KEY POINTS
- Even though childhood emotional neglect can be subtle or even invisible, it leaves its enduring imprint on the child.
- Many who grew up with emotional neglect are unaware that it can subtly affect them in daily life.
- Being raised in an emotionally neglectful home makes you vulnerable to being triggered by situations that seem normal and benign to others.
Do you become easily frustrated or annoyed when you’re around your parents?
Do you try to escape situations where strong feelings are present?
Do you avoid conflict at all costs?
Do you rarely ask anyone for help?
The questions above may seem unrelated, but they are all defining qualities of people who grew up with childhood emotional neglect.
Childhood emotional neglect happens when your parents fail to respond enough to your emotional needs as they raise you.
A child who grows up in an environment where their emotions aren’t acknowledged or taken seriously is in quite a bind. Even though emotions are a necessary part of being human, these children learn that their feelings are unwelcome. They end up hiding them, walling them off, to not burden their parents.
This is actually quite a remarkable thing for a child to do. They are adapting to their childhood home to survive. Even so, this survival mechanism ends up backfiring, because they are pushing away a vital life source, something they will desperately need throughout their lifetime to live a fulfilled, rich life: their feelings.
Living your life with a wall standing between your emotions and you blocks your access to your emotional world. You miss out on learning how to identify, name, validate, tolerate, manage, or express your feelings. Without these skills, as an adult, you’re more prone to feeling disconnected from yourself and others. You may feel confused or overwhelmed when emotions rise to the surface and have difficulty identifying what you need.
Many people who grew up with childhood emotional neglect don’t even know it. It’s tricky to spot because it’s something that didn’t happen. You didn’t get the emotional language, understanding, skills, or responsiveness you greatly needed. Things that don’t happen are non-events and difficult to see or remember.
Those who grew up this way are typically left with certain “trigger points.” These are normal situations everyone experiences that can trigger the emotionally neglectful experience you had as a child.
Persecution Live 