7 signs you’re experiencing emotional neglect
Emotional Effects of Parental Attitudes in Childhood
Parents often meet the material and physiological needs of their children. They fill their bellies and buy beautiful clothes. They try to send them to good schools as best they can, and they think they are taking care of their children. However, children also have psychological needs such as to be loved, to be trusted, to be cared for, to be cared for, to be approved, to feel adequate and strong, which can often be easily overlooked. Failing to meet these needs adequately and consistently may cause the child to feel insignificant, incomplete, insecure, and in fact cause the child to be exposed to emotional neglect. The interesting thing is. Sometimes parents are unable to meet these needs of their children without bad intentions, without even realizing it, or they send them messages in the opposite direction of these needs. For example, the overprotective family attitude can also cause the child to feel inadequate and powerless from time to time. So even people who say they actually had a very good family may have experienced emotional neglect. So, were you exposed to emotional neglect as a child? Let’s look at the signs and symptoms after the intro.
Our first sign is the feeling of emptiness. Is there a feeling of emptiness inside of us that you don’t know why and you can’t fill no matter what you do? Children who cannot see their own reflection in their parents feel an emptiness inside, and this feeling of emptiness continues into adulthood.
But we don’t know why.
This feeling of emptiness inside you actually represents something you didn’t get from your parents. Sometimes it’s approval, sometimes it’s love.
Sometimes compassion, sometimes something else. What parts of you did your family ignore or reject in your childhood?
Often the parents of people who experience this emotion are well-meaning but neglected parents themselves. In other words, they meet the material and physiological needs of the child. However, since they themselves did not receive the attention they should show in their childhood, they are not aware of the need for their own children, and they do not know how to welcome them. Therefore, these needs of the child are unfortunately not met. In other words, these parents meet the physical and material needs of the children.
However, they cannot adequately meet the child’s psychological needs such as being loved, approved, feeling strong, and feeling adequate, and as a result, the child is left alone with a feeling of emptiness in his adulthood that he cannot know the reason for and cannot fill. Our second sign is difficulty in identifying, expressing and managing emotions. This is one of the biggest signs of emotional neglect. If someone asks you how you are feeling, you may have trouble answering. Because you have a hard time finding words to answer and complete. Maybe you weren’t allowed to express how you felt in your childhood. Or you may be punished, ignored, or condemned for expressing how you feel in any way. In this way, you may have learned to suppress your emotions or keep them to yourself. Did you hear such words in your childhood? Men don’t cry, don’t cry like a baby, crying is weakness. You must always be strong.
Parents who do not notice their children’s feelings enough, and even though they notice them, belittle or ignore them, in fact, they send a powerful subliminal message to the child.
Your feelings don’t matter! Or emotions are weakness!
The third sign that you suffered from childhood emotional neglect. Caring for others more than yourself. Do you think your needs always come after others?
Do you need to make sure everyone is happy all the time, even if it means settling for less? If you have grown up learning that your emotions are invalid, you are likely to neglect yourself. In this case, you try too hard to make others happy at the expense of ignoring yourself, and you start to wear out as a result of this effort. You do your best to avoid conflict. Even if it sometimes causes you to sacrifice something you want so much. Our Fourth Sign; perfectionism.
You always feel like you have to be the best or do your best. You always think that no matter what you do, it’s never good enough, you can always do better. Generally, the needs of perfectionists such as being loved, appreciated, approved and accepted in childhood were either not adequately met or they were met in return for their success. In other words, think about something that the child can only attract the attention of his family when he is the first. Think of it like you can’t pull it out. Thus, the child determines his own self-worth as a result of the behavior of others towards him. Therefore, his self-confidence begins to depend on external factors. In fact, from time to time, most parents do this to their children unintentionally. This reminded me of a memory I had during the trainings. One day, when we took a break during a training session, the child of one of our participants called him on the phone. Inevitably, we overheard. His child had been very successful in an exam he took and was third in his district. When we say this, of course, we expect your father to be very happy. But the father’s answer was this. What region did you come in 3rd place? So who was first?
Can you imagine what the child should do to be a perfectionist in return for this question? The child who is brought up in this way thinks that his only weapon to protect himself from criticism is to be perfect, and when they are adults, these children are very sensitive to criticism. In other words, they do not like to be criticized and they are very fragile about it. Our fifth sign is don’t be cruel to yourself.
Do you find it difficult to show yourself plenty of compassion for the mistakes made by others? When you make a mistake, you’re somehow “Stupid how can you do that?” “How many times have I tried?” “Why are you doing this?” Do you have such abrasive internal conversations? We all have failures and shortcomings. It’s a natural part of life. In fact, our parents teach us how to deal with these failures and shortcomings. If your parents judged me for some kind of mistakes, questioned me, made me feel guilty, then I judge myself and make abrasive speeches to myself. But on the contrary, if my parents supported me, then I show more compassion to myself.
In fact, there are those inner conversations you sleep with, huh, they are your mother’s or your father’s voice. Our Sixth Sign; “Having trouble asking for support” Do you have trouble asking for help or support when we really need help? For example, let’s say that when you ask someone, you continue to try and struggle with a job that you know you can handle much more easily. Yes, if your emotional needs were neglected in childhood, you may have trouble seeking help in adulthood. Perhaps you were ignored, scolded, or punished when you needed help and pointed it out as a child. Maybe you should make you a strong boy who always stands on his own two feet. Messages were conveyed, such as that you should not seek help from anyone, and that you should not trust anyone. Our Seventh Sign; “Low Confidence” Do you often compare yourself to others? Do you feel less important or less valuable when compared to others? The neglect of our emotional needs in childhood seriously affects our perception of ourselves. Because when we create our perception about ourselves, we take the behavior of our first object, the mother, father or caregiver, as a criterion.
If he is interested enough in us, it means that we are not worthy of being loved. This means that the perception that we are not valuable occurs.
Of course, this is how I describe it, but look, these are not your destiny. So yes, the reason for some of your behaviors, feelings, and thoughts may be what you experienced in your childhood. But in order to change them in the future, it is necessary to first notice them and work on them. Our purpose in making these videos is to raise awareness. So each of these things can never be changed. So I may have suffered from emotional neglect as a child, but I can change that. This is in my hand. Some people have also experienced emotional neglect in childhood. However, in their adulthood, they reveal the anger created by this in a different way, and on the contrary, they behave as if they are overconfident, overcompetitive, snobbish, and egotistical, in other words. In fact, this is again one of the indicators of emotional neglect, the need for approval in childhood. Yes, if you are wondering how your childhood life affected your love life, you may want to watch my video about it.
How does your childhood love life affect your life? You can reach my love styles video. If you are interested in personal development and psychology, do not forget to subscribe to our channel. We would be very happy if you support us by commenting.
