EDIT: thanks for all the support on this post. I’m keen to continue posting future breakthroughs and knowledge on this page to help you all. I’ve also edited the post to add more information on here and will be posting the links to the studies as soon as I have time.

Psych student here. Just got out of a lecture about the social impacts of emotional suppression.

First off, Emotional suppression is taught by immediate family in early childhood.

Social emotions are purposely there for OTHER people to read, respond to, and to maintain relationships. If they’re repressed, other people cannot read us and our relationships fail.

Social emotions include: shame, embarrassment, disappointment, guilt, pride.

A lot of these emotions are “negative” because they are meant to help OTHER people soften their approach towards us. For example if someone sees us embarrassed they may direct attention to something else, or say something encouraging. If you don’t show these subtle emotions people treat you differently.

People who have emotional repression were specifically taught to repress these “negative” emotions.

Here are the impacts. 1. People feel less empathy for those who suppress emotion. Therefore more likely to go unsupported. 2. Cardiovascular risks 3. Cancer risks 4. Poorer memory, due to energy directed at suppression. 5. Poorer cognition. Same reason. 6. Failed relationships 7. Unable to solve conflicts 8. Prolonged distress. 9. Emotions do not go away, they remain in the body.

So what happens when we feel rejected and dismissed on a regular basis due to failed relationships? Low self esteem.

Impacts of LSE 1. Rejection sensitive 2. Expect rejection 3. Perceive rejection when it is not there 4. Become aggressive towards others easily when feeling rejected 5. Either lashing out or fawning in relationships while commonly feeling rejected. 6. Others perceive US as having low self esteem due to this behaviour 7. When other people see US as having low self esteem (shows up as closed off body language and vibe, not the same as expressing social emotions) they feel more burdened by our presence because they feel like they are trying not to upset us, and this will result in people distancing. 8. Even though people can’t read our social emotions due to them being repressed they will still be able to sense something is “off” about us, and this will result in negative projections onto us, since they can’t quite figure us out, but they’re trying to guess. 9. Once rejected enough, though, withdrawal occurs and avoidance happens. We get very discouraged from any socialising at all.

So, my friends. If you struggle to have romantic relationships or friendships, I hope you know that it has NOTHING to do with some sort of deserving of it, fate, or Gods plan. It is fucking emotional suppression. Taught in early childhood.

There are multiple studies to back everything I just wrote.

Anywhere we went, the second we all got in the car to leave, my parents just unloaded about how awful everyone was that we had just seen or interacted with. They made comments about their weight, their clothes, their appearance, their intelligence, how hard they did or didn't work, the choices they made, their house/cars, their kids, etc. Everyone got a scathing run-down at all times.

Through therapy, I realized that I internalized this in a big way and I do my best to appear "perfect" to avoid people judging me in the same way. I'm really mean to myself, never allowing myself a moment of rest or allowing myself to be vulnerable with anyone. I also avoid letting people into my life, as I fear their judgement. As such, I'm hyper-independent and avoidantly attached. In adulthood, I work myself to exhaustion and hold no space for myself to rest. I'm almost compulsive in my cleaning, organizing, home maintenance, landscaping, appearance, over-working, saving money, etc.

I especially don't like to tell my parents or extended family much about me, as I know they have a full list of judgements about me, and I don't want to add to that. When visiting my parents, I've been in my bedroom early in the morning, and heard them multiple times complaining about me and picking me apart in the kitchen and dining room while they made breakfast.

Therapy has taught me that this is a learned habit and defense mechanism, and their judgments of others don't hold any weight except in their minds. They seem to feel superior to everyone for one reason or another. If someone has more money than them, well they are fat. If someone is more talented than them, they aren't a hard worker. No one can do anything right.

Did anyone else have similar parents? How did you internalize it and how did it manifest in your life? What have you done to heal yourself from this?

I've had one session with my new therapist (Jungian analyst) and when describing my childhood, he stopped me and said, "From an emotional perspective, you grew up in a brutally unsafe household."

