Do remember neglect from your mother as a child?

[heartbroken22]

What was it?

I remember when I was in year 8 I had a really bad fever in bed and she just left me to go a wedding with my younger siblings. I honestly felt so sick and thought death was going to come, got up when I could and took some medicine. If I brought it up now she'd just find some shifty excuse to say ohh I didn't know how to be a mother then. What at 40 years old? It annoys me so much.

Yes I do. Too many times to count.

Yup and abuse. In fact that's mostly what I remember.

At 13 I was left at home alone when unwell. Neglect is the ongoing failure to meet a child’s needs. I presume this is just the tip of the iceberg? I don’t think what she did is that unusual, unless you needed hospital treatment which would change things

The word neglect can be used to express a solo incident. I hope people don't leave their kids sick at home alone. There were other incidents but it made me feel awful like she didn't really care about me.

Yes. Not when I was little, quite the opposite then, but she lost interest as I grew older and was more of a person.

Far too many times to mention unfortunately

I kinda agree with this. I've left my kids about that age when working etc. obv if unwell enough to need hosp I would defo be there.

Yes lots of neglect and abuse it never leaves you but you can learn to live with it and put it behind you with lots of therapy thankfully

Constant, emotional

I dont think it would be unusual to leave a yr 8 at home for work/wedding tbh. Unless it was tip of iceberg for other stuff.

No parent is perfect and yr 8 is old enough to mostly fend for themselves. I'd do that (and do on inset days).

However yes I had neglect as a child - not being fed, lack of emotional support, proper trauma, addiction etc. Really 1 incident of staying home when old enough isn't neglect.

Same for work, today included.

Yes. Too many times to count.

If that is the only thing that ever happened then I wouldn't call that neglect? Neglect is not feeding you, bathing, providing clean clothes, emotionally unavaliable, leaving you home alone constantly, not brushing your teeth. However her answer was shit, so did more than this happen in your childhood? X

my birth mother left me age 4.5, and my sisters age 1.5 and 6months. A blanket caught fire in front of the fire. Luckily I alerted a neighbour but needless to say that was the incident that saw us put into care but was the last of a long list of neglect

I remember the paradigm shifts. The times you clock the horror in someone else's face, and it dawns on you that this is actually not normal.

I am so grateful to those people who let me see that emotion in them. They may as well have given me a long, heartfelt speech about how I matter.

Yup. Others reactions showed me it wasn't normal. I think I freaked people out talking about stuff that was horrific as if it wasn't though. Socially awkward...

Brie - you poor thing. I often read your posts and had no idea x

I am so sorry for all of the people who have posted with their own experiences here. I continue to have problems (in my 50s) with my feet due to not being given shoes that fit. And with my teeth. Its the emotional neglect that is the worst - the total lack of care and interest in my life when I was growing up.

Not mine.

I will say this sounds like a proper traumatic Incident. I don't say this as a value judgement, just that to you the incident is unprocessed and is therefore still feeling the same as you felt then at 8 years old.

My parents went away for the weekend the day I was admitted to hospital to have my appendix removed aged 10. Literally dropped me at the hospital and buggered off before I was out of theatre. I’d never do that to any of mine

I remember snippets from when I was a child, my mother not comforting me when I fell and hurt myself, arguments between mum and dad that went on for a whole day and bro and I (aged 6 and 8) sat in the kitchen hiding and fed ourselves then were told off afterwards. First period at mums house after she left and I bled on the bedclothes at her house in the night, was told I wouldn't be allowed to stay if I couldn't look after myself properly. No discussion of "have your periods started, are you ok? Is your dad handling it with you?" Just emotional silence.

Now I'm an adult I can't reconcile the fact that she died eventually of a long term illness and made no attempt to communicate before or after she died. No last words, no letters of guidance for the future, no handling of sentimental items to pass on. I was 14 when she died and now I resent hugely that someone can pass on knowing that it's coming without making any effort to connect emotionally with the children they're leaving behind. And she'd left in the middle of the night years earlier with no goodbye and taken my childhood teddy bear with her from my bedroom. That's stone cold heartless in my view.

I console myself with the fact that I don't have to deal with the complexity of that relationship as an adult. I have huge sympathy for all of you that do have to handle that.

Mine is a strange one. Part of me remembers my DM as being caring, loving and in fact a bit overprotective.

I can't quite square that with the fact that she let adults give me alcohol from the age of 11 every weekend when my parents took me to the smoke filled pub.

Or that she left me at a new years eve party after just turning 13 with those same people and I nearly died from alcohol poisoning. She spent the night forcing me to drink water and be sick as my eyes kept rolling in the back of my head. Wouldn't take me to the hospital though, was too worried about what people would think.

Or that at 15 she regularly let me visit nightclubs with my friends. When I was drunk and raped by two men in a field next to one she just washed my skirt (don't want to be to be graphic, but it was covered in semen) and kept quiet about it.

Also strange that my sensible older sister and her encouraged me to date a 22 year old man having just turned 15. He would regularly take me to school in his car and I would stay around his house.

For years I blamed myself for causing so much trouble. An adult diagnosis of autism seemingly explained why I was so naive/vulnerable. But I didn't realise how 'off' my upbringing had been until after having my daughter, and seeing the horror on my partners face at some of the 'family stories'.

I had head lice in middle school which she refused to treat. I remember pulling one out of my head and showing it to her, begging her to do something about it, but she shouted at me and told me to stop lying. It's confusing really as she was a good parent in many ways and we're now very close.

I don’t remember anything else.

An isolated incident?

Neglect is not one incident. Bloom at the NSPCC website...

Neglect is the ongoing failure to meet a child's basic needs and the most common form of child abuse

I opened this thread because I thought it would resonate with me. It has actually done the opposite.

www.nspcc.org.uk/what-is-child-abuse/types-of-abuse/neglect/