r/emotionalneglect

What felt completely normal to you growing up, until you got older and realized it was actually deeply messed up?"😔

My boyfriend is currently on a wonderful holiday to see family back in his home country, and it’s triggering a lot of negative feelings for me.

We’ve been together just under a year and I’m realizing how much of myself is wrapped up in him and his emotional presence, because well, right or wrong, I guess he’s the only source of my emotional needs being met. He’s two weeks into a 6 week trip to see family and friends, and communication is suddenly strained due to being busy and lack of cell service. He’s out doing things from dawn to dusk, having an amazing time, and I’m happy for him. He’s been trying to update me in the mornings before heading out for the day with pictures and such, and it’s nice to see him having a great time.

Rationally, I know he’s not avoiding/ignoring me through limited communication and I actually appreciate his ability to go “phone free” while with loved ones. I love that for him. I’m happy for him that he’s getting so emotionally filled being with loved ones. However, if I’m being truthful about my feelings, the lack of regular communication is triggering feelings of abandonment and rejection, and him having loving moments with family is also triggering something in me. It doesn’t help that I’m currently off my routine as I’m off from work for a bit. He assumes I’m making the most of the time, doing things and seeing people. But I’m not. I’m embarrassed and feel guilty to be sitting around sad instead of doing productive things with my time off.

I’ve realized in the two weeks he’s already been gone just how alone I feel in life. I’m not just lonely because I can’t text him. I feel that deep pain of someone who has always been alone. Last year, after one holiday too many feeling unheard and unseen by my parents, I dove deep into why things are the way they are. I started learning about emotionally immature parents, and the scars they leave their children with. I’ve fallen down that rabbit hole again, which led me to the term “emotional neglect”. It’s dawned upon me that to some extent, I was emotionally neglected as a child, and this likely shaped me into who I am today.

I didn’t expect my boyfriend leaving to see family to trigger me as much as it is, but I guess on the bright side it’s allowed me to reflect on patterns and life experiences I wasn’t fully seeing? I think I’m jealous of him and his trip in a way, that he has so many people in his life, that despite having not seen them for a couple years, they all want to see each other. They all want to hang out together. They want to eat meals and have chats about life. I should be happy for him, and intellectually I am, but emotionally it’s making me feel feelings of resentment toward him. How can he be so happy and fulfilled in life? I’ve struggled in past relationships with choosing avoidant and emotionally unavailable partners. With him being gone, I’m having what I know are unrealistic fears of him leaving me or deciding I’m unworthy. What does he see in me? I’m so dull and uninteresting, and being emotional is even more of a burden, surely he’ll realize I’m not worth it. I’m thinking all this, despite him literally being the best thing to have happened to me in maybe my entire 36 years. He’s emotionally available, attuned, and present to my needs, and cares so deeply for me. He already shows in actions how much he loves me unconditionally. I’ve showed him some of my darkest parts, and he loves me anyways. I shouldn’t be afraid of him disappointing me, but it makes sense that I have these feelings. I was raised this way.

Him traveling hours to see family that love and miss him is triggering me. My parents live 20 minutes away and don’t care to see me. In the past, I would have craved wanting to see them out of obligation and hoping for the best, but honestly I don’t care to see the real version of them I now know. They literally know nothing about my life these days. I don’t know if they’ve ever really known anything about my life, aside from what they choose to know or believe about me. My boyfriend is bouncing around from house to house, catching up with aunts and cousins galore and going on all these adventures. I have 30 aunts and uncles and even more cousins, yet I know nothing about any of them. They know nothing of me, other than being Diane and Bob’s daughter. My parents never gave me access to these family members. At the few events I attended growing up, it was understood that I was to mind my business and not bother the adults.

My parents had no friends. They couldn’t model what healthy relationships look like, and this extended to being unable to model communication skills and healthy reciprocity. I learned it was best to please my parents by obeying their rules and I learned not to speak unless spoken to. I became a selective mute. I was teased and bullied relentlessly my entire schooling for being weird. College was an open door for me. It was where I finally learned what normal people do, and as I learned more about life, my relationship with my parents eroded. They couldn’t control me anymore, and were disappointed by what they perceived as sinful life choices.

