Halifax (Glynis Sherwood Counseling MEd) – The Eternal Exile
People tend to associate family abuse with acts of overt or covert aggression. Examples of overt aggression include yelling, abusive language such as name calling, threats, ridicule and shaming; and behaviors ranging from coercion, to more aggressive restraining, and assault.
Covert hostility shows up as passive aggressive behavior – aka sneaky anger. Examples of covert aggression encompass insults delivered as compliments; malicious gossip aka smear campaigns, cool / unfriendly demeanor; sarcastic, patronizing or disdainful behavior; silent treatment / shunning; being ignored or not taken seriously; lack of cooperation; dismissive body language, such as eye rolling, etc.
However there is an even more subtle form of family abuse that is harder to detect as it’s often invisible –that of neglect. Neglect is a sin of omission. In other words, it’s the things that don’t happen that cause long term harm to an individual, due to emotional deprivation. Children reared under these circumstances tend to feel like exiles in their own family, with no safe or secure place to call home. They believe they don’t matter to their parents, and over time can become insecure, find it hard to trust others and their own judgment, and discredit themselves due to the devaluation and lack of affirmation that’s at the heart of emotional neglect.
Unlike overt parental abuse, which involves observable negative behaviors, covert emotional neglect is a failure to act appropriately or adequately to support the developmental and attachment needs of the child.
Although all members of emotionally negligent families suffer due to unhealthy interpersonal dynamics exhibited by one or both parents, in narcissistic families, individual children are further singled out for the lion’s share of abuse. These targets become the family Scapegoat.
Childhood Emotional Deprivation in a Nutshell
Childhood Emotional Deprivation (CED) is a failure by parents to attend optimally – meaning frequently and consistently enough – to the emotional and developmental needs of their growing children. CED may be deliberate or unintentional. Parents may lack child rearing skills, often due to their own childhood emotional deprivation, which makes them blind to their own children’s needs. Or they may be emotionally troubled and preoccupied and / or have problems with addiction. They may be selfish or have personality disorders, such as narcissism, or even more serious anti-social traits.
Parents steward their children into becoming the people they are going to be via attachment bonds that shape self worth and socialization skills. The quality of these parent-child bonds will determine the psychological character, resilience and well being of the child and adult they will become, usually by the tender age of four or five years of age!
The Core Message Neglected Kids Internalize is ‘You don’t matter, therefore you are unlovable’
Childhood Emotional Deprivation involves parental emotional absenteeism. Parents are ‘Missing In Action’. Their gaze is inward, preoccupied with their own problems, frustrations, resentments or entitlements. Negligent parenting can also be more active, such as smothering or parentifying the child, which reflects control issues, neediness and displacement of parental responsibilities onto the child.
Some parents may engage in boundary violating behaviors in front of kids, such as sex, substance abuse or illicit activities, which reflects self centered obliviousness. The one constant is that these children are on the periphery of their negligent parents’ lives. Their legitimate needs for nurture, guidance and safety tend to be viewed as too much, a bother, an inconvenience or ingratitude. These parents often feel resentful towards their children.
In reality, negligent parents likely were kids who were neglected themselves and, as a result, did not mature optimally, because their legitimate emotional needs were never met. But they usually can’t see the problem they are passing down to their own children, as they lack insight and perspective due to the tunnel vision of their own unmet needs. A lack of healthy attention and nurture creates feelings of fear in their children who lack confidence, feel emotionally unsafe and unloved. Ultimately, emotionally deprived children can feel worthless due to feelings of abandonment. Neglected kids may believe they have to serve their parents, in a futile attempt to earn what is naturally present in emotionally available parents – instinctive and active love and nurture of their offspring.
The Silent Damage of Childhood Emotional Deprivation – READ WHOLE ARTICLE HERE