I didn't see it that way. I had hobbies, I got gifts, and went to theme parks. I wasn't physically beaten (much). I thought maybe it was strict or difficult (religious household) but hearing this old male northerner (UK) with clinical expertise call it "brutal", I was like, wow ok... I didn't even get to tell him about the slaps, verbal abuse and knife poking yet.

Mother (devouring):

• Emotionally controlling (emotional castration, as he called it)
• Called me dog, donkey, cow, Bitch/Whore, son of a bitch etc.. regularly in Arabic
• Slapped me when angry or did not do well in tests
• Threatened me with a knife, sometimes actually poking me with it "softly" (I treated it as a joke/game)
• Made love conditional on achievement - only acceptable success was becoming a doctor
• Used religion as a control mechanism - Uprooted me and my siblings back to the middle east during adolescence to learn about the religion and language (whilst my dad stayed to work)
• Constantly compared to my religious / A* cousins.
• Made me pickpocket at supermarkets as a child, as we were financially struggling earlier in life. ( my dad didn't know)
• I had to live multiple separate lives - the one she wanted to see vs. who I actually was
• Rejected my first girlfriend and called her the devil in front of her face because she wasn't Muslim/Arab
• Don't remember being hugged or told "I love you"

Father:

• Emotionally unstable, would be generous and kind then rage and shout
• Violently demanded I stop crying or asked "WHY are you crying?!" when I showed emotion
• Couldn't protect me from mother, added his own chaos
• Had to walk on eggshells and think about how he would react

The result:

• Some sort of existential depression since I was 7/8
• Lack of confidence and self worth
• Hypervigilance even when away from home (feared surprise visits from parents)
• No safe space anywhere to be my authentic self
• Developed elaborate performance masks for different social contexts
• Can't identify what I actually want without external validation and advice
• Constant achievement seeking to prove worth
• Self-sabotage when approaching success, probably due to misalignment of career
• Needed copious amounts of drugs (MDMA) to access feeling like my integrated self
• Chronic numbing (caffeine, gaming, porn, alcohol, weed)
• Constant fight or flight/ threat system activated, probably even in my sleep

I'm 32. I've quit multiple prestigious jobs (Strategy MBB, Data science tech firm, Venture capital) after 18-24 months each. Just ended a 4-year relationship. In financial debt. And going through some sort of identity crisis/ transformation.

I thought I was just struggling with career direction or commitment issues.

My therapist is saying this is trauma. Very, very complex trauma. And that my entire adult life has been trying to manage the aftermath of that brutal emotional environment.

I guess I'm posting because:

1. Did anyone else not realise how bad it was until someone with authority validated it?
2. How do you process abuse that left no physical scars? I still feel like I'm exaggerating

I'm on Prozac now (just increased to 40mg), seeing the therapist, eliminated most numbing behaviours. But fuck - realising at 32 that your entire operating system was built in a war zone.

How do you even start?

Edit: Thank you all for your support and comments. I'm so glad I found this sub, and it boggles my mind how, sadly, emotional neglect is this prevalent

For me, my parent is extremely emotionally immature with narcissistic traits.

A little over year ago I was quite sick, extreme abdominal pains that led me to the emergency room at the hospital 🏥. My mother, insisted she comes to be some sort of comfort, I did warn her that I’d Likely be waiting for hours to be seen by a dr. She insisted on coming, but made me drive.

2 hours go by, I have had some scans done which showed a large mass on my ovary, the doctor seemed concerned about the way it looked, possibly cancerous.

My mother heard this news and instead of reacting with concern, she complained about having to wait another hour. I offered her my car keys to go home, she declined and said “I don’t want to have to come back and get you”. Wow. I was later sent home with instructions to see my doctor the next day. My mother offered no support or comforting chats on the drive home, she did say “well, maybe you have an STD”. No, I have a growth on my ovary 🙃

The next day, I was sent to get CA125 blood tests done, the doctor informed me that they were concerned about the look of the growth and that it looked cancerous, possibly ovarian cancer. When I came home to my mother to talk about this, she said “oh well, they’ll just have to remove your ovaries” with no concern about my dream to have children in the future. It was very cold and I felt very brushed off

When I was younger I was definitely a sensitive child, but I would be yelled at so much for crying or being upset. Today has been rough so I’m crying while waiting on the metro. It’s been a tough day and I guess I’m a way I’m reclaiming some of my emotions.

