Discussion Possible root problem, opinions are welcomed.

[ButterToast]

Yesterday I made a quick post venting here.

I received some feedbacks and I also wondered about the possibilities on why I am the way that I am, since as I said in the post: "The math doesn't work out."
Since then, I have considered something that has been lurking in my head, but I never really seriously considered it until now, since I have eliminated other possibilities.

Emotional neglect during childhood is interesting because it can happen in a subtle way, difficult to measure or assess sometimes, and can also be unintentional. Even when your parents do care about you. It doesn't have to be a text-book examples of very obvious neglects, it can happen even to truly loving and caring parents who might not be aware of this.

I don't have too much memories to analyze, but I do know a few things in the past:

1. Both of my parents worked 9-5, my dad is very busy with organizations as well, so he might not be super available.
2. Although my parents were amazing when they're home, I was left with a caretaker whenever they're out working or else.
3. For some reason, I never feel 'safe' talking about my own emotions to my parents, or anything that is deep and significant for actual emotional development. During childhood or today.

There are also current 'symptoms' that might be a sign of some not-so-ideal childhood that persists till this day:

1. I love people and tend to be very forgiving and caring, but I can't to the same to myself, if anything, I'm very harsh to myself.
2. I have this weird difficulty expressing my 'love' or 'care' IRL, but I have a lot of online friends because how I show care on the internet, especially anonymous.
3. I've always had low self-esteem for reasons that aren't super obvious.
4. I'm good at lying, worse, lying to myself. iirc it developed since I was rly young, but can't figure out which point specifically. This is still a mystery.
5. I've always had difficulty identifying my own or other's feelings. Suffice to say, I'm massively underdeveloped in this category. I'd say maybe about 5 years behind my age.
6. I'm very 'guarded' and self-reliant. Especially IRL. I never thought about it, but this is something that my brother would comment about me that I "never talked whenever there's problem and need help."
7. I've long had this deep-rooted self-hatred and feeling like a massive disappointment. There are reasons to be disappointed in myself, but as the replies here pointed out. There could be more nuances in the situation, and I'm likely 'biased' and unable to find it.

Currently I'm in an emotional rollercoaster, a bit more than ever before.

I don't want to die, I want to live with my friends, family, do my hobbies, and more. But, this guilt, low self-esteem, and lack of ability to deal with emotions have been weighing down on me so much. If I can fix this, I want to. I invite everyone to share their perspective, whatever it is. I'm generally an open-minded person, and don't worry, I've never hate anyone, except for myself. Insights to deal and explore my problems will be greatly appreciated. Or, even just general discussions is fun to read.

Thank you.

 

[The Burning Fool]

I'm glad to see that you're reflecting on your life, that's a very wise thing to do. I see you have some great insight, so thanks for sharing it.

Keep in mind that you'll never be able to do the full math, and that the more you know, the vaster the interface between your knowledge and the unknown will be. For me, accepting my own boundaries, including my ignorance and eventual death works better than clinging hard to my personal strive until I collapse from exhaustion. I'm writing about this because I've tried both. And maybe you function entirely differently than me.

But you're an awesome person anyway!

 

[duwangJEff]

Emotional neglect is a very big problem that not many people know or talk about. And like you mentioned with your parents, they can still neglect you even if they take good care of you.

For me personally, I haven't had a perfect life, and my parents divorced when I was about 10. My mother cared very much about me and my other siblings, and worked hard to provide for us. But at least for me, it felt like she was never there emotionally, likely due to her own trauma and problems. I remember having a lot of friction with her and distrusting her for a variety of reasons, but mainly because she would always be the one to punish me or take my things away from me when I acted up. Not sure where I was going with that, but I definitely think I suffer from emotional neglect as well. I'm the only person who's ever been there for myself. Even now, I have a hard time asking for help, and I tend to bottle up my emotions.

Whatever the case, emotional neglect is likely a root cause for your problems. I wouldn't blame your parents for it, since it wasn't intentional on their end. They both had to work and weren't around. But either way, you have to deal with that neglect now.

What you do with yourself is your choice, but if I were to give advice, I'd suggest you find a way to accept yourself as you are, and find a way to stop hating yourself. And try not to blame yourself so hard either. I know I've been lazy and skipped over a few syllabi in my life as well, so you aren't an idiot for skipping it. Perhaps just learn from this mistake and read them in the future.

