Anyone else experience childhood emotional neglect? Healing Possible?
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Anonymous
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In dealing with my aging mother, I have had feelings resurface that I have buried for the past 35 years. I just came upon the term childhood emotional neglect and it seems like this is what I experienced growing up.
I am wondering if anyone really heals from this, I am listening to some audio books etc. It does reaffirm how f***up my childhood was and the impact it left on me, but I am left feeling almost more sad than before. Sad for the child I was and what happened. It makes me think I should just not put it under a magnifying glass and leave it alone. I believe many of my lifelong struggles stem from this. |
Anonymous
| What specifically did she do? Do you have kids yourself? |
Anonymous
| Same. No idea. Sorry. |
Anonymous
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What bothers you the most? Is it hypervigilance? Self-esteem? Something else?
My main issues are hypervigilance and self-doubt/self-esteem issues, and the following helped me. If you can talk with a CBT therapist, they may be able to help. In the early stages of realizing what you realized, I found the talking part of talk therapy helpful to get out the stored up feelings in a verbal form. Later, I found it helpful when the therapist taught me tools to calm my nervous system and improve my self-esteem. While I'm not cured, I am better than before. It really sucks because I used to think I'd be better one day, but I see now that I won't be YET I can feel better overall. This problem requires continual tending to prevent reoccurence. What helps me is increasing dopamine with: Swimming in cool water (doesn't have to be freezing to increase my dopamine), Weightlifting Eating meals on time Taking the Positive Intelligence course to help me get out of hypervigilance The Positive Intelligence course isn't required to get out of hypervigilance. You can also do grounding exercises to help. Grounding exercises: This video is short and helped me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZkvilZ4V0o |
Anonymous
| I just read "Daughter Detox" by Peg Streep. I wish I had found this book much earlier. |
Anonymous
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Yes and yes. Emotional neglect, hitting, and yelling. Finally got myself into therapy and am a different person internally.
Therapy was supplemented with meds, journaling for a while, EMDR, getting outside, exercise, and meditation. |
Anonymous
| So my therapist calls it benign neglect. My mom wasn't trying to be neglectful, she just worked and wasn't that interested in us kids. Now that she's old and infirm, I've kind of given up. I think that I've mostly grieved having that mother that I needed, but I guess time will tell when she's gone. |
Anonymous
| Yes and I'm almost 50 and haven't found much help with anything I've tried. The best thing was going no contact but that still hurts and is very painful still especially realizing she doesn't reach out to try and make amends. |
Anonymous
| I have found Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) to be incredibly helpful. Good luck! |
Anonymous
| Try somatic experiencing. |
Anonymous
|
Crappy Childhood Fairy on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/@CrappyChildhoodFairy |
Anonymous
| My mother didn’t really nurture me or my brother. I feel like we both entered adulthood broken people. It took a long time for me to understand that my childhood was far from the norm and that most people’s parents didn’t in fact lock their children outside the house and tell them not to come home until dinner time or tell them if they were thirsty in the 90 degree summer heat to drink out of the neighbors water hose (the neighbors didn’t really appreciate us doing this). |
Anonymous
Also same, no idea, and sorry. I can't even think about my neglectful childhood because the sadness is too overwhelming, and I've blocked a lot out anyway. |
Anonymous
| I think the answer is no—you never get over it. But therapy can help a lot. |
Anonymous
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Complete a big fitness goal you’ve always wanted to do,
look for self help that resonates, Volunteer, Massage, Be around children, animals, and nature, Learn how to reason better. It’s a long journey and I’m still going through it—those are some things that have helped. |