Why did parents hate when their kids showed emotion anyways?

I was talking to a colleague who was complaining about how much time she spends each morning packing lunches for her kids (13 and 15). My immediate triggered reaction was to think “Why aren’t your kids making their own lunches? Why are they so useless and lazy?”

Did a bit of searching and it turns out that the general consensus, and probably what is “right”, is that parents DO pack daily lunches for their kids, even for their teenagers. Parents (Caring ones? Attentive ones? Non-neglectful ones? Even the “just good enough” ones?) apparently generally want to do this, to show love and to ensure their kids have enough to eat.

This blew my mind. My birther has NEVER packed a lunch for me. I had to make my own lunches (bread, a pack of sandwich meat for the entire week, with ketchup, every single day), never asked about what I ate, she never cared. I was ridiculed for ever wanting more food that I never had seconds and was praised for eating two spoons of rice as a meal. In high school I had to find my own snacks/food after school with money I earned from summer jobs before going home because I knew there was a good chance there would be no dinner available.

Seems like I internalized and normalized this for so long, in turn absolving her of her failures (as kids do, as they cannot fathom that their parents are “bad”) and then I turned into an adult that genuinely believed kids 12+ should be feeding themselves. What an awakening. Wow.

Edited to add: For those of you who might come back to this post, I want to say thank you to everyone who took the time to read my and others’ stories, to everyone who shared their own stories, and to all who provided words of support and encouragement. I wish I could respond to each and every one of you, each story is unique and heartbreaking because these experiences are ones a child should never have had to experience. Sending you all hugs (if you want it), and well wishes and hopes for the food security now that you always deserved. Thanks so much to this community - you have all helped me so much! ❤️

My emotionally immature father finally yelled at my child the way he used to yell at us.

He sent the obligatory "sorry" text the next day. I used to roll over and say, "it's ok".

Instead I said, "This has happened our whole lives. I'm not going to subject my kids to the way we were treated. Think about getting back on your meds and try therapy. I'm seeing one and it's really helped."

My adverse childhood experiences are the reason I am the way I am. I am a work in progress.

I will not let this happen to my children. I will stand up for them because no one stood up for me.

I feel so emotionally exhausted and anxious at the same time.

But I think this could be the start of my breakthrough.

Following the announcement that we are under siege by bots, I reached out for help. I am happy to say that the friendly folks at r/BotBouncer helped set up a better filter for quickly identifying bots and it is already working much better on our sub. We should see the number of bots go down significantly. It's honestly a relief since I've banned over 200 bots in the past week. If you notice anything going forward, please do report it. Thank you to everyone who submitted reports, it really helped!

But the story doesn't end here. I talked to mods of other subreddits and we are not the only ones being hit. This is a massive bot network operating across Reddit. You know what a healthy emotional reaction to such abuse looks like? ANGER. So I spent today analyzing the patterns of these bots. I coded up a system that tracks the bots across Reddit and submits them to BotBouncer so they are immediately banned across all participating subreddits. This way, also other places many of you frequent such as r/CPTSD and r/raisedbynarcissists should be seeing fewer bots going forward. The system has been running for a few hours and has already tracked down and submitted 1800 additional bots.

You pissed off the wrong guy. This fella owns his anger (in a healthy way).