I thought I was ok. Ok enough. Nothing really worth complaining about. Everything on paper looks fine. But why do I feel so…down? Dissatisfied? Disappointed? Empty? My relationships with others aside from my partner are all okay but somewhat unfulfilling, if I’m being honest. I don’t have real deep friendships because I don’t know how to connect with people, not to mention that they don’t have the issues I do (to my knowledge, anyways). My boyfriend thinks (or maybe hopes) I’m out seeing people and friends in his absence. Truth is, I’m not. I don’t really want to spend time with my “friends”, because I leave feeling more empty. Unseen and unheard. Everything is so surface level. Maybe it’s them, or maybe it’s me. Both maybe. But my understanding of how to relate to others is damaged.

I’ve also been going through a bit of a difficult mental health/burnout phase due to work. Luckily I am on a break now, and I assumed that the time off and away would cheer me up and make me feel refreshed and reenergized. That’s not the case. The time off isn’t helping me feel more positive about my job that I’ve been debating quitting because it’s so stressful. I’ve realized that I struggled immensely with being told what to do and being controlled in the workplace, and I also struggle with authority figures and feedback. Any criticism, constructive or otherwise, can ruin my day. I think it’s because it triggers those core beliefs (that I pretend I don’t still have) of being defective, a problem, unworthy, a failure, and so on. I struggle to not take any remotely negative experience in the workplace as a personal attack, and at great expense.

I carry so much weight of complex trauma. I studied psychology in school (probably to try to understand myself) and never identified with that term. Never thought I had real trauma. Nothing unusually bad ever happened to me. The “mildly”bad stuff was fairly normal, or my fault. I’ve always dismissed it. I didn’t even fully realize how traumatized I am until a week ago. I’ve always dismissed my experiences, saying “well other people have had it far worse” and thinking myself to be too sensitive. Blaming myself for being bullied throughout childhood, blaming myself for having bad “friends” and “lovers” who use and abuse. All my issues are the result of my own shortcomings. NO. No no no. I have been the victim of trauma my entire 36 years of life, without realizing it, and again I think it has so much to do with what happened in my childhood. I wasn’t given the nurturing and love I needed, and frankly it messed me up. I need to give myself grace and know that I’m messed up but it’s not my fault. I am not bad. I am not a failure.

So yeah. I could keep going, but I’ll pause there. I’m struggling, and it’s not great, but I’m happy that I’m at least making some realizations about where this existential discontent and frustration comes from. Friday was the breaking point where I said out loud I need help. I’ve found a therapist that says she specializes in complex childhood trauma emotional neglect and all the sorts of things and feelings I’m experiencing, so I’m going to reach out tomorrow and see if we can start unpacking this. Ironically, a few years back I tried but then dismissed therapy after a couple meh sessions with someone. I had this gut feeling that she couldn’t help with the deep, nuanced issues I thought I had, but I quickly felt guilty and bad for even thinking I had real issues and just called it quits on the whole thing. That should have been my wake up call that my problems aka my TRUMA IS REAL!!! But, we live, learn, and grow. I went in blindly looking for a therapist the first time around, accepting the first recommendation of my GP because I asked for antidepressants. I’ve since found out what I likely need to look for in a therapist to have any shot at success, so hopefully I will have a much better outcome now, or with another complex trauma/neglect informed therapist. I know I will, because this time I understand myself far better, and I’m truly motivated to fix this.

TLDR: My boyfriend is having the time of his life visiting family that love him, and it’s made me realize just how traumatized I am and I’m starting therapy because of it. Wooo!

