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

Wow, this is incredibly informative! Existential loneliness is a term I had never heard before, but truly deeply resonate with. Thank you for what you do!

so how to heal from all this.

I'm 21 and my trauma happened at 7 years old. i face trouble speaking and have weak vocabulary no matter what i try. i give 100% in relationships to the point of overwhelming the other person. i have trouble with every part of my life and even though i moved away, changed, cut off family... it never changes.

I often take time away to process my thoughts and feelings about an emotional situation I find myself in. By the time I come back and I'm ready to talk - people are usually gone, or will avoid that conversation and I feel robbed off an opportunity to form deep, intimate connections. Is there solution for this?

Surprisingly, I take constructive criticism quite well and can see where and if I could have done better and it does not cause me an emotional turmoil.

Too many ads makes this experience unbearable & uninteresting

thank you

Heidi is amazing . Just working myself out now at 58 . ❤

I was a child of a toxic parent, I came from a very difficult life with him, and was even homeless with him for a very long time in the past and never had a good home life growing up. I managed to escape him, and had to go great lengths to get away from him. I was lucky to have known the people that had helped me and allowed me to stay with them. I went to go be with my extended family that had found me on the internet. They flew me in first class to go be with them, and I genuinely felt that I would belong with them because they’re my family. At first there was this honeymoon period, they thought of me as a gift from grandma that passed away. But what seemed like a gift from the universe, only turned into something that had psychologically wounded me. I was only with them for 3 months because of how difficult they seemed to have been to live with, and how strict and conditional their love and regard was towards me. I felt like I couldn’t really be loved or accepted for just the way I am, or that I had to constantly fit in to their idea of how I should live my life and be like to them. I felt like I was some kind of flawed and inadequate kid. I would hear them say things like “but he wasn’t raised that way!” “oh it’s just gonna take time”, “I just think he just wasn’t raised properly” …and it felt like I had to constantly jump through hoops in order to be loved, and if I don’t, then it’s basically ‘bye peace out can’t live with your family’. To this day I feel this deep, inner wound of rejection and unworthiness that I carry each and every day. My aunt would ask this weird question “what are the advantages that you think you have of being here?” but in my mind I’m like ‘I didn’t come here just so I can gain some kind of material advantages, I came to have a life here with my family just like any other kid would with their families, not a quid pro quo’.
But I just told her “I don’t know” , and she replied “then why did you come live with us honey?” and she didn’t even have any idea why I went to go be with them, even though she invited me and said “why not come stay here?”
I had unfortunately received some invalidating comments from others that I’ve tried to speak to about my trauma, they’ve said things like “why should they love you” and “who are you and why should you be loved and cared for” and another person said “you don’t seem to realize that you’re wanting a warped and distorted image of your family” “you are not your brother you’re not their kid” and I’ve basically been labeled as having some kind of “sense of entitlement”.
So for a kid or young person to have an innate desire and need to have a family home or to simply live with his or hers own family they would have a “sense of entitlement”? What kind of cold world do we live in?
Isn’t every kid or young person deserving of what I believe to be the most basic, simplest thing that any young person could have, which is a family home, or to simply live with one’s own blood relational family, in a home? With parents, caregivers, siblings, etc? Shouldn’t it be like the norm and standard for every kid or young person? But for some reason, I’m being considered by some people as like bad, evil or reprehensible for trying to have that with my own family? I tend to think if my friends can live with their families, why can’t I live with mine? I once had a former friend who I thought would always be validating of my trauma, but he one time went against me and invalidated me and said; “Well they raised your brother! They raised him and not you so he’s their kid!” and he laughed at me. So whose kid am I? Where does that leave me then?
and so after some years later I came to figure out, that perhaps the reason why I was treated the way I was treated by my family, was all because they raised my sibling and they never raised me. I can’t believe that, I went through that whole process, of getting away from my father, and finally got to be with my extended family and my brother that I never got to grow up with since we were born, and after going through such a nightmarish life with a narcissist father, only for it to, pretty much, backfire on me? all because ‘they raised him and not me’. So in order for a kid or young person to live with his or hers own family they have to be born and raised into it? And it’s unfair to me how my brother got to have what they called a “privileged life” while my life and upbringing got robbed by a toxic father.
One person on the internet said to me “he was brought up by them and you weren’t so don’t go thinking you could have the same because the world doesn’t work that way.” 😒wow. In contrast, someone had recognized the validity of how I feel and that person said “your story saddens me so much, how on earth could you not be allowed just the same if not more’ 😔.
I remember I stayed with a friend of mine and his family because his mom couldn’t sleep at night knowing that I was sleeping in a car in a parking lot somewhere with my father. They treated me as equally as their two boys, I wanted that with my family and my brother.
It’s incredibly sad and disheartening to me that, I go to my family expecting all the love and care in the world, only to seemingly be met with sort of the opposite, I just don’t understand that if they can love and care for one kid all of his life why can’t they do just the same for the other? I believe every kid and young person deserves a good home life with their families.
But I guess I can’t have that with my own family all because they raised him and not me.
I used to envy other kids that had normal family homes, I stayed with some of them, but couldn’t actually live with them or claim it as my home all because I just, ‘wasn’t their kid’. Since my aunt apparently didn’t have any idea why I went to go be with them maybe I should’ve told her that the one question I always asked myself was, how come other kids get to have a family home and live with family in a home and I don’t?
They bought a condo and now my brother is living in it for free…
I was told that there was only one baby on the table…
We never chose our parents…
and I never chose this life…

