Childhood emotional neglect may impact your adult relationships by making it hard to trust and become close to others, and increasing your chance of experiencing depression and anxiety. Neglect is the most common form of child abuse.
For children, affectional neglect may have devastating consequences, including failure to thrive, developmental delay, hyperactivity, aggression, depression, low self-esteem, running away from home, substance abuse, and a host of other emotional disorders.
Overcoming childhood emotional neglect is possible through therapy, for an individual or for the whole family. It may also be helpful for parents or caregivers who are struggling to provide emotional support to their children to go through parenting classes and/or join support groups.
It shows that emotional abuse and neglect are linked to a wide range of negative outcomes in adolescence and adulthood, including teen pregnancy, school failure, unemployment, delinquency, anxiety, depression, psychosis, substance abuse, and even physical health problems.
Child emotional neglect (CEN) is the parent's failure to meet their child's emotional needs during the early years. It involves unresponsive, unavailable, and limited emotional interactions between that person and the child. Children's emotional needs for affection, support, attention, or competence are ignored.
Emotional Neglect is Complex Trauma
Childhood trauma takes several forms, such as physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and emotional neglect. Emotional neglect is complex trauma that can result in complex post traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD).
In the emotionally neglectful family, the HSP learns they are overly emotional. They don't know that their emotions are personal expressions of who they are. Instead, they learn that they are different, damaged, weak, and wrong.
Some of the symptoms of trauma in children (and adults) closely mimic depression, including too much or too little sleep, loss of appetite or overeating, unexplained irritability and anger, and problems focusing on projects, school work, and conversation.
How do I know if I was emotionally neglected as a child? There are several signs such as feelings of detachment, lack of peer group, dissociative inclinations, and difficulty in being emotionally present.
Suffering from chronic or ongoing depression. Practicing avoidance of people, places, or things that may be related to the traumatic event; this also can include an avoidance of unpleasant emotions. Flashbacks, nightmares, and body memories regarding the traumatic event.
Luckily, trauma counseling can help children, adolescents, teenagers, and adults heal their trauma. Trauma therapy is a particular approach to counseling that acknowledges and highlights how a traumatic occurrence can affect a person's emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and behavioral welfare.
Childhood maltreatment increases risk for developing psychiatric disorders (e.g. mood and anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD], antisocial and borderline personality disorders, and alcohol/substance use disorders [A/SUDs]).
Childhood emotional abuse and neglect can result in permanent changes to the developing human brain. These changes in brain structure appear to be significant enough to potentially cause psychological and emotional problems in adulthood, such as psychological disorders and substance misuse.
Childhood trauma in adults also results in feeling disconnected, and being unable to relate to others. Studies have shown that adults that experience childhood trauma were more likely to struggle with controlling emotions, and had heightened anxiety, depression, and anger.
Studies on children in a variety of settings show conclusively that severe deprivation or neglect: disrupts the ways in which children's brains develop and process information, thereby increasing the risk for attentional, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral disorders.
Neglect in childhood is associated with a high risk of developing personality disorders, symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescence, as well as manifestation of suicidal and self-harm behavior. The most tragic consequence of neglect is the death of a child.
And when emotional intimacy is not fully developed in your marriage, it can lead to an emptiness and a loneliness that is far more painful than you would feel if you were actually alone. Look For: Even when youre with your spouse, you sometimes feel a deep sense that you are all alone.
Emotional abuse is linked to thinning of certain areas of the brain that help you manage emotions and be self-aware — especially the prefrontal cortex and temporal lobe. Epigenetic changes and depression. Research from 2018 has connected childhood abuse to epigenetic brain changes that may cause depression.
Research finds that neglected children are more likely than their peers to experience behavior problems, develop psychiatric disorders and/or engage in substance abuse, or display emotional challenges, such as difficulties connecting with or trusting others.
Without treatment, repeated childhood exposure to traumatic events can affect the brain and nervous system and increase health-risk behaviors (e.g., smoking, eating disorders, substance use, and high-risk activities).
In short, childhood trauma creates a fractured foundation for the individual for the rest of their lives. The way we are raised and the sense of security it creates (or shatters), all impact the emotional, and sometimes physical path, we take as adults.
Anxiety, panic attacks, social anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Depression, suicidal ideation, history of suicidal ideation, plans, and/or attempts, self-harm, and/or mood dysregulation, often including anger.
In 30% up to 90% of cases BPD is associated with abuse and neglect in childhood and these percentages are significantly higher than those registered in other personality disorders (13–15).
Living with High Sensitivity
HSPs may struggle to adapt to new circumstances, may demonstrate seemingly inappropriate emotional responses in social situations, and may easily become uncomfortable in response to light, sound, or certain physical sensations.