I really want to emphasize, do not blame yourself so much for little mistakes. Or big ones for that matter. If you can find a way to accept your mistakes, it may become easier to stop hating yourself as well

 

[Renee]

Well Butter Toast. I totally understand your feelings. My child hood was like yours except like after my parents discovered I had girl interests my dad told me I was sick and going to a doctor to get help. It wasn't a doctor it was a head shrinker. a psychiatrist. To a 12 year old a head shrinker really isn;t a doctor.

Later my dad said- If you don;t cut this shit out you will never have a normal life. No woman will put up with it. Another day he said- I wish you were not my son , but since you are I wisjh I could kill you.

My mother said if you pray enough God will heal you. Several months later she said It is obvious you are not praying enough because God has not healed you. WHAT? Why cannot I just ask God once? Is he too busy? Like teenage girls screaming for Taylor Swift's autograph? TAYLOR! TAYLOR! TAYLOR!!!!!!

I say these stories to show you how parents can affect children.

Believe it or not "supposedly" my parents loved me. They were always frugal, but anything I "needed" I got.

It shows how parents can affect children's emotions and not just core values. I think if you could get therapy it could help. It may not cure you, but will help you work through all these feelings so you can deal with them in a healthy way.
supposedly
I am a transgender girl. To my knowledge God has never healed anyone of being transgender, although HE did raise people from the dead supposedly.

From what you wrote it shows you are very astute. From how you wrote it, it shows you are smart and well educated. Your sentence structure is much more complex than mine.

Good luck I wish I could help more. Hugs, Renee

 

[DreamWeaver✨]

Personally, for my journey in life, knowing the why I am this way wasted alot of my energy that didn't solve a thing for me. What started working for me is figuring out that what ever belief system I had about myself was a huge contributing factor to my depression.

I'm my own worst enemy. My negative self-talk has done more damage than anything I've ever been through, which has been more than some and less than others.

Guilt is my biggest hang up. I feel guilty about everything and unfortunately, have allowed some people to stay in my life who validate my negative self talk. In my experience, the things that have helped me is to try to remember some things...1. No one is perfect 2. That the past is the past...Anything I did in the past I can not undo but I can learn from it. 3. Tell the negative voice to shut the f*** up. 4. Remind myself that the negative voice is a liar. 5. I am doing the best I can with the tools I have.

Don't be so hard on yourself. Reflection is one of the best tools to have and you are doing an awesome job using it! Don't listen to your negative voice (I know, easier said then done) and remember you are perfectly you!

 

[Tesha]

Have a look at something called Quiet BPD (aka high functioning BPD). While it isn't technically a diagnosable disorder, there are some that have documented symptoms and aids to help. What you wrote immediately made me think of this.

 

[Baldwin IV]

My two cents are, like you said, I think you're way way to hard on yourself. From what I read in your post venting, your self-esteem is lower than Lake Baikal. Like other people have said before, life is a journey, you will stumble, but you said it yourself, you want to love friends, family and life.
Giving you a way to fix how you feel is tough but if I were you, I'd try to find out your qualities and focus on those, and see if there's a person be it famous or not that you can mold you life around, healthly of course.
But you're only human, you'll make mistakes just taking notes on how to avoid them in the future, and this is coming from a loser who managed to bluff his way to a doctorate, if I can do it, anyone can.
Bet on yourself and I truly wish you the best.

 

[rabbitmalice56]

It's like you're also describing what I am, but no one also really said what's wrong with what I'm doing for so long that I don't know what's wrong with me and how to fix it. And it doesn't help that I don't share my feelings or that I can't express myself, try to explain what I'm thinking, and I don't even know what I'm feeling. But recently I tried to put down my guard to someone else but I did it incorrect since I've never known how to do it, that instead I acted crazy and hurt them. I don't know what to do anymore.
Now everytime I look at anyone going through childhood, I feel a sense of overwhelming anxiety because of how just a simple wrong action or an inaction can lead to something big in the future.
Sorry I feel like I'm venting on someone else's post. I don't have the confidence to even make my own threads lol.

 

[ButterToast]

It's like you're also describing what I am, but no one also really said what's wrong with what I'm doing for so long that I don't know what's wrong with me and how to fix it. And it doesn't help that I don't share my feelings or that I can't express myself, try to explain what I'm thinking, and I don't even know what I'm feeling. But recently I tried to put down my guard to someone else but I did it incorrect since I've never known how to do it, that instead I acted crazy and hurt them. I don't know what to do anymore.
Now everytime I look at anyone going through childhood, I feel a sense of overwhelming anxiety because of how just a simple wrong action or an inaction can lead to something big in the future.
Sorry I feel like I'm venting on someone else's post. I don't have the confidence to even make my own threads lol.

