Were you judged for showing feelings in your childhood home? This powerful message has been carried forth with you. “Hide your emotions from others” is the message, “or others will think less of you.” Or worse, they will use your feelings against you.
Category: Self-Help
5. Crying is a weakness.
All humans cry, and for a reason. Crying is a way to release and process your emotions. As a child, you cried sometimes (maybe often). What you needed was for this to be okay. Instead, your family didn’t know that crying has a purpose, so they ignored your tears or shamed you for having them. Perhaps they never showed tears themselves. You learned that crying is negative and should be avoided.
4. Talking about a problem will unnecessarily burden other people.
Growing up, you had problems with school, siblings, and friends. What you needed was to know that you could talk to a parent, but instead, you knew that they, for whatever reason, could not handle it. What you learned was that others couldn’t handle your problems, so you’d best keep it to yourself.
3. Your needs and preferences are irrelevant.
As a child, you had needs, just as all children do. You had things that felt important to you, and things that felt good or bad to you. What you needed was for someone to notice, or to ask what you needed or wanted, so that you would feel that you mattered. When no one asked you enough, you learned instead that you don’t.
2. You are overly sensitive.
As a child, you naturally felt upset when things upset you. You naturally felt angry when you were hurt. What you needed was to have your upset feelings soothed by a loving parent so that you could learn how to soothe yourself. But what you got was a message that your feelings were a weakness. What you learned was to judge yourself for having them.
Here are 10 lessons victims of childhood emotional neglect learn early on and how these lessons are wrong.
1. It’s not good to be too happy or too sad.
As a child, you naturally had intense feelings, as this is how all children are wired. Exuberant one moment, intensely frustrated the next, you needed someone to teach you how to understand and manage your emotions. But what you got instead was a covert message that your emotions were excessive. What you learned was to dampen your feelings, not the skills you needed to manage them.
10 Things Emotionally Neglected Kids Grow Up Believing — That Are Simply Not True The fact that you learned them does not make them right. By Jonice Webb — Written on Jun 27, 2022
Growing up in an emotionally neglectful household (Childhood Emotional Neglect, or CEN) takes its toll on you. When, as a child, no one notices enough what you are feeling or what you need, you receive covert messages that are never stated outright, but which will nevertheless guide your life going forward.
Silent, unintended, and usually invisible, these messages take root early and well. As you go through adolescence, they undermine the self-confidence and self-knowledge you should be gathering. As you grow into adulthood, they prevent you from making the choices that are right for you.
As you form relationships and fall in love, they prevent you from valuing yourself. As you have children and raise them, they weigh you down and leave you feeling mystified about what you are missing and why.
The only way to reduce their power over you is to realize they are there and how you got them. And to make a conscious choice to stop letting them hold you back and push you down.
10. You occasionally feel empty inside.
This is the ultimate sign. Your “empty” feeling may reside in your belly or your throat, or it may be just an uncomfortable sense that something is missing in you.
That sense is your body telling you that what should be filling you, connecting and energizing you — your emotions — is not there. This is your body telling you that you are emotionally numb.
9. You feel more when watching a movie, TV show, or commercial or reading a book than you do in real life.
For those whose feelings are tamped down, it can be easier to access them when it’s safe; when it’s not personal; when it’s not you.
You can feel the emotions of a fictional character or someone in the news, but you can’t feel your own. When it comes to your own life, you can’t access those feelings.
8. You sometimes feel like you’re going through life on autopilot.
One foot after another, you march along, doing what you are supposed to do, and probably doing it well. Like a toy soldier or an energizer bunny, you just keep on going. But you also find yourself wondering what it’s all for.
Shouldn’t you be something more, you ask? The answer is yes. There should be highs and lows, pride, joy, and sadness, but you are missing it.
Persecution Live 