My own parents treat me worse than anyone else ever has. I feel like I'm nothing more than a cash cow to them. I'm 25 years old and have been working away from home for a long time. Whenever I come back, instead of feeling welcomed, I see everyone with blank, unhappy faces. This time, I returned after 1.5 years, yet no one seemed excited to see me. Life just carried on as if I am that unwanted guest in the house. There wasn't even a special meal or any effort to make me feel like iwas home. No one asks me how I've been, how work is going, or how I've been managing all this time. It's as if my presence doesn't matter. If I make even the smallest mistake or do something the wrong way, they scold and yell at me. They openly say things like, "It would have been better if you had never come back. You should have stayed where you were." without any major conflict. It seems like they are bothered even by my breathing and they start arguing over every fucking small thing. I can't remember the last time I was welcomed home with a smile. Once my holidays are over, I've decided that I won't come back again. I don't see why I should keep putting myself through this. I honestly don't believe I've done anything to deserve being treated this way. The sad part is that strangers and my friends treat me with more kindness, respect, and warmth than my own parents ever do. Being in my own house feels like living in hell. It's been only 4 days since I am back in my hometown and they have frustrated me so much that today I stayed all day with my friends and came back at 11 no one asked me where i have been all day have i eaten something or not I never share my problems with anyone but I am so fed up now.

Sometimes I feel like I half remember other kinds of abuse on top of the neglect.

Sometimes it almost feels like real details without a specific context, other times it feels like... I dunno, like, I must be faking it for clout or something even though I've never told anybody before making this post.

Mostly I just have this vague feeling that Something Really Bad Happened, even though I couldn't tell you what. Like, I mostly couldn't even tell you what it was. But it Feels Very Bad To Think About.

On the one hand, I know my memory has huge gaps. Maybe there really is something awful hiding in there. But on the other hand, I know how bad my memory is, maybe I'm just misremembering bits from a movie or something.

I dunno, maybe I subconsciously feel that the neglect isnt "enough" or my suffering isnt "valid" or I don't know how to even think about the neglect or something, so I'm unconciously inventing fake half memories of other worse traumas to point to and say, "see, I really did get [****]ed now my suffering is undeniable."

Is that.... normal? Of course its not *normal* none of this is normal, but like, is that something to be expected just from emotional neglect, or is it a sign of something deeper?

Because tbh I really hope these bad vibes are an expected symptom of emotional neglect because I do not have the energy to discover even more fucking trauma buried in here.

Thanks sorry if this is a weird question.

I knew what place he was coming from. He is (To a T) the quintessential "normal" guy. Stable family, easygoing, spends solid time with them and his dogs etc when he's not working. And he really is a good person and easy to talk to. But what he said hit a nerve with me, because I was the painfully quiet kid. The kid who everyone always asked "Why are you so shy?"

Another colleague was there at the time, and I just couldn't hold back. I stood up for myself and other kids who were just like me. I said that maybe they're like that because they experienced some kind of trauma growing up, or their environment didn't let them express themselves.

I'm glad he's "normal", but mate, we weren't quiet because we wanted to be.

My mother struggled with depression for as long as I can remember. She died by suicide when I was five years old.

After that, my father remarried. My stepmother always made sure there was food on the table, but she always made me feel like I wasn’t her son. Later, I went to live with my maternal grandmother, who no longer had any children living with her. Our relationship was difficult because, in some way, she blamed me for her daughter’s suicide.

Now I’m 28 years old and I live alone. The pain of my mother’s abandonment is still with me, along with everything that comes with it: a deep fear of abandonment, alcoholism that began after I started drinking in my teens, and paranoia.

When I come home at night, I often feel so emotionally exhausted that I’d rather drink than keep suffering over and over again because I was never loved by my mother.

I’ve thought about ending my life before, but I’ve always stepped back, if only because of my family, even though my relationships with them are either nonexistent or very superficial. Art, movies, and music also help me get through it, even if only for a little while.

I’m trying to build a better life for myself, but I honestly believe that this sadness and shame will never completely go away.

I’m not suicidal right now, but I’ve been carrying this pain for a very long time. I wanted to share my story and ask if anyone else has experienced something similar, and whether things eventually got better.

