I fyou felt as a child that you had zero emotional support from your parent(s) etc

[SoleSource]

How has this affected how you deal with your emotions as an adult?

Do you find emotions hard to deal with?

Are you afraid of asking for help or just being yourself or not know how to word your feelings from being afraid of being vulnerable and attacked?

As I do sometimes...as I had zero emotional support as a child and was emotionally abused and verbally attacked constantly by my Father. I have been NC for nine years now.

I'm single and have had a course of therapy but feel I have been hurt far too much and am scared of letting others 'in'.

CraftyBuddha, when I have light bulb moments, moments of self awareness and adjust my life to suit, my mother is so fast at trying to bring me down. My brothers too. Course one of my moments was when I realised I was like them and started making sure that when I had things to say, they were positive things. They didn't like that. I think my younger brother is realising that his negativity is affecting his children and is trying to adjust his behaviour to suit.
My DH and I talked last night til 2am. I won't put details on as he wouldn't like me to talk about him here but I will say again - thank you all for your honesty, thank you sole for starting the thread.

God this thread has made me cry. I always thought my DM was a bit crazy and selfish but a lot of your stories resonate with me, so maybe it was more. Who knows?! Sorry, just very thoughtful

Do you find emotions hard to deal with? No, no tin general.

Are you afraid of asking for help? Not afraid to ask for help, but not accustomed to having the option so completely self reliant (I'm not as bed now, but occasionally backslide and DH has to remind me that I don't have to manage everything anymore).

or just being yourself? No, quite the opposite, I am who I am in respect of my likes, dislikes, beliefs, principle etc. What you see is what you get, it just isn't the whole story in general.

or not know how to word your feelings from being afraid of being vulnerable and attacked? Not so much not knowing how to word my feelings, but I didn't (and don't) trust easily. Not many people know the woman behind the PhD's and social polish.

My background is pretty mixed though; my father was fantastic when he was there (worked away a lot), my mother was so 'supportive' she told me she wishes she'd aborted me. I spent several years at boarding school (against my father's wishes) and as result became very self reliant, emotionally though I always had the rest of my extended family so I wasn't emotionally isolated.

I have an icily polite relationship with my mother because I'm unwilling to go NC - I'd end up nc with my entire family and I don't want that - I have not relationship with the twins (my mother's perfect little angles and the reasons I ended up being sent away).

Andro your story's just got me teary, what a horrible thing to happen :(

My parents, mother in particular, seem to fear anything that isn't mundane routine and "normal" and their way of dealing with it is to just pretend it isn't happening. I wonder if that's a survival mechanism as they both had pretty terrible childhoods. I think they were so desperate for a "normal" straightforward family life that they were terrified of dealing with anything any way difficult. They pretty much ignored my sister's disability, so much so that she didn't know what was wrong and had to look it up herself. Even positive things were ignored.

I credit my wonderful dh with helping me to develop. I have very little contact with my parents.

Hello all,
ive read all this brilliant thread and sobbed through most of it, its all too much.
Ive been searching my soul for a while now regarding my upbringing. My df is abusive. I think thats why I ended up married to a similar man.
My db and ds are twins and I was always pushed out as the odd one who was a constant disappointment.
My dm was/ is subservient to my df and emotionally retarded when it came to hugs or telling me she loved me or any other emotions. I too have turned to self medication in the past. I too buried my head in books as an escape. I especially loved biographies anything tragic Marylin Monroe to Sylvia Plath.
So glad you started this thread sole thanks, even though its been a difficult read.
Im going to go now as its uoset me. I may be back to offload as yes posting on here does, has and will help

Take care of yourself, IAmMine

My parents don't really do emotions and it has led to problems for me.

I think the most hurtful thing is their refusal to discuss this aspect of our lives - they just get angry when I try to talk about it.

Can I join? My background is similar to many on here. My parents don't do emotions except anger and sadness. I'm sure they love me, but I've never heard them say it. I don't remember hugs in my childhood. I've just divorced an EA husband, but I wonder how much of that was due to me?
All through school and university it was a running joke that I didn't do emotions- I didn't get outwardly upset etc, but the really sad part is I was proud of it. I just didn't understand how people could overreact to stuff.... turns out I just massively underreact because that's all I knew.
I have a DD and I'm really trying hard not to repeat the pattern. Difficult though when I don't always understand how I should feel about something or even what I am feeling.

I have the rage today, at least I'm feeling something. Somehow it's cathertic writing sharing here but it's also a reminder of just how "dead" I feel inside. So difficult to get in touch with any feelings - have had to really focus on it.

Mine weren't abusive but they weren't supportive at all. They gave zero attention. It's been hard because my other siblings received lots of help. However, it has made me very self sufficient, it has made me treat my own children very differently and it has made my close friends just more important then relatives.

Hi everybody x

Read every single post

Had the rage too today....this morning.....felt so frustrated, weird but glad I am letting out emotion. Has to come out in someway.

