r/emotionalneglect

Every time I heard "you're so mature for your age" as a kid, I thought it was a compliment. Now I realize it was a red flag. I wasn't mature; I was parentified. I was forced to grow up too fast because my parents couldn't handle their own emotions.

I learned to read the room, manage their moods, and suppress my own needs to keep the peace. That's not maturity; that's survival. Now I'm an adult who struggles to ask for help, feels guilty for having needs, and panics when things are too calm. If you were "mature for your age," you were probably just a kid who wasn't allowed to be a kid. I'm sorry you had to grow up so fast.

I grew up in a severely toxic family and learned early to be hypervigilant and manage everyone around me. After escaping a high-conflict first marriage, I married my second husband 8 years ago, thinking I'd finally found safety. His quietness felt peaceful, but over time it became lonely. I initiate everything: conversations, plans, intimacy. I questioned it for years, but my family programming taught me to doubt my feelings and accept it.

About a year ago my body snapped and I developed three autoimmune diseases. Around the same time I stepped away from my cousin, the last piece of real family, and that clarity made me see my marriage differently. I told my husband I needed real change.
He went back to therapy and recognized his survival pattern: shrink, fawn, avoid conflict, disappear. Mine is to manage everything, and the two patterns locked together. I've been very understanding about the why he is the way he is. But a year later, he still hasn't used the tools he's learned. He's not abusive, and on paper he's the nice guy and an attentive dad. But every couple of months I break down, he cries and says all the right things, and after a few days, once I soften, he settles back into comfort.

Recently I cut ties with my father, we were never close and I never lived with him but he is truly my last family member, he has a temper and is very manipulative, but I was holding on so my son could have a grandpa everyone in a while but he sent his last terrible text and I decided I was officially done. My husband's response through that week was so robotic it felt like talking to a distant coworker. I realized I'm completely alone, even inside my marriage. We moved back to Winnipeg to be with my side of the family but I saw the truth and now I have no family and no real friends, and money is too tight to see my therapist as often as I need.
I badly want this to work for our 2½-year-old, but I can't keep doing the work alone. We're seeing our couples therapist today to set a six-month timeline: if nothing shifts, we separate. We don't have a third bedroom, so I've carved out a small space in our closet.
I'm exhausted and hitting a wall.
Has anyone else been through this? How do you trust your own perception when everything looks fine on paper, and what helped you?

PS: There's a lot of context I couldn't include. I'm here for support and shared experiences, so please be kind and skip the judgment if you don't know the whole story. Thank you. 🤍

I have vasovagal syncope, and for the first time in 10 years (because I avoided it) I had my blood drawn

I started passing out during it, and the woman giving me the blood draw made me bawl in my car afterwards

Her genuine concern for me. Her strong confident voice. I had this sense of “she has me” which I’ve never felt before.

Usually I have to spell out to people explicitly how I’m feeling, beg them to understand, tell them exactly what I need and how to execute it, and be the “caregiver” even when I shouldn’t have to.

Most of the time my parents straight up ignored my needs and emotions because their’s came first. My dad would laugh in my face when I was upset.

But this woman…

She took care of me when I was almost passing out, trying to prevent me from fainting by doing various things like fanning me, holding my head when it drooped sideways, got me to smell the sanitization wipe to ground me etc

She advocated for me “get her water! Get her water!”

I almost didn’t want to leave…

It’s just so sad. That this woman, who’s only doing her job, has shown me more care than my mother and father ever have.

Better than friends or partners ever have either. I must attract emotionally neglectful people, or people who want a “mommy”.

I didn’t even realize you could feel this way.

That you could have someone actually care for you, notice you, without having to explicitly ask, beg or explain how

It just made me break down crying in my car afterwards