I came to the realization that my parents were emotionally neglectful at the age of 22 and around six months ago and ever since then I’ve been researching and researching, healing, and have become so much more aware of my upbringing. Because I thought I was insanely broken my entire life growing up with my emotionally neglectful parents with adhd that was undiagnosed.

So- when you look into these parents online you see a lot of shit that gives them grace “ they grew up in the same environment” “they are scared of feelings! :( “ etc. but I just knew that there’s a reason why I’m changing, people on this sub are changing, but they aren’t.

Let me introduce you to: COVERT narcissism.

My parents keep everything surface level and I realized recently that this extends far beyond just their communication- it’s their identity, a mask. My mom is a huge Obama fan, special needs teacher, ran food banks, helped NICU babies… sounds like an angel right? Wrong. Completely emotionally cold bts, I remember just being so anxious around her but not being able to label it- and I think she’s a narcissist but a COVERT one.

Because I went all of my childhood STRUGGLING with adhd (a normal parent would’ve help but especially a parent that works with neurodivergent/disabled kids daily), my independence was sabotaged - she took all of my money out of a joint account when I said I wanted to take a trip at 18, basically forced me to go to a community college to “save money” which is bs since I had good grades and they’re well off financially anyways and more recently- gifted me a car last year but has yet to transfer the title over to me.

It’s disorientating because my house was filled with decor, “all you need is love” signs, Michelle obama books, a special needs teacher etc but something was reslllly off. I think my mom liked her career because she had total authority over helpless children who couldn’t argue back, same with volunteering for drug addicted babies, she feels like a grandiose god getting public pity and admiration for being a “saint”

The control is disguised as care. It makes me sick to my stomach but I was/am seen as an object or a pet. I remember bawling my eyes out and she wouldn’t comfort me on multiple occasions (my grandma passed last year, I shared a horrific story of getting laced with fake adderall, she arrived to me after a car crash never hugged me)

These people are just narcissists- don’t give them any grace or hope they’ll become aware of the pain they caused you.

So I've pretty much limited most contact between me and my family, and I'm a loner now. Though I'm safe, I still feel a sense of danger because the lies about me never stop. It's gotten so bad that whenever I meet someone who is nice to me I assume they must be trying to manipulate me as my family have. I've felt this way for 14 years now since I was 18. I used to joke around about serious subjects to make light of them, but my family would take my jokes very seriously and use them as a way to villainize me. The abuse was covert. They were very friendly to my face, but spoke badly about me to everyone behind my back. I now struggle with basic interactions and knowing how to communicate, having been lied to my entire life. I feel an intense sadness mixed with anger most days because I know what they did to me was wrong, but I feel helpless to do anything about it.

Has anyone else been through anything similar? And did you find a way to make it easier to connect with people?

I remember a school trip how one of my roomates gave me such a slaggy talk after I told her I don't brush my teeth before bed.

I wish people were understanding that not everyone was taught basic hygiene skills

No one is perfect, and i don't expect my parents to be perfect neither.
What hurt the most is that they are unable to acknowledge that they had my brother as a favorit, which made his life tremendously easy on the long run.

Instead of recognizing their 'errors' they always pushed it on me. "he was allowed to do X because .... " and the 'reasons' made no senses to me because it was bullshits. everytime.

So i grow up angry, full of self-hate because i though it was my fault i wasn't loved or cared for... i became a huge people pleaser and stays where i'm unwanted, all that because they couldn't say "hey yes we granted your younger brother more rights because he's a guy"

(of course it sound dramatic because i won't write a full list of examples. but through decade there is plenty of it, and still now, at 42, they enable this violent and hateful person that my brother became)

These are words used to make themselves look better on the surface, not to actually show you how much they care about you.

If they loved you, would you feel so disgusting in their company? Absolutely not.

Then this leads to the next question: "What do you love?" You know absolutely nothing about me as a person. What can you possibly love, except the fact that I have parts of who you are biologically. If it's the biological aspect you only favour, then you are nothing but a selfish cunt.

Don't fall for it. They're doing this to manipulate you and make them not appear like the villain.

