Emotional Neglect: Healing From The Hidden Trauma Of What Didn't Happen

Getting rejected after fully revealing yourself really reinforces the feeling of always having to wear the mask

My parents never had open conversations with me growing up, now as an adult I have a huge backlog of dialogue, memories and emotions that haven't yet been processed

My mother died when I was 6 years old. NOBODY MADE THAT EXPERIENCE MATTER. A few years later my father remarried an emotionally avoidant and neglectful person. She quickly removed all physical evidence of my mother, from furniture to photos. No one in my family, teachers, church etc stopped the neglect and cruelty from happening. NOBODY MADE THAT EXPERIENCE MATTER. My younger sister and brother eventually spiraled into chaos and taken into care. They eventually did not want to know me because I made a decision to heal myself and they decided to stay the victim.. NOBODY MADE THAT EXPERIENCE MATTER. I have been on a healing pathway for 4 decades. I AM TRYING TO MAKE MY EXPERIENCE MATTER 🙏🏻

When I was upset as a child, my father would say 'Laugh and the World laughs with you, cry and you cry alone'. I both understood and didn't. There was no comforting or acknowledging my feelings. My mother outcompeted me on how bad anyone felt with her own ruminations. I never remember cuddles from my mother as a child. She mostly went about her day. They both mocked me often and if one mocked, the other said nothing or joined in. Or my mother said something superficially on occasion creating a Karpman Drama Triangle where she was the hero, but the abuse continued in the future. I learnt to deal with my emotions on my own in my room. Thank goodness for dogs. My dogs noticed and comforted me giving the unconditional love I got nowhere else.

Growing up -and still today - I am the good child if I am invisible. There should be no sign of my existence, not even a breadcrumb. The whole household danced and still dances around my father, who has a monopoly of negative emotions. Noone else is allowed to feel sad or angry, otherwise those feelings get belittled or punished ('it's your fault you got robbed, you have heartbreak because you chose stupidly'). His trauma, his childhood trumps everything -as if suffering was a competition. My mother enables this behaviour by babying him. He is the oldest and most important child, and us the actual children are a mere backdrop. I realise now that never having received empathy or listening ears has led to serious damage in my psyche. Thanks Heidi for shedding light on this issue!

This is life changing for this 63-yo woman who grew up "the invisible child" THANK YOU, so much hope that I've never had before

What you call "existential loneliness" is exactly what I've alway's felt. I've explained it to others like this: "I live in open air solitary confinement". I'm a 65 year-old man, and grew up with a severely autistic mother who did not bond with me. My father grew up in a physically and emotionally abusive home, later was a POW in Nazi Germany; he had PTSD from Hell. At least he loved me, but he didn't know how to parent, and was swamped by his own problems. Of course back then, no one thought there was a problem. I've picked up some insight over decades, but that doesn't solve anything. You've said the most pertinent stuff I've come across (amazing given how young you seem). You and the CrappyChildhoodFairy. Subscribed.

I have to pause this vid and come back to it later because I can feel myself about to cry at work. I hate having a stranger on youtube perfectly describe my life and having no offline help to navigate these feelings. :(

Oh, this is going to be good. I've spent anywhere between 30 mins and 2,000 hours during my life parsing my childhood for evidence of trauma - yet, somehow it never occurred to me to examine the converse, i.e., the absence of support. Thanks, Heidi!

I had such a huge rush of emotions when you said unconscious chronic self abandonment. Literally summed up so many situations in my life

I remember having a nightmare, and I decided I wanted to talk to my mom about it because it still scared me. I had read in a children's magazine about different ways to talk about your fears to your parents, and tips for parents for responding and helping. I brought up the nightmare, described it how the article said, and suggested one of the helpful activities. I remember a look of bewilderment and mild disgust on her face when she said she didn't want to do that with me. She doesn't just neglect my emotions, she actively dismissed them. No wonder it hurt so bad.

I was sexually abused as a child and then horribly bullied throughout school. And I never knew why I never felt happy in my life and was always depressed and anxious. Im 30 now and only now have i started to realise my reality was already shaped in my childhood. Thank you Heidi for these videos, they give me some perspective and make healing a little easier.

at my worst, i had always felt a strong sense of guilt over how much i was mentally suffering because i had never experienced actions or situations i could point to as a form of "abuse". this video has put so much into perspective for me and i cant thank you enough for all that you have shared through this channel, which has helped me in ways that have been life changing. thank you heidi <3

As a child I spent a lot of time at the home' of my friends. It was in some of those places I observed healthy family interactions and I would leave feeling sad, not knowing exactly why. Now I am thinking it was because being immersed with family dynamics which were so different and more healthy than mine, on some level, made me feel "yucky" (my code word for feelings I had as a child but didn't know what they were.) No wonder I spent more time in those homes than my own. A million thanks for helping me with my emotional retraining.

Challenges of adults with early emotional neglect 1. difficulty making decisions both small and big 2. toxic shame (feeling of fundamental flaw in oneself) 3. phobia of inner experiences (e.g. dissociate in the moment of experiencing anger) 4. existential loneliness (sense of self was developed in isolation) This can be changed first by getting intimate within oneself 5. repeated unconscious self-abandonment 6. criticism hits with intense defensiveness 7. difficulty attuning between the outer world to inner world and vice versa Healing from emotional neglect 1. increase emotional literacy 2. self-attune (e.g. intuitive eating and diet journaling) 3. learn to tolerate and regulate all kinds of emotions (especially the negative ones) 4. seek conscious support communities 5. find mentors who can help (believe people are compassionate) 6. natural give and take between inner world and outer world

I literally, an hour ago (30 minutes before this was posted) was trying to confront the neglect I’ve faced all of my life and became extraordinarily frustrated and frazzled and I go on YouTube and Heidi drops a 40 minute video on the subject 😂 how does she always know

I was actually literally told "You shouldn't feel that way!" I also was told I was too sensitive and defensive, of course.

This is finally the answer to my constant googling throughout my life of: "Can you be born depressed?"

No wonder I married a diagnosed narcissist, he validated my inner world of confusion, dysregulation, shame and never being good enough. He was my parents all over again, very familiar. He was my darkest shadow side, the voice from inside my head coming from another body. It has taken 5 years alone to begin to truly hear my inner voice and lay to rest the terrible things I would say to myself, to turn it around and now have a loving, caring relationship with myself. Not always perfect but always forgiving. Being my own best friend or parent to myself, even down to looking at myself in the mirror and saying 'I love you' everyday, has impacted my wellbeing more than any therapy I have tried.

I struggled for years with being able to explain why I felt so bad in my family, why I started having depression as a teenager and why I hated my childhood. Nothing bad happened I could have pointed to. It was what wasn't there. But I didn't know about that, because I never knew about it. It needed a very good therapist to open my eyes and tell me about emotional neglect. Then everything made sense.