When we grow up without anyone helping us to understand how we feel, we think that’s normal – that it’s like that in every family.
In one way or another, we grow up believing that it’s normal to decipher other people’s micro-expressions to keep ourselves safe.
We think it’s normal to shut ourselves off, swallow our tears and carry on, keeping up the ‘everything’s fine’ façade.
We do all this without even realising it. We only realise it when we’re adults and understand that we grew up alone.
Emotional neglect is a reality for many children, teenagers and even adults. It is often invisible and difficult to diagnose, but its impact can be overwhelming.
What is emotional neglect?
Emotional neglect is a pattern of behaviour that occurs when parents (or the primary carer) devalue or ignore a child’s emotional needs.
The main difference between emotional neglect and emotional abuse is intent.
In cases of emotional abuse, there is a deliberate intention to deny the child the support they need. In contrast, emotional neglect involves a lack of support that is often unconscious.
A child may be well looked after physically and medically, but may not receive the same quality of emotional care.
This pattern and its consequences are very subtle. Parents often do not realise the impact their behaviour has on the child. At the same time, other adult carers, such as teachers, may find it difficult to identify what is happening, as the symptoms are only obvious in severe cases.
What is the source of emotional neglect?
If you recognise yourself in what you’ve just read, it’s only natural that you’d want to understand why. After all, you were just a child behaving as children do. You deserved to have received the attention you needed.
The aim here is to understand (not to excuse or justify) your parents’ behaviour towards you. The answer is more complex than you might imagine. And it rarely has a single cause.
In many cases, parents find it difficult to understand or manage a child’s emotional needs. It is even possible that they themselves were emotionally neglected. Throughout their lives, they become fixated on their own unmet needs, ignore their children’s needs and become incapable of putting themselves in the child’s shoes.
Emotional neglect can also occur in situations involving depression, addiction, mental health disorders or a lack of healthy parenting skills.
When it comes to being a parent, it is very difficult to give our children something we were never taught or that our own mental state does not allow us to provide.
Perhaps that is why you suffered emotional neglect.
It was never your fault.
But perhaps it wasn’t your parents’ fault either.
What happens when we grow up without room for emotions?
If you grew up in an unstable environment, where you felt that your presence mattered little or not at all, it is possible that you suffered emotional neglect.
What you always thought was ‘normal’ wasn’t, after all. And you are most likely wondering whether what you are reading is really what you experienced.
There is no medical or psychological assessment that can confirm whether someone was emotionally neglected as a child.
However, the scientific literature has identified several symptoms of emotional neglect.
As a child, it is likely that your behaviour swung between extremes of aggression and passivity, that you behaved in a manner that was either too mature or too childish for your age, and that you exhibited symptoms of depression or difficulty forming secure attachments.
Now, as an adult, you may be hypersensitive to perceived signs of rejection, have disproportionate reactions to stressful situations, avoid negative emotions, and find it difficult to trust others or express your feelings.
Some people also experience symptoms of depression and find it difficult to form and maintain new relationships. All these symptoms can lead to perfectionism, low self-esteem and severe self-criticism.
Furthermore, there may be a tendency to remain in abusive and unstable relationships, engage in co-dependent behaviour, develop addictions, be sexually promiscuous, and go out of your way to please others at the expense of your own needs.
How to move beyond a past of emotional neglect?
Recovering from emotional neglect in childhood takes time and self-compassion.
At this stage, it is important to recognise what happened, what you felt in the past and what you feel now. Your emotions are not just ‘things’ in your head – your emotions were and are real.
In situations like these, psychological support is the best tool for understanding your past and realising how it affects you now. With the help of a psychologist, you’ll be able to put a name to what you’re feeling, develop self-compassion and self-acceptance, and learn to set healthy boundaries.
Looking after your emotional wellbeing through mindfulness and meditation, writing or other activities you enjoy can help you express and process your emotions.
If you’d like to take it a step further, here are some practical exercises you can incorporate into your daily life:
Developing emotional awareness
Learning to identify and name your emotions will help you build a deeper connection with yourself and better understand your emotional needs.
Ask yourself what you’re feeling. If you can’t answer, try to identify basic emotions. This will be your starting point for exploring the complexity of your emotions. If you get the chance, write down what you’re feeling and thinking. This will help you express your emotions more effectively.
Speak to you with compassion
Talking to yourself as if you were talking to someone else is an excellent strategy for accepting yourself just as you are. Without judgement. It can help to replace negative thoughts with supportive affirmations, and repeat them whenever you put yourself down.
Get in touch with your inner child
This is perhaps one of the most difficult exercises, but also one of the most powerful: embracing your inner child. The aim is to recognise and accept that the wounds of the past are still open.
Imagine you are talking to your childhood ‘self’: the child who felt ignored and unloved. Now imagine yourself as an adult, embracing that child and telling them that their feelings are valid and that you are here to protect and listen. It will certainly be a very emotional moment for you. Do not feel guilty or ashamed. Let the emotions flow.
Moving on...
Psychological support, meditation or even the exercises I’ve described will help you cope with your emotions.
However, this doesn’t mean you’ll be immune to the pain caused by the lack of love and attention you didn’t receive in the past. From time to time, you may feel more overwhelmed, but by then you’ll already have the tools you need to deal with the past.
Growing up without room for emotions doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. It simply means you were never taught how to feel them.
References
Kacper Wilk, Anna Starowicz, Magdalena Szczecińska, Magdalena Budziszewska, Childhood emotional neglect and its relationship with well-being: Mediation analyses, European Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, Volume 8, Issue 3, 2024, 100434, ISSN 2468-7499, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejtd.2024.100434.
Liu, L., Ning, B. & Yang, L. Childhood psychological abuse and neglect impair adolescent social-emotional competence: a network analysis with mediation. BMC Psychol 13, 1279 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-03615-x
Herrero-Roldán S, Martín-Rodríguez A. Neglect and Neurodevelopment: A Narrative Review Understanding the Link Between Child Neglect and Executive Function Deficits. Biomedicines. 2025 Jun 26;13(7):1565. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines13071565. PMID: 40722641; PMCID: PMC12292309.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12292309
Infurna, M.R., Fazio, L., Bevacqua, E. et al. Understanding the relationship between childhood emotional abuse and neglect and psychological distress in pregnant women: the role of prenatal attachment. BMC Psychol 12, 520 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-024-02024-w