I'm not sure if I'm the only one that's ever experienced this, But my mom thinks that everything I enjoy whether it'd be entertainment, movies or a hobby is "weird" she was like that when I was a child, but it seems to have gotten worse since I've gotten older. She's very quick to make me feel stupid for these things.

For example, for my birthday, I had a hobbit/Shire themed party. She thought it was so strange and brought it up so many times both myself and my sister. She kept saying she didn't understand why we were doing this theme. My sister finally told her "Because it's your daughter's birthday and that's what she wants."

I also mentioned that my husband and I were going to do a Harry Potter movie night and she literally just rolled her eyes and said that was so weird.

I guess it's just really strange. I have a son of my own and I know that as he grows older, he will develop hobbies and interests. I would never make him feel odd for just truly enjoying something that is innocent.

My mom borderline worships Donald Trump, and can sit all day and watch true crime. Those are things that I cannot relate to her on, but I would never outwardly shame her for those things. If I ever did, there would be hell to pay for sure. It's almost as if she's offended that the child she spent zero time getting to know, is nothing like her.....

Not sure if I'm the only one that's experienced this.

I (20) have absolutely no independence. I have no money, I have no bank account, I have no irl friends to reach out to for help. I was never allowed outside alone growing up, so I spent pretty much all of my childhood and teenage years indoors behind screens. I was raised by the internet, my entire life is the internet. It's all I have.

My mother always treated me like an extension of herself or completely ignored me with no in-between. All of my emotional needs have been neglected meaning I'm not diagnosed with any mental disorders even though I know my brain doesn't work right and I'm often unable to focus, acting outside the "norm", always having intrusive thoughts and traumatic memories etc.

I wish I could move out and become independent but I've been sheltered for so long that I don't want to do anything on my own half the time. I was never taught anything so I never want to work, make food, etc. I know it's a problem but at this point I'm too depressed to do anything about it, my only escape is endless daydreaming and fantasising. Even though I was often sheltered because I was the youngest and smallest (I'm somewhat like the runt of my family) my mother still treats me poorly, neglects my wants and needs and treats me as lesser than compared to my siblings.

I considered getting a dorm at college but I'm incapable of studying and learning as well because my mental state has gone unchecked for so many years, and even when I did get into a college my parents said they couldn't afford it so it was best not to go. It feels like there's no way out at all. Even if I did get away, I don't know the basics or how to live, I was never taught anything really. I wish I could just move away to be with my friends but they're all in different countries. Being sheltered and isolated from the world is the worst, it's like I don't even exist. It sucks.

Or any affections.

My mom used to be so much warmer when I was younger. My mom is now much more colder as she believes I deserved it. She called me a psychopath and thinks she spoiled me too much. My relationship has grown worse over the years, especially when I came out as queer. I resented her very badly and wrote in my diary that I hated her over it. She admitted she read my diary “by accident” why she said she no longer loves me anymore and wouldn’t care if she never spoke to me again. I literally told her I felt so much rage over her queerphobia and she kept gaslighting the whole thing and kept interrupting me with “I don’t care!” Or “that’s in the past!”

I noticed her hugs if ever, are very quick, light, stiff, cold, or just unnatural. She either gives me a side hug that a coworker would give you or rough angry quick one where I feel like she’s ready to break my neck/spine. She sometimes act like I have a contagious disease when I’m near her.

I remember a colleague I known for a while gave me such a warm hug when we met and left that it just stay with me and wanted more of it. I now noticed I don’t like being touched in certain ways, but I notified how touch deprived I really am.

Same with kind words. My mom used to be very supportive of me of things like school (she still kinda is) and sometimes who am I overall. She’s now insulting and suggests I’m inferior in a lot of ways, like she calls me lazy and stupid, or cold, snobbish, and pretentious for things like awards or titles/roles given to me. I don’t tell her anything anymore because she’ll just put me down, use the information against me, wouldn’t care/respond, or believes I’m lying.

