Emotional Abandonment

Children are dependent on adults to provide safety, nurture and the emotional conditions to help them develop healthily. If they don’t have these things they may grow up believing the world is unsafe, that they can’t trust others or they don’t feel they deserve positive attention and regard. They grow up feeling emotionally abandoned. As adults they feel they couldn’t live up to what may have been unrealistic or non age appropriate expectations from parents. They may have been held responsible for and punished for other peoples behaviours. Often the parents may have aimed disapproval at the whole child as a person rather than a specific behavior, for example calling them stupid or telling them they’ll never learn if they make one error. Sometimes the parent took no responsibility for their own actions or feelings but rather expect the child to. These distorted boundaries can lay foundations for false beliefs and unhelpful thinking habits that they are inadequate and shameful as they develop as people.

Emotional abandonment can leave people feeling they have to hide aspects of themselves in order to be either accepted or avoid being rejected. Examples of these feelings that lead to us hiding may be that it is not okay to make mistakes, it’s not okay to have needs, it’s not okay to succeed, it’s not okay to have feelings. These could be fuelled by being told either in the past or in the present that you’ve nothing to be angry or sad about, that other peoples needs are more important than yours, mistakes are met with blame and condemnation, and accomplishments are dismissed.

Counselling can help us understand where these unhelpful beliefs came from, make sense of them and learn more realistic ways to manage.

#emotionalabandonment

Tags: counselling, emotional abandonment, unhelpful beliefs