This unlocked a lot of deep stuff for me. Thank you for this video and using the words you did. It all made sense for me. ❤

Heidi , you are fortunate that you are in the field so that you could heal yourself. How can people who cannot afford to see a professionals , heal themselves of CPTSD caused by a loveless violently abusive childhood- can some of the techniques such as EMDR work

Cool ❤

Ok, but like, there are folks who, when in desperate need of emotional support, are rallied around despite them being in a vulnerable, unattractive place. So, when you're in the same place with the same needs and people who could help deliberately run away... How is it not supposed to feel like there's just no hope for you? How is it supposed to feel like you're just as worthy of mentorship when every person you've reached out to for mentorship has rejected you? How is the problem not me?

Love this.

Because of my childhood I would consciously say "my feelings don't matter" and from something else I got that my feelings were very important, so I tried noticing my feelings for 2 weeks, I felt better and I chose not to stop noticing my feelings.

Having grown up in a family and background completely made up of Jehovah's Witnesses, I an assure you that everyone and everything in that religious group will make sure No personal experience matters or will ever matter. And will have no important meaning whatsoever. Leaving a trail of destruction in families and lots of suffering from silent depression

This and other videos about toxic shame and emotional neglect has helped me so much! I feel understood and I wanted to thank you for it ❤

I LOVE this video Heidi! Soooo TRANSFORMATIVE, Thank you, thank you!!!!!!!! ❤🎉

this is the best video out there that explains what i felt

A father might aggravate a child until they are in a confused, anxious, angry state, and then he ridicules the child in front of everyone. THAT’s how it happens.

It's interesting that you briefly mention schizophrenia. I actually have schizoaffective disorder, and I can definitely say that because of horrible abuse throughout my life, I have to chronically dissociate from my own emotions and couldn't be in touch with my emotions. Slowly, over time, though, I'm getting better. This video really uplifted me and encouraged to follow what truly makes me happy and go after what I really want. In my schizophrenic episodes, I feel "free" from all the restrictions and limitations I've placed on myself and feel very in tune with things I want and need. In my depressive episodes though, I feel socially inhibited. It's getting so much better. Really starting to realize there is hope for me

You describe exactly what is happening for me now, as an adult. My brother died, and 2 years later my parents no longer acknowledge it or recognise the pain. Theirs or mine. I feel deep pain and grief and I know they do too, in their quiet moments. They just don't make any attempt to acknowledge it out loud or share that together. It's incredibly isolating and alienating. This is just more of what I experienced as a child, but now compounded by my brothers death.

Wow. My jaw is on the floor.

Wow 🌟 illuminating
…laying out the whole program for me ❤
A lot of work ahead 😅

Are all american women talk weirdly?

Thanks!

We are both avoidants; he leans dismissive and I lean anxious. he revealed his true self of cheating and his sense of the reasons and that he is sorry and has taken full responsibility of his behaviour. He says he is trying to get better. while I’m hurting i have acknowledged to him is brave to talk about things he is shameful about . But I need to look after myself and its very tough for me wherein I hope he understands I haven’t broken up because I rejected him for opening up; I have to do this because of the harm done to me. Most times when people share their dark truths they have already caused enough hurt and damage

Well this rabbit hole has been eye opening. But it's dark down here without a fleshlight.

I'm 35 years old so there's still time to do a bit of catching up on some fishing with this monster reel of mine.

@heidipriebe1 any recommendations on good places on the west coast for tantric coaching? Om in Canada but om Bri'ish in I? I enjoy train travel.

When i go to my remaining parent with a broken heart/head she says - i dont like to hear you like this/see you like this- and doesnt respond until i get back in touch 'normal' again. I counsell her through every anxiety she has and it is never reciprocated. I have been doing an experiment of not contacting her to see how long it takes for her to get in touch without needing me to do something for her. No contact at all has come. When i was a child she told me to stop crying whenever i came to her. Nothing has changed and the damage feels irreversable now. I feel ashamed of myself for being hurt by it. Would it be wrong to emancipate at this late stage? I cant take much more of this feeling of not mattering to the person i should matter to most in the world. Its too painful. I cant imagine being so emotionally detatched to my own child. He means the world to me. It hurts more knowing that. Vent over

I got really angry watching this video.

