- Being around your parents…or even just talking or thinking about them: Coping with emotionally neglectful parents can be one of the most challenging parts of being an adult. Children intuitively go toward their parents for emotional connection. But, sadly, when emotionally neglected children do so, they are too often met with disappointment. Now, as an adult, they sense that something is missing when around their parents. They can be triggered by their parent’s lack of attention, surface-level conversations, and inability to see them in a deep and emotional way. This creates feelings of hurt, anger, and loneliness.
- Being ignored: On a basic level, experiencing childhood emotional neglect is a form of being ignored daily. Growing up without your feelings noticed, responded to, or validated enough means that the essence of who you are (your emotions) is overlooked. This can give clarity as to why today you might feel unseen by yourself and others. You might even find that you’re extremely comfortable living in the background and afraid to take risks, speak up, or be the center of attention. However, when situations arise in which you are blatantly ignored or overlooked, your childhood feelings of being unseen can become triggered, making the current situation more painful than it needs to be.
- Experiencing conflict: While everyone encounters conflict throughout their lives, not everyone is equipped with the tools to deal with conflict in an effective and healthy way. Conflict requires us to be OK with the fact that (1) we are feeling angry or hurt and (2) someone in our life is also angry or hurt. It also requires us to be able to identify what we’re feeling, understand it, and put those feelings into words. Having these invaluable emotion skills doesn’t come easily, especially for those that experienced childhood emotional neglect. So, when there is conflict, you may not have the skills necessary to handle the situation. Instead, you might feel compelled to avoid, push down your feelings, and pretend that nothing is wrong.
- Needing help: Going to your parents over and over again in childhood only to be let down creates deep feelings of disappointment. Over time, you learn that it’s painful to rely on people and that asking for help is useless. This is because each time you searched for support, your feelings of aloneness were amplified. When you do need help now as an adult, you might become very uncomfortable. Asking for help triggers your fear of disappointment and lack of trust that even those who love you will actually come through for you.
- Being around someone with strong emotions: In my years of running therapy groups, I learned something interesting about folks with childhood emotional neglect. Each time one group member expressed strong emotion, certain group members would start squirming in their chairs, go to the restroom, crack a joke, or attempt to change the topic of discussion. These group members were the emotionally neglected folks, clearly activated by displays of raw emotion. Because they learned to wall off their emotions to survive in their childhood homes, they didn’t understand feelings or how they work so were triggered by others’ emotions. They also had a low tolerance for feelings in general, especially strong ones.
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Persecution Live 