looking at photos or videos of us as a child
to kind of reconnect,
and to hear from our child self
what they're so desperately craving,
and then adult us, because we have more means, right,
we have more resources at our disposal,
we can offer that to child us.
And that can be through letter-writing.
There's a ton of different exercises.
Like I said, I'm putting together a workshop,
'cause I know a lot of you have struggled with this,
but inner child work can really help us heal.
My second tip is to be more aware of our feelings.
I know, ugh, feelings, ugh.
But I promise you, we all have them.
We have tons of them each and every day,
we just don't take the time to acknowledge them,
and especially if in our childhood,
no one taught us to acknowledge them,
or showed their own to give us a better idea
of what anger or excitement can look like,
it can take us some time.
So hop on Google, and just look up feelings wheel,
or feelings chart,
and just see if any of the words that you're reading
sound familiar,
or are something that maybe you're like,
"I think I might be feeling that."
Just start tapping in.
Start trying to pay attention, little by little.
And my goals always start really small,
by trying to identify one a day,
then after a week or so as that gets a little easier, right,
it's like a muscle we're building,
move up to two a day, to three, four.
And I always end around five,
even though we have a lot more feelings than that
each and every day,
don't feel like you have to do an exhaustive list,
but getting more in touch with them
is gonna be incredibly healing.
My next tip is to practice
what is called the story of an emotion.
And it's honestly just like what it sounds like.
When we feel something,
tell me why that feeling exists,
not in a judgmental way,
and be like a detective about it,
a detective about your emotions.
Okay. So I feel extremely excited.
Let's just pick that.
I'm so excited.
Why am I excited?
Let me think.
Okay.
That's because yesterday I checked a big to-do
off of my to-do list.
I really did. I'm not lying. I honestly did.
So I checked that off my to-do list.
So I'm excited because that's done,
and that means that the inner child workshop
is coming to fruition.
I've put in all this work,
and that's where it's coming from.
That's the story of that emotion for me,
that excitement emotion.
So as we start to get more in touch with our feelings,
we have that list of one, or two, or three,
tell me the story of them.
Okay. So I'm feeling really discouraged.
Where's that coming from?
What's the story that led up to that emotion?
It sounds kind of silly,
like, "Why am I digging so deeply into these?"
Because it's important for us to acknowledge and validate
those emotions.
Not just identify, we need to say,
"Yes, it's okay, and it exists
because of this, this, and this,
and that's how I got to here."
It's kind of what we wished our parents had given us,
that they didn't.
And so we're just filling that void.
Another tip is to describe the feelings that we're having
without using a feelings word.
And I've talked about this in the past,
but it could be anything like, let's say I'm feeling angry.
Okay.
So if I was gonna describe anger to you
without using the word angry, how would I do that?
I would say anger feels like a fire in my stomach.
Feels like clenched fists, tight muscles, gritting teeth.
And it almost, my head feels like
there's just too many racing thoughts.
I can't get them out, right?
It feels like chaos in my head.
That would be how I would describe anger
without just saying anger feels angry, right?
And again,
it's just another way to get to know our emotions,
and better understand how we experience them.
My next tip is to know that feelings aren't facts.
Just because we feel some kinda way
about what's happening,
doesn't mean that that's actually what's taking place,
right?
I could be reacting to a past experience,
meaning that let's say growing up,
I had a really bad time in swim class.
I'm just making this up as we go along.
So when I go to the pool with my friends
for like a party on the weekend,
I can feel really agitated, anxious, and super upset, right?
Really irritable.
But those feelings don't mean
that the situation right now is agitating and upsetting.
It's actually something that happened before, right?
So I know this is kind of maybe hard
to conceptualize or understand,
but what it means is we can have feelings
for a lot of different reasons,
which is why it's important to do the story of an emotion,
and those feelings don't mean that it's tied directly
to the reality of what's going on right now.
My next tip is to take some time recognizing
what needs we have.
And this is hard.
This is often work
that I would encourage you to do with a therapist,
because our needs have never been attended to,
or never validated,
therefore we can struggle to even acknowledge what they are,
but I encourage you to start with your basic needs, right?
We all need food and water.
We all need sleep,
and we all need connection, okay?
So those are just three basic needs
I want you to start with.
And then the next step is to try to do things
to meet those needs.
Meaning, am I giving myself food every three to four hours?
Am I drinking enough water?
Am I making time to connect with people who understand me?
This might just be with our therapist, or with one friend,
that's fine.
That is sufficient.
But just taking some time to acknowledge those needs,
and making some steps to meet them,
is gonna be incredibly helpful.
And these final two tips are really quick ones.
And that first is mindfulness.
It's important to get in touch with what our body's feeling,
what we're experiencing,
so that we can identify our emotions,
and what we're going through earlier on.
Helps to tap in.
And the last tip is
that once we get better at identifying our emotions,
we can take it one step further,
and figure out what that emotion is asking for.
For example, if we're feeling angry,
does that mean that we need to be heard and understood?
I know, it's kind of hard, but helpful.
Or if we're feeling sad,
does that emotion tell us that we need to do some self-care,
or connect with someone?
Just try to consider what your emotions are asking for,
because then we can actually meet that need.
I hope you found this helpful.
If you feel like I left anything out,
'cause trust me,
there's so much I could talk about with regards to this,
but leave it in the comments down below.
I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week,
and I'll see you next time.
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