Not because I dont agree with what you say.

But, I'd call myself an empathetic young male nurse with a huge intrest in psychology.

And I was diagnosed with ADHD after 27 years, after 14 years of sleeping problems.

My parents got divorced, when I was 6 and like, my mom had her own small business she wasnt ready to give up.

Over the years, I started realising things and she always made me feel like an oversensitive 'hypochondriac'.

I was abused as a 9 year old by a 13 or 14 year old friend of my brother.

I started developping sleeping trouble not only bc of that, but also because she send me to the next best 'high school' after me beeing rejected by the first because of class sizes. I wanted to go to this or another, 'lower education' high school.
Switching schools, I lost all my friends. First in school breaks, than more and more at home.

With 18, I got kicked out of my small job, didnt go to school anymore and got kicked out of school with 19, just to be called a hopeless loser by my mom, while getting legal trouble with my dad for child support I got with 19, him demanding 800€ back from me.

I wanted to commit, and she said, that I'm 'exactly like your father.', threateting with it to get my way.

I already made a noose and was in the woods a lot at this time...

I had so much shit going on, and whenever I tried to talk to my mom, all she said was, that she's got enough trouble with her business and that customers are so annoying, and so on and so forth.

Every sport I wanted to start, I would have had to plan how to get there on my own. Same with doctors appointments.

When I was talking about depression with 19, she said word by word: "Depression seems like a trend. For people that actually got enough time to sit down with their asses and fabricate reasons why their lives suck"

I mean, I can wholeheartedly say, that my grandma was exactly the same.

But since I started coping in, let's say bad ways, whenever I bring up how, not the fact these things happen, but the betrayal of her questioning me, when I actually would have needed her support than and now is what always totally floors me emotionally.

At first, I of course was to young to understand the world, and what therapy really is.

Than I was not reasonable for going on drinking escapades, which totally makes your sober arguments 100% invalid.. by now it has gotten that I've got a completely warped perception, not even half the things that really make me wonder until today, are even partially true, it's my fault and I should accept that, not even a family therapy would bring us forward, because she "knows whats true, I dont need a third party opinion and this idea is just rediculous"

Thing is, she will probably not understand that it's worth it to be emotional and not avoiding your emotions or the emotions of others until she'll be almost dead. Because that's exactly what my grandma is doing just now.

Fuck generational trauma fr.

Heidi, I've watched several of your videos several times, and they very much resonate with me. Your explanations have opened my eyes, after many years of therapy, to my own emotional neglect and CPTSD. I found a good, compassionate counselor who recently confirmed my self-diagnosis of CPTSD. Your channel will be a regular stop on my path of healing. Sincere gratitude-❤

You have just validated my cPTSD life experience for first time in nearly 51 years - mind blown

No way in hell im going to go be "vulnerable' to a group of strangers it literally goes against all common sense. I'm almost 60. "Mentors" dont exist for men at my age. One is just seen as pathetic. It sucks, but that is the way society is. Grin and bear it. No psychology will make the outside world better.

I was emotionally neglected in my childhood, my parents didn't care about my ocd at all, they shamed me everytime I approached them, because of that I am scared

If I had water I would have spit it out of my mouth. "We’ll end up following these formulas set by other people, without checking in on “does this fit for me”, “do I feel aligned with these things”.

This is EXACTLY the conclusion I realized this summer while traveling Kyrgyzstan, being around the world working and traveling for the past 10 years.
I had a shock, a realization- not 1 time in these 10 years had I ever checked in with myself, and reflected "what do I want?" I then sat down for the first time ever and began to journal about it all, checking in with what I feel aligned with....

"you HAVE TO believe that there are ways in which your environment can and will be able to nourish your inner world, and you HAVE TO GO OUT searching for them"

Can you do a video on how to provide good emotional guidance to our children to prevent thiz from happening to them? Or to adults? I've been working on myself and feel much more connected to myself, my space and others through getting to know, understand and feel my true authentic self, I am hoping that this is enough to help my kids feel cared for as I have more emotional space to hold tbem and provide a safe container for them to be their authentic selves. I hope this is going to be a good foundation for them. I am also making sure that I am emotionally receptive to what they have ti say to ne. Feedback from my own kids through their body language and words, and not getting defensive, I hope will help them to stay in tune with themselves and not be afraid of their inner world, and have trust for others, and not take things personally 😅

This is one of the best videos ive ever seen

I want to be more authentic with my family, specifically my brothers, as both my parents are no longer alive. When I try to talk about emotional wounding, grief and sadness, which I feel is natural, especially since our mother died by suicide when my twin and I were 21 and older brother 22, and our father was emotionally abusive and neglectful, (and neglect from mum because she was in survival mode) it’s too uncomfortable for them to talk about, and I get dismissed as being too emotional and too sensitive and end up hearing statements such as “what can you do”.

