We are always looking for the love that we didn’t get from a parent figure to repair our childhood attachment trauma. Emotional neglect isn’t something most parent figures do consciously.
A mother’s inability to fully bond with her child, and help the child co-regulate emotions comes from her lack of experience with her own mother.
We live in a society that does not understand our emotional needs and does not understand how these unmet emotional needs result in all kinds of dysfunctional (trauma-based) behaviours.
Childhood emotional neglect looks like this:
A parent figure who is unable to help the child navigate and process stressful emotions because they are unable to navigate their own
A parent figure who shuts down or punishes a child for feeling certain emotions
Denies the child’s reality or downplays the child’s painful or confusing experience
A pressure to perform, to achieve a desirable goal of the parent
Parent figure labelling the child’s reactions as “dramatic”, “whinny”, “too sensitive”
Boundaries of the child were overlooked or boundaries were violated; causing adult dysfunctional relationship dynamics- becoming co-depended, clingy, getting into toxic dysfunctional relationships, etc.
AUTHOR: Sana Rubiyana
The writer is a Psychologistand rational Emotive Cognitive Behaviour Therapist
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