So I’ve been professionally diagnosed with General Anxiety, Major Depressive, and Borderline. All from having a narcissist dad and a mother and older brother (I have a age gap with him) always supporting him and making me feel like the villain. my parents are now old, my dad in particular is 60, and I guess the whole “parents forgetting how awful they were to you as a child because of old age” is true because you know um it was like a family video call because they were discussing things related to planning my older brothers wedding and um the question popped up of if I wanna come with my dad and brother to meet my future sister in law and her family who live in a different state, btw we’re Indian and so it was like a modern day arranged marriage match for my brother, and um I just didn’t immediately express interest. Because first of all I genuinely don’t care about this wedding I’m only forced to participate because I am the sister of my brother unfortunately. Also my mental health is so fucked I only know how to mimic positive emotions outside but barley feel it. but um you know my mom made a comment that was like “you should go” and my dad was like “no don’t force her.” And then to me was like “You know, as a family we should be celebrating right but also like im not gonna force you, but you know it’s a safe space with us you can tell us anything-“

So it took EVERYTHING in me to not fucking laugh in his face, I mean I even had to hide a smile of DISBELIEF behind my fingers where I had my head propped up in my hand.

Safe place? SAFE PLACE? when first of all I could name a MILLION things were they invalidated my feelings especially when it would be my mom and my brother invalidating my anger about my dad verbally abusing the family when he was angry saying that he’s a good guy just with anger issues. I could name a million ways where I felt so mentally broken and suffocated by how I was raised with my stupid traditional Indian parents and my brother who has turned into their doormat and thinks I’m the villain for refusing to do the same as him. He’s like my mom so he just will always support her and my dad I guess and I’m like my father aka willing to not see the smokescreen and unlike previous generations I am sick and tired of the generational trauma. For fucks sake to this day I have such bad anxiety over a little mistake that it’s a genuine slap in the face when the same people that created that anxiety in me are now like “why are you so worried all the time”-YOU USED TO INSULT ME UNTIL I FELT LIKE I WAS MORE WORTHLESS THAN THE DIRT ON THE BOTTOM OF YOUR SHOE FOR EVERY SINGLE THING! let me name another specific example-I now feel like shit if I make a mistake even if I’m TYPING because I still remember when my dad screamed at me for erasing a math answer “too many times”. I don’t like asking for help and would rather fuck up my life because he would scream at me if I didn’t get something the first or asked too many questions in general. I felt like having a panick attack the other day asking my brother to get me a Sprite because I got so used to him invalidating my emotions over more serious topics.

Btw I’ve been told many times also by my brother that “nobody is perfect, we all have flaws, your’e just choosing to only see Dad’s flaws”-and it’s like okay him paying for my college is never gonna fix the permanent shattered self esteem/mental health I have because of him. Idk I would appreciate any comments to my long post

Title speaks for itself. What is something your parents say/said that they are convinced is true that just doesn't hold up to scrutiny?

I have one. Last year, when I confronted my mom on how I felt about my upbringing, one of the excuses she brought up was that "I wasn't an easy child". She essentially said that she parented me that way because I was "difficult".

Was I not easy? Maybe, but I can think of ONE thing that can disprove that as being the reason I was parented so harshly (and somehow still coddled, but that's another story I've told countless times on this sub).

It's a home video from when I was very little (just a little over one year old, could walk but not speak yet). Here's how it goes: little me is standing in the living room next to my mom, and beside my mom is a cot/small crib. She bends over a little and starts asking me in a sweet tone if I wanted to go inside the cot, and as she picks me up to put me there, I let out a cry... and what does my mom do? Puts me back down and yells at me, or at least speak in a loud, angry tone.

Yes, I got screamed at in my face for letting out a cry.

The issue wasn't that I was a "difficult" child, the issue was that my mom (and my dad) couldn't control their own emotions, and therefore even the littlest "defiance" from me would trigger a harsh reaction from them.

I can think of another one: one time my dad was helping me doing math homework, but I couldn't do it and I was getting frustrated (with my dad's patience running low). At some point I suggested to switch to another homework (I had more) because math was taking up all of our time (and it was driving both of us crazy)... and he angrily grabbed his calculator and smashed it on the floor, before storming off. And then of course my mom blamed his reaction on me "driving him crazy".