Because I was the most sensitive in the family with us kids in displaying my feelings and punished and shamed for those displays of emotion, I became the scapegoat in the family for other family members suppressed emotions. I realize my brothers were traumatized too by this emotionally unsafe environment and are unwilling or unable to discuss things but it’s incredibly lonely not being able to specifically to them as we all lived in the environment.

Both of my brothers are married and because I am divorced, and despite a couple of long term relationships after that, that I chose to end because I was in them for the wrong reasons, ie my loneliness and attachment issues, I’m further seen as this troubled, needy and insecure person. I’m not looked at as strong for ending things that weren’t good for me.

In addition, the dynamic of not being partnered means people are less respectful and loosen their boundaries on what they think is acceptable to say to you. This extends to outside my brothers and sisters in law, to friends and even strangers. People have said things to me they would never dare say or imply about me when I was partnered. I believe it’s kind of a protection of safety in numbers having another person in your tribe (a partner) that will be there to defend you, that people hold themselves in check more. Also if your partner holds you in regard then others are more likely to.

The status of being single in society of being “less than” is well and alive. Being partnered afforded me a level of respect and protection from harsher judgement when I was with any partner. I feel like no-one has my back, and because of people being avoidant of their own emotions, me talking about mine triggers them and I am cast back into some kind of scapegoat role, with all of this stuff being projected onto me. I had thought, well I must just be this whining, oversensitive person, and maybe I don’t realize it. To hear you talk about it in terms of processing things in real time and that it is actually healthy, has helped me immensely.

However, I’m finding that if I’m asked how I am, it is only acceptable to others if I talk mainly positively or keep my “complaining” to a certain level. When I have gone deeper, the unsolicited advice, that I don’t need starts up all over again. This dynamic has been going on for years. 😢😢.
I’m so tired of it. Almost 2 years ago I got breast cancer. This naturally scared me and everyone else, but it didn’t change the dynamic, it worsened it. I felt more silenced than ever when I tried to talk about being scared etc and along came platitudes of think positive, be strong, you’ll be ok.

I’m more lonely than ever. Disconnected. And I guess if I was partnered maybe I would have less need to get some of my emotional needs met by my brothers because I would talk to the partner. But even so, I still want to talk to my brothers about our upbringing, not just the positive stuff that I currently share. For more context though, this is my analysis, but to the outside it is far more subtle and we probably just look like “happy families”. There is happiness and other positive bonding, but I am unhappy with it being so prescriptive and the underlying unwritten rules on what is acceptable expression. If you’ve gotten this far, thankyou for reading. I really needed to put my emotions down.

Trauma, Stress, cortisol and diabetes is what I'm saved from through the death of God in Christ Jesus of Nazareth 😅🤣😂

My brother died when I was 9 and I was pretty much raised to believe to just accept it all. “Don’t complain. At least you’re not dead.”

Good stuff but what about when you're over focused on self like always self conscious which isn't fun or healthy

So... what kind of therapist specialty would you recommend to address emotional neglect? A somatic therapist?

When you were telling that joke about someone with PTSD and someone with CPTSD, I knew right away what the latter would say 😂Anyway, moving on... At this point I'm too tired to try things. I've tried too many times, and I suppose I'll do it again, but... I feel so empty inside. Thank you for your videos, I needed to hear a few things.

Emotional neglect caused me to have poor social skills, parents didn't eve even interact with me as a normal person caused me to lose out on social interactions at a young age, become socially awkward and grew up as a loner as a child. Stunted social skills as an adult now, which caused me to be terrible in areas like career and relationships.
It's really hard to play catch up in your social skills when your playtime and friend making is lost because ur parents don't play a part in role model for social development. Parents left me at home at a young age without talking to me, I had no one to play with/interact because my parents don't go out and mingle at social events.

When I was growing up I would try to share my thoughts on things at dinner but I wasn’t good at expressing myself, and without fail, my two older sisters would constantly interrupt me, so I would get upset, my mom would tell them to listen. I would then start over from the beginning, then they would groan and complain, I would get more mad, then they would poke fun at me and before I knew it both of my sisters and my mom would be laughing at me because apparently it was funny to see me upset, so I would just refuse to share. Oh, and it was just us 4, because my dad wasn’t around by choice, so this was a regular thing and I had no backup because women will always back each other over any male. Now I barely talk with any of them, except for when I see them. I rarely call anyone even when I want to talk because I honestly believe people care about what I think. This is the point I usually delete a comment like this, but I’m posting it anyway.

Thanks

Thanks

You are very good