avatarJenn M. Wilson

Summary

The author describes their struggle with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) due to emotional neglect in childhood, leading to difficulties in forming a healthy, loving relationship as an adult.

Abstract

The article delves into the author's personal experience with emotional neglect during their childhood, which has led to lasting trauma manifesting as C-PTSD. Despite outward appearances of a normal family life, the author's home environment was not emotionally safe, contributing to feelings of being unloved and unwanted. This trauma has significantly impacted the author's adult relationships, causing discomfort with emotional intimacy and a sense of unworthiness of love. The author reflects on a recent relationship where they accepted being a low priority, mirroring their childhood experience of feeling unimportant. They express resentment towards those with healthier upbringings and marriages, feeling cheated out of a happy life. The author has attempted various forms of therapy and self-help strategies but finds the process exhausting, especially while trying to break the cycle of emotional neglect with their own children. Despite moments of hope, the author often feels that true partnership and happiness are out of reach, questioning the universe's role in their perceived destiny of loneliness.

Opinions

  • The author believes that their childhood trauma, despite not involving extreme physical or sexual abuse, has had a profound impact on their adult life.
  • They feel that their parents' emotional neglect has led to a deep-seated belief that they are undeserving of love and that any relationship they enter will be fraught with issues of self-worth and the fear of being unimportant.
  • The author harbors resentment towards those who have experienced more nurturing upbringings and successful marriages, feeling that they have been unfairly deprived of these experiences.
  • They express a sense of futility in trying to overcome their trauma through therapy and self-improvement, particularly when faced with the daily challenge of not repeating the same emotional neglect with their children.
  • The author struggles with the idea that they might never experience a truly happy and loving relationship outside of the one they have with their children.
  • They are skeptical of the universe's role in their life, feeling that it might be predisposed against them finding happiness in relationships.
  • The author admits to self-medicating with food to cope with their depression and the pain of their situation.

Emotional Neglect As a Kid Turned Me Into a Jealous and Resentful Adult

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) impacts everything I touch.

Photo by nrd on Unsplash

Some people experienced crappy childhoods. Their dad lost his job and they struggled financially. Their mom died at a young age.

I’m not disputing things like that aren’t incredibly traumatizing. Let’s put aside situational-type trauma. Let’s also put aside the other extreme, children who are victims of sexual assault. That’s not even up for debate; that kind of trauma scars someone for life.

I’m talking about the kind of trauma where on the outside, everything seemed fine. But on the inside, home wasn’t a safe place. Decades later, I still feel the impact. And it pisses me off.

It was only a few months ago that it dawned on me that my parents never told me they loved me, not once, when I was a child. Is it any wonder that the only person I divulged this secret to was a guy I was seeing…a guy who refrained from telling me his emotions and wanted to end our relationship?

My parents were immigrants with a militant-like attitude toward raising children. My brother and I were to be obedient robots. That doesn’t fly when you move to North America where kids and teens form their own opinions. Throw in physical violence as a punishment and we’re ready to pay a therapist’s child’s college fund.

In hindsight, my brother and I were the outlets for my parents’ crappy marriage. My dad wanted nothing to do with us unless it involved religion. My mom repeatedly told us how her life would have been better without us. Turns out, all of this causes Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD).

I grew up being unloved and unwanted. It’s a shock I’m not on meth.

Like everyone else, on paper I want a loving relationship. In reality, no amount of therapy has helped me through the discomfort it brings. When there’s an inkling of emotion, I feel smothered. When there’s no emotion, I thirst for it like a fish out of water.

I want love. I want a loving relationship so fucking bad. But I also feel like I’m not deserving of it. It sounds dumb when I type it out but inside, I feel like I haven’t “earned” the right to have love.

My relationship ended last month with the guy who showed no emotion towards me yet I fell in love with him. The clarity it’s given me is like a movie character opening a box with a magical glow emanating from it and church hymns singing in the background.

I told Jeremy, “I know my place in the hierarchy of your life is between amoeba and paramecium, and I’m okay with that.” What. The. Fuck. The statement should have slapped us both for its absurdity when I said it. I should never, ever, ever be okay with being that low in someone’s life after nine months of dating. And yet, I replayed a messed up version of my childhood where I accepted being unimportant and feeling unwanted.

If I wasn’t receiving Jeremy’s love, it must have been my fault. Again, as I type it out it’s ridiculous. Inside, I believe it to my core.

When it’s flipped around, I either believe the guy is desperate and will love anyone or I believe that I conned him.

