Posted by garnet71 on March 25, 2009, at 10:13:37
In reply to Child neglect, posted by yellowbird01 on March 24, 2009, at 18:52:16
Hi Yellowbird,
This might not resonate with you, but I've dealt with neglect, and voicelessness is a concept that can help explain emotions that result.
http://www.voicelessness.com/littlevoices.html
It possibly could also explain the need or your instinct to justify the degree of abuse in relation to the pain you feel.
My parents had all 3 of us in 3 years and we were all birth control babies. I felt completely unwanted. I felt I was never parented. I like to think my parents did the best they could. My mother could have had post-partum depression for all I know. My father had severe social anxiety and so much pain from his childhood.
While perhaps unlike you, we had emotional abuse, I don't underestimate the effects of neglect. But I used to think, wow, some people had it so much worse--why are they not all dysfunctional like my family? My brother, who I haven't spoken with in years, developed what I think are sociopathic traits. It's so painful to think of the suffering he endured. When I posted about anger above on this page, after reading the comments, I started thinking of my brother and thinking of his pain, for some reason, seems more painful than my own. So I stopped thinking about it for a while. I try to divert my thoughts from childhood pain to intellectual thought about the world around me. I'm always torn between the 2-I go back and forth all the time. It would be helpful to be in therapy.
This song usually reminds me of childhood, but when I heard it today, I thought of you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wif6VTBM3qk
poster:garnet71
thread:886864
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090227/msgs/886928.html