Indifference And Neglect: How To Hurt A Child
Childhood is when we build the foundation on which we will construct our lives. What a child needs is love, acceptance and that you take care of it. Unfortunately, the environment does not always accept a child’s basic and simple needs, and instead responds with indifference and neglect.
There are many life experiences that a child cannot understand. They have neither the intellectual nor the emotional skills for this. Indifference and neglect give rise to great suffering and leave deep wounds that are difficult to heal.
Many people do not even remember the feelings they experienced during childhood. It may feel that they have had a problematic adult life, but can not find the cause of these problems.
The explanation may lie in a childhood that has been marked by indifference and neglect by the people they loved most. We will talk here about five signs that can be seen in a person who was ignored as a child.
Insensitivity is a trait that is ingrained in your personality if you have been ignored as a child. It is, in a way, an answer to indifference. This leads during childhood to a feeling of inferiority and has been abandoned.
In adults, this insensitivity is expressed as apathy. It can be directed at other people or life in general. There is no enthusiasm, no passion for anything. The reason for this is that the person from an early age learned to suppress their emotions because the surrounding environment did not appreciate them.
During childhood, we all need a lot from the people around us. Support, guidance and comfort if necessary. If the child lacks this support, he learns not to expect anything from others. The person may therefore become “independent at any price”.
They become a person who does not trust what others can give them. They will try to do everything themselves. They protect themselves from emotional experiences that they do not want to go through again.
Why? They do not want to need anyone and then be disappointed. Sometimes the opposite happens: a person asks for help for everything, even for the things they can do themselves.
The feeling that something is missing is very strong in people who were exposed to indifference in childhood. There was a place for their loved ones that was not filled. That’s why they have a hole in their heart.
This feeling of emptiness becomes their norm. Nothing is good enough, nothing will be good enough. Nothing “fills” them, not even a person. Sometimes the feeling that something is missing is manifested as constant criticism, directed at themselves and everything around them.
The lack of love and care during a person’s childhood affects the way that person sees himself. Without even realizing it, they believe that nothing they do will be valuable enough to be appreciated. They can be extremely judgmental and unbearable.
During adulthood, it is common for the neglected child to become a perfectionist. Its stiffness is a response to the subconscious suspicion that it is not doing enough. In the end, it is still the child who wants to be appreciated.
When a child feels ignored, it feels useless. The child feels unimportant, as if his life does not mean anything to anyone. Therefore, it states that “there is something wrong” with it. It is a feeling of inadequacy.
A childhood characterized by indifference can result in hypersensitivity to criticism from others. Any sign of criticism is interpreted as a threat. All they can hear is “there is something wrong with you”, just as they heard as children. It can be very painful.
From a neurological or psychological point of view, childhood is a very critical time. This does not mean that bad experiences can not be fixed at a later stage.
However, they leave marks that sometimes remain for a lifetime. A person can free himself from the beginning, but he must work hard for this and probably get professional help.