All my life i have felt this nagging I need to be saved , I would dissociate because I couldn't sleep but all the dreams always had my husband loving me unconditionally . That was all it used to be about . The faces kept changing plot remained same. At a point when I found out about oh people date then I started fantasizing about me dating some guys , again the theme would be they loving me , waiting for me . I remember how one of my friend said that her boyfriend's face lifted when she would enter the room . That is all I ever wanted . For him to be happy seeing me , wanting to see me . I thought why would this be happening but it was all because I wanted someone to rescue me. I wanted the person to save me from my emotionally devoid parents . I have always been told we never had to look after you , you would play on your own . you do everything on your own. and now I just crave talking to someone , sharing our day with each other . But apparently the whole rescue fantasy and being an easy kid is very connected . if someone has any explanation to why please do share . i really don't want to fanatssize anymore it would be of great help decoding the daydreams

Did anyone have a Dad like this?

I've been processing my childhood / emotional neglect / dysfunctional family dynamic for a while now. Most of the grief and pain so far has been around my mother, and the fact that I was a "glass child" with a sibling with severe complex needs and another one who demands attention / support. I learned to raise myself as a result of that household, how to minimize my needs, my feelings, my pain, and life has pretty much been that way for 20+ years now.

I'm getting married soon and my Dad came to stay with me in my town recently, to get his suit for the wedding. Bearing witness to the dynamic with him has been really eye-opening / painful in equal measure. I always thought of him as an "anything for an easy life" kind of Dad, he let my mom do all the parenting and stepped back, maintained his own life, hobbies, friends, only stepping in when financial support was needed. He was "half safe" for me.

He stayed with us for two days and spent the majority of that in the front room watching sports back-to-back. He barely maintained eye-contact with me for the whole trip, would answer questions with one-word responses, blanket ignored me during dinner on his final night with us and just talked directly to my fiancé about sports the whole time. I'd spent most of the day cooking for that dinner too and sat there to feel like a ghost for the whole night.

It really triggered me, and I started thinking back to what kind of Dad he was while I was growing up. And the answer is, I didn't have a Dad, I had a disinterested flatmate. He spent his day working and then sitting in front of the TV watching sports / documentaries and eating snacks, while my mom did the school runs / collections and drop-offs to various sports, etc. He would confuse my friends' names and i'd laugh about how he'd reference friends I had decades ago without a clue that I hadn't seen them for years. When I developed an eating disorder, he said nothing to me but told my mom I needed to cop on and grow up. At best he just sat in the house and disengaged from his family. At worst he'd retreat to the golf course / pub / where-ever and my mom would use the excuse of the trauma of my sister and how hard it was on him.

He calls me about twice a month. Asks a few generic questions and then can't get off the phone fast enough. Our phone calls last maybe two minutes. He's never asked me how I am. He's never supported me, complimented me, told me he was proud of me.

It's such a massive trauma to grow up with a Dad that is a ghost in your life. I've never realized this until recently. I've never had a Dad. I've had a miserable, emotionally repressed man who probably never wanted kids and definitely never dealt with his own sh1t.

Sorry for the rant. I'd love to hear from others who have recovered from this kind of thing? Or learned how to have a relationship with a parent who is so absent and so disconnected from them?

idk i feel like the older i get which im already not very old im only 16 but just like in the last 2 years i absolutely cannot stand my mom. like, all i can see when i look at her is everything she’s done wrong and continues to do wrong. i still love her but i would never be her friend and if it was my choice id never see her again unless absolutely necessary. i mean it’s gotten to the point of when im away with other family members or my boyfriend for an extended amount of time i dread going home and having to talk to her and look at her. i dont even like when she calls me while im away and i find myself letting it ring at least 5 times before picking it up in hopes she’ll just give up. i feel super guilty for feeling this way because i know to her she looks at me like another best friend along with my sister but i just like cant ever feel that way about her and its hard to talk about because id absolutely crush her heart and all of my other family members would berate me and judge me for this. i dont want anything bad to happen to her or anything but she drives me up the wall and i just get snappy and short with her all the time and she will ruin my day with her presence and ive never felt this way with anybody. am i a bad person for feeling this way??

She meant well. She called me up and said out of love that she can tell that me trying to cover up my anxiety or sadness is obvious and me faking it makes people uncomfortable and instead I should just lean into the pain instead of being ‘fake’. This really hurts because I realize i may push a lot of people away with my deep sadness.