I'm glad it was the calculator and not me, but the fact that he could have harmed me if he wanted to scared me and still scares me to this day.

I'm not gonna go over how much of this I have internalized and how I'm finally healing and re-parenting myself. It's being quite a journey.

Glad I let this out. What about you?

I feel so pathetic all the time. How cam something so minor affect someone so much. I'm grown but I'm still looking for unconditional love that I never received and might never get. I hate how much this has affected me. I wish my trauma were worse but it feel like people look down on me when I tell them about my trauma. It's not significant enough to have caused this much hurt. I'm so weak. I wish I didn't exist sometimes. I've been depressed and empty since I was a kid and it shows no signs of stopping. There's people that gave survived wars and other horrible things that are stronger than me. And here I am crying because my mother yelled at me a few times as a kid. I just want to give up, I don't think I have it in me to constantly fight or even try anymore.

I've spent years trying to understand why I maladaptive daydream so much.

My daydreams always revolve around people admiring me, validating me, realizing my worth, regretting losing me, seeing that I'm successful, attractive, intelligent, loved... For a long time, I thought I was just obsessed with validation.

But today I had a realization that made me cry. I don't think I actually want fame or admiration.

I think what I've been looking for all these years is the feeling that someone truly sees me.

Growing up, I experienced emotional neglect and invalidation at home. Then, when I started middle school, I was completely alone. I spent breaks by myself, felt ashamed of being seen alone, and would stay with almost anyone just to avoid that feeling. Later I experienced bullying, rejection from a friend group, and an ex who attacked my intelligence, appearance, and sense of worth.

Looking back, it feels like every major wound in my life carries the same message:

"You don't matter."

And every one of my daydreams seems to be trying to rewrite that message into "You matter. People see you. You were important."

One thing that really made everything click was realizing that whenever someone left my life, what hurt me the most wasn't necessarily losing them. It was the feeling that they could simply move on while I became invisible to them. That's the part that destroys me.

My maladaptive daydreaming is severe. I can spend hours pacing while listening to music, imagining scenarios where people finally recognize my worth. It affects my sleep, my studies, and my daily life.

For those of you who have healed from a deep wound of feeling invisible, emotionally neglected, or fundamentally unimportant...

How did you heal it? Not just the daydreaming itself, but the underlying wound.

I have been estranged from my parents for 6 months. It started after a falling out with my mother, which then grew to include my father as well. I did a deep dive into my family dynamics and realised I had outgrown their old rules and I predicted this rift was potentially permanent.

But when I discovered that they were also going to drop my children (their only grandchildren and who they previously had a great relationship with) something dawned on me….I had a third option

Before this, it was either accept their way of living or break free and carve my own without them. But then I realised “what if can accept them as they are, and I don’t need them emotionally anymore”. This is kind of hard to articulate/explain but it’s like before my inner child was still searching for them to love, treat and respect me the way I felt I deserved and when they didn’t, I felt abandoned/hurt/invisible. But through this process I learned who I was and that THEY WILL NEVER CHANGE, and I can accept that. Our relationship wasn’t terrible, it has really good parts as well and through this thinking we can recover what we had and I can stop looking for something that doesn’t exist.

According to AI it’s called radical acceptance. And it’s my third option. Almost like my inner child doesn’t need them anymore and therefore I can sustain the way we lived before. It doesn’t mean I’ll revert to my old perfectionist/people pleasing ways, I’ll still hold true to who I am and I won’t try to control what they think of me anymore.

What do you think of this?

Does anyone else feel like their body won’t let them fully participate in life?

I’ve been trying to put words to something.
I want to be social, make friends, enjoy time with my family, and just be present. But a lot of the time it feels like my body holds me back. I end up watching instead of joining in, even when I genuinely want to.
I’m not looking for advice. I’m curious if anyone else experiences this.

If so:
What does it feel like in your body?
What do you find yourself doing instead?
How would you describe it to someone who’s never felt it?