Thank you Homebird11 ;0

I also have a nasty habit of attracting verbally abusive and emotionally unavailable men. At least I know they are wrong or me and can now make a decision to cut them out of my life, but I keep attracting them...

ffs

Me too! I was never hugged or told "I loveyou". My parents made sure I was fed but I have always felt quite lonely. I have basically had to parent them. From when I was quite young they always had a medical issue that I needed to help them with.

Its only as I have become a parent myself and my DC are now growing up that I see how I dysfunctional my childhood was.

I also can't ask anyone for help. I never ask my parents and as the oldest child I feel I have not only patented my parents but also my siblings.

I have an emotionally unavailable Mum. I don't remember anything positive about her from my childhood. She always focused on the negatives. Left my Dad when I was 17 and expected me to cope in the real world without ANY support.

I first married when I was 20 because I was afraid of being alone. He got himself a younger model when our son was 3.

Got married again when I was 34 to an emotionally abusive arsehole. Left him when DS2 was 3.

My Mum was very good at being the avenging Angel, but once she felt I was on an even keel and settled, she would back off.

I have about 4 true friends, who I would trust with my life, wouldn't trust any of my family as far as I could throw them.

As a consequence of my Mum being an emotional brick wall my relationship with my boys is fantastic. I chose to change that side of me.

I am still crap at choosing men, but I spot the weird signs earlier and these men are all warned from the start that all I want is friendship and nothing else.

Now I am going through a hard phase with my Mum as she was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease in 2012. I am not her carer, she has her partner for that, but I see her at least once a week. She can't speak, she can't eat and now needs help to walk anywhere. She probably won't last until next year.

I am seeing a counsellor because I don't know how I will feel. I have a horrible feeling that I will be happy when she dies and won't grieve for her.

Caramel good on you for seeing a counsellor and thank you for sharing.

Thank you to everybody here.

It is a heavy thread but at least we know we are not alone.

just had this in my newsfeed on Facebook

Some of us including myself might be able to relate to it..

'There's a little voice inside me that tells me I can't possibly be good enough to become more than I am'.

That's a voice I want to silence

I'm getting there very gradually.....

I am almost 40 years old. I do not want to continue to carry around the emotional damage and sadness at not having love and support throughout my childhood and to continue to act it out. I really do not want to look back on my life and realise I didn't achieve anything I wanted to achieve anything because that damage held me back.

That is scary. I'm going to have to force myself to gradually ease back in to real life.

Just coming back to this after not having looked at it for a few days... its really topical for me now because my H and I have agreed to split up and are discussing logistics....

the weird thing is that though obviously I'm not at my happiest and I feel a bit low and am very worried about my DD and the future and so forth, I'm not at my lowest ebb. I've basically accepted that the marriage is over and am feeling the green shoots of optimism about a future without him, looking forward to more freedom, less arguing, more fun etc.

The thing that is literally making my quake with fear, the one thing I literally cannot face at the moment is telling my dad, who thinks everything is hunkydory. (My mum is quite ill and past the point where I would be able to meaningfully engage with her on something like this.)

I've been planning to tell him for nearly 10 days and have spoken to him nearly every day during that period and have bottled it at every opportunity. I get an actual physical reaction sweaty and feel cold and nauseous at the thought of telling him. I'm more scared of telling him than I am of how my dd reacts.

I know this is lunacy... my dad isn't particularly scary or judgemental. He will be sad for me and probably worried for my DD but he's not the type to tell me I'm being stupid or should stand by my man or anything like that. He will be supportive and loving -- probably a bit distracted and crap but he'll basically be there for me.

So why does the thought of telling him evoke a visceral panic in me? Is it to do with this sense of shame at talking about personal stuff? I reckon it must be....

I think your gut instinct is correct desparately - talking about your true emotions and intentions is too much for you right now. You'll get there in your own time. It is still a shock I imagine and you are slowly building up to the truth and might feel a little numb to it all as well a positive about your new future. Go with it and don't be so hard on yourself as you seem in control and a new future is exciting too.

Desperately - when you say he'll be "distracted and crap," what do you mean?

Cailin just that he is crap at being empathetic in situations like this. He is a) a certain type of elderly English gent and b) naturally very self centred (although has become less so) and not very inclined to listen to people as opposed to speak about himself.

He genuinely tries to be loving but he won't want to actually engage with the range of emotions I'm going through or the practical impact that it will have on my life. So it will just be a case of "oh I'm sorry, how sad" and then he will probably not want to talk about it any more. Which is probably for the best in a way. But it does make me feel, subconsciously, that my emotions are not valid.

My mum was no better, by the way....

Neither of my parents were emotionally responsive, not in a positive way that is. I still find it difficult to open up and be vulnerable because I find it hard to believe people want that from me. Because of this I bottle worries up sometimes.