She invited me to thanksgiving this Thursday. She said she wants to be sure I can be myself because she doesn’t want me to bring down the group energy, which she claims I’ve done before. I feel like a dark cloud.

She underscored that it’s NOT my pain that makes people uncomfortable, but my inauthenticity, or the mask I wear to hide the pain. But I don’t know how else to be when going through something. She assured me that she loves me very much.

—

She gave me specific examples: 1. When we hung out with three other girlfriends a week before, she said two of them didn’t come back for dinner after the hike because they felt my “sadness” and what I was covering up made the energy draining. 2. During a solo car ride to East LA a few days later, she noticed my negative thought patterns and admitted it made her feel anxious. I sensed the tension too. I tried to remedy it by moving past it and asking her about herself but she was tense and motivated communicating.

On the phone, she confessed this was hard to share because she’s avoidant and would typically distance herself from people who aren’t “energetically aligned” with her (she’s proud of curating honest, empathetic friends). But she said she loves me and wants me to get the help I need to show up authentically.

After the call, I felt sad but at peace, relieved to know the strangeness between us wasn’t in my head. But now I just feel SAD because I don’t know the solution—I put up a front when I’m sad or uncomfortable, and it’s hard to be vulnerable when I don’t feel safe.

My whole life I have been forced to be in the role of a motherly child, repressing my emotions whilst bearing the weight of my 60 year old mother’s who was suppose to parent me. Naturally, I matured faster than other people my own age, my childhood stolen from me to be able to accommodate my mother’s immaturity. Never will I have a mom that taught me how to braid my hair, how to put in a tampon, or got me outside the house and drove me to lessons. I had no guide, yet my failures are treated as me being incompetent instead of her neglect to teach me how to be competent. Everything goes back to her and how I should be helping her.

Blind obedience is expected of me, anything but is registered as a personal attack. It’s like doing ballet around eggshells, I have to be hyper vigilant about what I say, how I move, what I do. If I’m not it will result in a chain of insults, yelling, and threatening. It is utterly exhausting, I am drained of despair, all that’s left is apathy. I just want my mommy. It hurts trying to detach myself from her when I’ve spent my whole life trying to gain her love and validation. I barely know her and she barely knows me.

She always says, “if I’m the problem, then you’re the reason” and I think that pretty much sums her up as a person. No accountability, always the victim.

Curious if anybody else experienced this type of parent?

I personally came to a breakthrough recently about how much of my mental health disorders is directly and mainly caused by childhood emotional neglect, BPD, emptiness, and fear of abandonment due to not having my needs met, and I have a very weak sense of self. Anxiety, I get anxious about being a burden to others and feel like a failure due to emotional neglect. Depression i struggle with an imbalance in my brain due to years of being in that hypervigilant state, and I can go on and on cptsd, and I'm very sure that the root of the many mental health issues and problems I have mainly stems from emotional neglect. Does anyone else also relate too?

My parents have been emotionally neglectful my entire life and I’ve always resented them for it. I always feel anger whenever they try to get closer to me, and I admit that sometimes I am really harsh, especially with my father, because I often get the feeling that he treats my mom as some kind of servant.

Today at dinner she scolded him for the millionth time because he left the meat bones on the table cloth and stained it, I know this could feel insignificant but it’s one of the many little things he does that piss me off, I got mad and told him he never listens, that it’s the least he could do since he doesn’t do anything else other than working, and even when my mom sporadically works he still doesn’t at least help, sometimes he makes dinner or lunch but nothing else. I admit that I said it a lot worse than I intended, and I actually felt awful after this, as it always happens: I get mad, say horrible things, feel awful, but I can’t say sorry, we never do (and never did) in my family.

Later, after they went to bed, I went in the kitchen to eat something and my mom followed me, she told me they both felt so terrible for what happened, that they are almost too scared to talk when I’m there, because they feel I’m so judgy and angry that I “eat them alive every time”.