There’s no scenario where I can win. Either the guy won’t love me at all or I’ll disbelieve it if he does. The less a guy likes me, the more authentic it feels.

I hate walking through life feeling inferior to everyone else. I feel like I’m the poverty-stricken pleb in tattered, filthy rags stumbling among the wealthy wearing silk robes and Nike Air Force 1s.

I’ve done the therapies, the journaling, all the things. I’ve written on days when I feel good about myself. But it takes nonstop work to overcome this feeling. Add in the daily work to break the emotional cycle with my kids and I’ve got little energy for this endeavor.

It’s a struggle to not feel resentful towards friends that I know (yes, actually know, this is authentically true) had good childhoods and healthy marriages. I feel gypped. Why did I get a shitty childhood and a shitty marriage?

A bad marriage was the next logical step after a bad childhood. I’m forty-five and it feels like my only option is to be alone after I raise my kids.

It’s not because I feel like I won’t find someone. It’s because I feel like it’s not my destiny to have a happy, loving relationship with anyone other than my kids. Maybe that’s fine for people. It’s not okay with me.

I’ve experienced snippets of it, despite not knowing if I was delusional or if it was real. Humans are social creatures, despite my hatred of our species. It feels good to be in a partnership.

On TikTok, the algorithm has taken me down a path from relationship healing to manifestation. The gist is to trust the universe to bring all good things and hiccups along the way is the universe’s realignment of your life.

Here’s the thing: I think the universe believes that I don’t deserve good things. It’s scribbled in its notepad that I’m a secondary character serving as a backdrop to those worthy of a happy life.

Cue the part in my wallowing where I feel guilty because my kids are healthy. I’m healthy. My limbs are intact. There are starving children in Africa and I’m wallowing that the universe hates me because I don’t feel worthy of love, wah wah.

I feel like my extreme self-loathing (or the battles against it) is a first-world problem. It’s the side effect of being raised with religious or immigrant parents; suck it up, you don’t have real problems.

Back to the wallowing portion of my article.

Do I have a well-paying job? Yes. Do I have a decent home? Yes. Am I thin with a phenomenal silicone chest? Yes.

But those are earned or purchased. I can make a goal to buy a mansion in Beverly Hills and it’ll be more realistic than my attempt to find a healthy, loving, and satisfying relationship.

I can’t “work” or “buy” my way to finding the right partner. Especially at my age. Someone told me recently that the high-quality guys are the ones who are already married, so I should just have an affair with one.

I don’t want to borrow someone else’s husband. I want a partner of my own.

In line with all things universe and manifestation, I’m supposed to believe that if I pursue my own interests and passions, they’ll magically line up. I’ve done that my whole life. At best, the universe is a dick who’s making me play the long game.

So many of my interests and passions require another person. I don’t want to do endless dinners on my own. I don’t want to people-watch on my own. I don’t want to be naked and getting pleasure on my own. I don’t want to do road trips on my own. And no, I don’t want to do all these things with friends.

There is no option where I get it all. I can either be single but feel alone or be in a relationship with someone I dislike…and also feel alone.

I pushed down my walls and allowed myself to freely love when I dated Jeremy. At the time, it felt great. Until it didn’t. And his lack of reciprocation began to hurt and I felt foolish for allowing myself to trust the universe (or my judgment) with my unworthy heart.

My entire life felt like I must accept the bare minimum and it’s wrong of me to want happiness. I should be grateful that I was placed between two single-cell organisms in Jeremy’s hierarchy of life because that’s all I deserve.

I’m spoiled if I want more.

One side-effect of childhood neglect and CPTSD is feeling like asking for any needs to be met is a burden. Asking Jeremy to text me consistently felt like I was asking for a kidney. Asking my ex-husband to help with dishes felt like I was asking for a pony.

I’m trying, really trying to have an optimistic attitude. I even began a plan to work towards a happier life. But I lived at home until I finished college which meant twenty-three years of feeling unlovable, unwanted, and different. That’s half my life (the most impressionable part) and I’m too tired some days to fight the overwhelming feeling of mental exhaustion when I try to make improvements.

I feel like I require a kidney but the odds are stacked against me on finding a match. I can’t stop trying because I don’t have any other choice. But I’m dejected and each day is a struggle.

In lieu of meth, I ate an entire package of cookies while typing this and crying. Now I’m going to crawl into bed and let sleep numb the pain from this depression.

Mental Health
Love
Relationships
Self Improvement
Psychology
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