For those who were emotionally neglected in childhood, the emotional baggage is unlikely to ever go away. However, it’s also possible to work through the issues – particularly if you know what to look for. Here are 19 ways that childhood neglect can cause problems in later life.
Feeling Empty
According to Leona Westra, “The most common symptom of childhood emotional neglect is a feeling of emptiness.” This feeling is deeply rooted in psychology, but to give a brief summary, it is caused by emotional needs that were not met in childhood.
Easily Overwhelmed
Neglected children get used to spending time alone. In fact, they may eventually withdraw from social activities and events altogether – preferring solitude. Even as adults, it’s easy for this trait to continue, and it’s likely that socializing will feel overwhelming.
Acting Indecisive
How do we learn to make good decisions? Well, often, it’s a skill that we’re taught by our parents. This doesn’t always happen as it should, though, and children who suffered neglect may have faced serious consequences for making the wrong choice, making them indecisive as adults.
Scared of Getting Abandoned
It makes total sense that anyone who suffered from neglect as a child would have a fear of abandonment; after all – those who were neglected already feel like they have been abandoned once. Fortunately, as Healthline writes, it’s possible to get help and manage abandonment issues so they don’t continue to cause problems.
Difficulty Trusting Others
It’s easy to see why those who were emotionally neglected would find it difficult to trust others. The logic here is that if your primary caregivers weren’t able to offer you support, how could anyone else? Unfortunately, this can lead to adults who avoid relationships to protect themselves or question their friend’s sincerity.
Low Self-Esteem
It’s a sad fact that those who suffered neglect are more likely to suffer from low self-esteem and a sense of worthlessness. Unfortunately, this is probably the message that was received all too often from neglectful parents and caregivers growing up.
Fear of Failure
When children are neglected, they often try even harder to avoid failing and disappointing others. Sadly, they may hold the belief that if they could just do better, they’d be treated differently. This thought process is difficult to change, and many adults who were neglected as children still feel this way.
Never Asking for Help
Neglected children find ways to be independent from an early age. After all, if there’s no one else to take care of them, at least they can take care of themselves, right? Whilst this might solve one problem, it can result in them becoming adults who never want to ask for help.
Being Passive Aggressive
PsychCentral says that those who were neglected or mistreated by their parents in childhood are prone to becoming passive-aggressive adults. Basically, these people were never taught how to express anger in a healthy way, and so it comes out in all sorts of toxic disguises.
Being Unaware of Their Feelings
If you know someone who was neglected as a child, you might notice that they find it difficult to identify their feelings. The thing is, they’re not just being stubborn – they likely genuinely can’t understand their emotions. Commonly, those who suffered childhood neglect will have learned to bury feelings to protect themselves.
Difficulty Regulating Emotions
Growing up in an environment of neglect, children may witness unpredictable emotions from their caregivers, and this becomes something they later adopt themselves. Don’t be surprised if those who experienced neglect when they were kids have difficulty with emotional outbursts and trouble calming down.
Fear of Rejection
Many of us claim that we fear rejection; however, when it comes to people who suffered neglect in childhood, this issue is often exacerbated further. If you’re wondering why this is, it comes down to the fact that neglected children faced a lot of rejection from caregivers – and it was super painful.
Need for Perfection
It’s not uncommon for adults who were neglected in childhood to have a strong need to do everything perfectly. This could be caused by a few different things, but it tends to come down to having overly critical parents and children desperately seeking positive praise.
Trouble With Intimacy
Unsurprisingly, those who suffered from neglect are unlikely to have had good role models when it comes to things like intimacy. As children, we learn from those around us and copy them. This means that people who weren’t able to learn intimacy from their parents will struggle to build it later in life.
Challenges in Parenting
It’s difficult being a parent at the best of times, but if you were neglected as a child, you don’t even have a blueprint for being a good parent. It’s quite common for people who were emotionally neglected as children to suddenly recognize that they are copying their parents’ mistakes.
Preferring Isolation
We all crave a bit of alone time occasionally, but this need for space can be much stronger in those who were neglected as children. Think about it – if a kid is often left alone, they’ll have learned not to trust other people and also to believe that being alone means being safe.
Skeptical of Therapy
This is such a tough one, particularly when therapy could be the very thing that would help the most. People who were neglected as children are often skeptical of therapy, finding it hard to believe that anyone could actually help and feeling that they should be able to sort the problem by themselves.
Fear of Change
A lot of us have a fear of change and the unknown. In fact, Medical News Today explains that this condition is also referred to as “intolerance of uncertainty.” It’s not surprising that this trait is often found in those who were emotionally neglected as children – they likely grew up with unpredictable parents.
Constant Self-Criticism
Can you imagine growing up in a household where the caregivers are rarely present, or when they are around – they’re always highly critical? This is the reality for a lot of children who experience emotional neglect, and it can seep into adulthood, causing people to be their own worst critics.
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