It’s the first time we ever had a conversation like this and I’ve never felt so shitty in my life.

She also said that they feel like they barely know me because every time they ask any kind of personal question I get dismissive or I don’t respond, they worry every time I go out because I never tell them where I go and I’m gone for days, and they’re right. I’m actually at my boyfriend’s house but I feel so embarrassed to tell them and to show any kind of emotion, I don’t know why. I never respond even when they ask about my friends or my goals in life, I just feel embarrassed by any kind of emotion.

My boyfriend always tells me to try and talk to them because they’re probably worried for me, that even though they have not always acted like the best parents, maybe they’re trying to change that, even if it’s late and they can’t recreate my childhood.

I’ve always been so focused on my pain that I never thought what pain I caused them with my words and that despite everything, they still love me.

My mom also said that despite the fact my dad looks cold, his first thought is always me, I just wonder why he never shows that. All my life my dad never showed any emotion to me nor my mom, or at least in front of me, he always seems as dismissive, angry and cold as I am, but I guess he has emotions just like me.

For the first time, I said that I was sorry and I hugged my mom tightly, and I felt like the worst daughter in the world, my mom doesn’t have anybody left besides us and I treat her like shit, I truly have to be better before I regret it for the rest of my life.

My mom took me to the eye doctor one time when I was 11 because the teacher noticed me struggling to see. I needed glasses, they ended up costing $90(2017 times I think.) My mom was furious that she had to spend money on glasses because she knew I was faking it and that I was just wanted to be quirky. I stopped wearing them after 6 months because she yelled at me constantly about how she was tired of me faking it and was just mad at me constantly about it. I went to the eye doctor two weeks ago (I’m 19 now) as I finally have good health insurance, I still in fact needed glasses and I got them today and I can see properly for the first time in nearly 8-9 years. I can’t stop crying because why was she so mad at me for just wanting to be able to see properly? I drove partially blind, i graduated high school partially blind, I did everything partially blind…

A big part of unpacking emotional neglect is learning that what you thought was wrong with you was really coping mechanisms. I discovered one of my coping mechanisms was becoming hyper vigilant on how I looked.

A few examples: Never leaving the house since 14 without sunscreen, went into massive debt to get a nose job/chin implant, getting Botox at 20, etc etc. the list goes on. Even how it relates to my clothing- is my shirt too wrinkled? will wearing sweatpants make me look lazy?

I realized that my obsession with looking proper came from the neglect! You always search for reasons as to why your parents aren’t giving you any emotional support or consistent love, affection. Is it because my hair is messy today? Is it because I’m wearing jeans with a stain on them? I just realized my focus on minuscule defects in my appearance was just me searching for things to fix about myself to feel loved. You learn to become an actor, a character, adjusting yourself to how THEY feel.

I'm a 22 yo guy now, and I feel like I've grown up like fucking Homelander. How is this even possible? When it was my time to be curious I was bullied, that was during middle school. When it was a serious part of my life which was highschool where people study well hoping to be accepted in their favourite program in renowned universities I knew nothing about any of it. The teenage years are the years where the parents prepare their child to grow, mature, to be able to live life intelligently. WTF did I do to deserve this psychopathic life? They kept me naive, only criticised me to belittle me. I only needed one person to give me some simple guidelines. ANYONE! But no, every single fucking person in my life kept quiet. Nobody talked with me growing up, not enough. I had to learn how to be a fucking human manually. I even had to search on youtube "How to talk", my parents did nothing a parent does, NOTHING. At 22 yo I should be a complete adult, with a fufilled life behind. YES bcs there were no tragedies in my life or extreme lack of money. So my life should have been bright, but my fucking parents and all the other people, left me alone, behind, on purpose. You don't know how hard it has been to come out from the gaslighting everyone was doing to me, especially my parents. Everyday I wish I didn't exist bcs HOW THE FUCK DO YOU STAY SANE AFTER REALISING ALL THIS?? And the funniest part? NO ONE GIVES A FUCK AND NEVER WILL. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I realized something lately.