Seems like we have a few things in common. Even to me, when I'm with my closest friends and family, I still couldn't disclose my true feelings to them. I can't relate how people 'vent' to a family or friend, letting themselves vulnerable. For a long time I never thought about it until I found out that was a symptom of much bigger problem. Ideally, you can find someone who can understand this (preferably with some knowledge of psychology), but that isn't easy and might not be available for you.

Firstly, I want you to understand that the reason why you are like this right now isn't your fault. You could argue that some of it is, but really, when you dive into the scholarly research on these, it's not your fault since everything is affected by your early childhood, which you have no control of. Even when you think it's your fault that you're not normal, it's really not.

Secondly, if you ever feel like you're doing something wrong, remember that everyone can be wrong and they are probably wrong on so many occasions. Just because you don't have a list on the times they did wrong, doesn't mean you're any worse than them. Not to mention the possibility that you might just be too harsh on yourself, it's very common for people like us to be kind and forgiving towards others, but holds extremely high standard to ourselves, which doesn't sound bad at first, but it causes subtle and long term damage that gets worse over time.

Now, you need to love yourself a little bit more. Don't be too harsh on yourselves and understand that there is a lot of room for improvement, not only that, you're more than capable to fill that potential. It will be tricky and hard to navigate, it will take a long time, probably your entire life, but it is possible. You might want to take some risk, maybe be a little bit more proactive, and I'm sure there are people who are willing to listen and understand you. It might be hard to find those people, especially when your head kept telling you the million ways things could easily go wrong and the fear of rejection, but it's worth exploring.

Explore more:
Rafaeli, E., Bernstein, D. P., & Young, J. (2010). Schema therapy: Distinctive features. Routledge.

 

[TheRedHare]

I read both your posts and you seem like an erudite person, well able to express yourself clearly. I can see a bit of myself in the words you say, especially the me that existed when I was in University. All the things you say are both right and wrong, I'm sure as you well know, being informed on Psychology.

What I mean to say is: The words you say about yourself, they're objectively wrong one way or the other, as you seem to contradict yourself in your own post. Either it's that the people around you find you burdensome or that you are simply wrong about being such a burden on them, I think you already know the answer to this. But like I said, you're both right and wrong. All those things you say about yourself are true, to you. However, unless you believe you're the only real observer in some sort of simulation, other people have their own truths. What I call the "objective truth" is the truth most aligned with the reality of the world that can possibly be fathomed. This is ultimately a futile task as you can only see things from your own perspective, but a way to get closer to it none-the-less is to consider the perspectives of those around you. Many heads are better than one, after all. And it seems as though those around you would be upset to see you gone, maybe it's worth taking their perspectives into account.

You come off as expressing a lot of guilt towards your own disposition. This persecution mindset is very unhealthy, I'd know because I've dealt with it a lot (and still do to a small extent). You're allowed to feel the way you do, your feelings are valid. Just because you didn't suffer the same way or even as much as others doesn't mean you have to feel guilty for being unhappy. It's particularly unhealthy because it's literally an endless cycle. Remember what I said before about your perspective being your truth. It doesn't seem logical to only let your perspective be true when it's in a discrediting way. You should just as well be able to accept your pains as they are, without guilt.

A lot of this is derived from Philosophy, so apologies if it seems a bit mumbo-jumbo. All of the above is what I was inclined to say but I'll give a few small additions:
- Write things down, about what happened in your day. How it made you feel. You'll start seeing the separation between your truth and the objective truth if you keep this up long enough.
- You're a person who is well informed and seems to enjoy learning, so think deeply. It can be scary and sometimes it will make you feel worse. But if you think deeply about the way you feel you can start being more logical about understanding how you exist in this world (especially after following the first point). What I learned from this is literally how my brain processes thoughts (and from this I learned how I was sabotaging my self). I had to read philosophy to help me along the journey of thinking deeply. But it comes to some people naturally, so your mileage may very.
- If you're too afraid to vent to someone you care about or know. That's fine. You don't have to. I've taken both approaches, I only found venting to be helpful after I came to the most logical conclusions I was capable of first, by myself (that's a very personal approach though).

A lot of stuff here and I'm half-asleep at the end of it so it might all be nonsense. I hope there is a least one piece of useful info there. I wish you the best, and I believe you'll see a better day (you deserve one).