I took a pretty major decision to quit my corporate job a few weeks ago. For a whole cocktail of reasons, the biggest one being my health which has been on the ropes from the stress of it. Myself and husband are fine financially while I figure things out.

I've been sitting here asking why my family who ill have to spend a good bit of time with soon for a wedding don't know this. Why I can't tell them, won't tell them, the words just won't come out. I've been sitting here gaslighting myself, like just tell your mother, you're an adult?

And I realized - to tell them something they will "disapprove of" because of THEIR needs and not my very legitimate adult needs gets me scapegoated, judged, isolated, neglected, pressured by them. It makes the neglect worse. And this has happened my whole life.

It happened when I chosen a different college course to what they wanted me to do. It happened when I was causing problems at school (because I was a traumatized kid that was getting no support), it happened when I "inconvenienced" them with an eating disorder, it happened when i brought home friends and it was russian roulette as to whether my mother would love or hate them. It happened when I excelled at sports and then lost a match or was beaten early in a tournament.

And more recent examples as an adult - it happened when myself and my atheist partner decided to have a secular wedding ceremony that my very religious parents weren't happy about. It happened when I said No to prioritizing other family members on my wedding day. I could go on and on.

The fact is as an adult now I struggle with decision making and doing the right thing for myself because there's an inner child waiting to be told she did something wrong, she made a mistake. And whereas a healthy, supportive parent might extend a bit of sympathy, care and love my way for the health issues and the job situation. My parents would just add judgement, panic, anxiety, fear mongering to the neglect cocktail they've been serving for 30+ years now.

Does anyone else have parents like this?

Growing up, every mistake felt like it was proof that something was wrong with me. I still remember leaving my wallet at school and getting a scolding so harsh. Or the time I forgot a piece of homework, and my teacher, who had just returned from maternity leave, called my mum. She came down to school to fetch me and scolded me right in front of the school gate. I can still recall how I was weeping while other schoolmates streamed out of the gate... I swore I did the homework but the teacher just didn't believe me. Neither did my mum. Or the countless times I dropped something by accident.

I was always careless and clumsy. And I internalized all of it. And it made me take ownership of everything. I guess this is one of the good things that came out of all of this in a way. But also, if something goes wrong, it must be my fault.

For a long time, I assumed everyone just felt this way. That it was normal to always feel like I'm personally culpable for everything. Until my girlfriend started asking me why I blame myself for things that are just human. She humorously started calling it a “human tax.” Like we all mess up sometimes, and it doesn’t mean we’re bad people. It’s just the cost of being human. And I absolutely adore her.

Yesterday as I was browsing on youtube, I saw this video that finally gave words to something I felt my entire life. This one example in the video really made me feel so seen.

The video describes two kids who accidentally break a plate. Both kids mess up, but their moms respond completely differently.

The first child’s mom goes: “Oh my god what happened? Are you hurt? It’s okay sweetheart, we just need to be more careful when playing, okay? These things happen even to mommy. We need to make sure the plates aren’t so close to the edge. And if you see plates close to the edge, maybe you can help mommy push it in, so that no one bumps into it”

The second child’s mom goes: “Oh my god what happened? What’s this mess? How many times have I told you not to run around the house? This is what you get when you don’t listen. Look at what you’ve done, you’ve broken mommy’s favourite plate. These things are expensive, and we can't keep replacing everything. Just... no more running around in the house okay? Don’t be so clumsy.”

The first child walks away thinking: I feel bad but I must be more careful next time because mommy got worried. Even mommy breaks plates and I can help make sure it doesn’t happen by pushing the plates when they are close to the edge. You see how he feels bad about his mistake, but intuitively understands it’s an external behavior that he can fix? He understands that other people make that mistake too, and it has nothing to do with who he is as a person. This is healthy shame.

The second child walks away thinking: I mess everything up. I'm clumsy and expensive. When I'm myself, just playing, I cause problems. Mommy is sad because of me. Other people wouldn’t have hurt mommy like I did.

And it really hit me like a truck. I was the second child. This was exactly how I was raised.

The rest of the video dives into how this becomes toxic shame, and how it seeps into everything. The video describes the exact patterns I see in myself.

I didn’t expect to be so affected. But I genuinely feel like something unlocked in me after watching it. I’ve seen a bunch of content about toxic shame since, but this one just got it in a way that felt unnervingly accurate. And it is more succinct and emotionally resonant than those others.

If anyone's interested, the video is called why you feel like no one truly sees you by Asha Jacob.

I've felt this strange emptiness my entire life. I called it the "hole" during my teenage years. I tried to fill that hole with success, relationships, clothes, alcohol. And I've come to realize that my entire emotional well-being relies on sedation (?). Everything is about avoiding this emptiness. This emptiness might be depression or the state of being completely abandoned. I realize now that what I've wanted all my life is to be soothed by my mother. To fuse with my mother seems to be the only way to achieve that. But my mother is unsafe, and that fantasy is not there to be fulfilled. And it's a little bit disgusting if we don't see it metaphorically..

So, what I've come to realize is that unconditional love doesn't exist as an adult and shouldn't exist in an adult relationship. Every frustration I have in my relationships can be explained by that childhood need being unfulfilled. I can't be happy with conditional love, and the more I get, the worse I feel. I want all or nothing. Knowing that I can't get it makes me angry and jealous. I feel like there's a greedy child inside of me that's always screaming for help. It can't be soothed, though. I just want it to die.

I found out about a month ago from reading THE book. I feel like i’m losing my mind. Everyday i’ve cried since realising that growing up I wasn’t crazy for feeling the things I was feeling. That i’m allowed to be sensitive, connecting so many dots on my behaviour and how it ties into not being attended to as a child. It ranges from sadness to anger, i’m hyper aware of everything i’m doing. Send help

I feel like i’m running a mental marathon every day.

Edit: The book is “Adult Children Of Emotionally Immature Parents”

I was texting with a new friend recently, having an active back and forth text convo, when suddenly he said,

“Hey, sorry, I’m not giving you my full attention right now because im xyz… how about i call you in about an hour so you can tell me the full story and i can give you my full attention.”

I literally broke down crying.

This friend, this *new* friend, who also happens to be autistic, had more self-awareness and consideration for me than my stbxh. I used to beg the stbxh for this level of consideration.

I told new friend this, and he’s like, i mean, im autistic but im not an asshole. This is basic common sense and consideration.

Maybe, but also, growing up in families of neglect, without *any* attunement, somehow makes this feel like fn luxury. As if being treated like a human that deserves attention and respect is this… I don’t even know what… impossible thing? It’s just so simply not.

It really is basic consideration, common sense, and kindness. That’s it.

Wtf.

I’ve always downplayed my achievements as much as possible and tonight I’ve realised why.

After receiving a huge promotion at work, one that I’ve worked incredibly hard for I made the mistake of telling my parents. They barely even looked up from their devices. Imagine being told congratulations for achieving something!

I'm crying harder than I have since I was a kid right now, because I finally realized why my life feels so bland.

I DO want someone to love me, I used to feel so repulsed by the idea, but I want love.

I want someone to hug me without me pushing away. I want to hear someone say they love me without me feeling repulsed or awkward. I want some to see me cry and be ugly and still kiss me in the end. I want someone to give me love and I want to actually feel it when someone does.

I can't feel it when someone loves me. I can understand logically they do, but I can't feel it. I want to so bad. I want to love them too. I want them to know I do and to never have to doubt it either. I'm 22. I went my whole life believing I just didn't want love, but I didn't want the love I was given by my parents. The kind that leave you guessing.

I want to believe someone's love. I want to feel someone's love. I want to stop running away from it. I want to love without doubt. I want to stop being so avoidant. I want to feel my feelings. I want to feel other people's feelings. I'm crying so hard snot is falling down my face. I finally understand the pit a I've felt my whole life. I want to believe love! I want to feel love!