Indifferent, absent, detached parents cause suffering to the child not only in childhood. These emotional wounds can negatively affect his entire adult life. What problems do unloved children face?
For healthy development, a child needs love, warmth and emotional contact with significant adults. But not all parents are able to give this to children. There can be many reasons for this: from mental illness and personality disorders to preoccupation with one’s work or other affairs. Quite often, these are immature individuals who themselves suffered in the same way in childhood.
There are different types of cold parents: rejecting, emotionally distant, self-centered, narcissistic, career fixated. But in any case, their children are desperately lacking in love, a sense of security and affection, which in the future can lead to serious psychological problems. Here are the most typical ones.
Relationship difficulties. Relationships that develop in childhood largely determine how we will build relationships with other people in adulthood. Those who have been loved and cared for are more likely to show these qualities themselves in life. And those who experienced abuse or rejection as a child tend to be defensive and overprotective of themselves.
Someone has difficulty establishing long-term relationships and therefore prefers short, unstable relationships. But I want to emphasize: this rule is not absolute, and children of emotionally cold parents will not necessarily have such problems. Some people manage to become much better than their parents were.
Fear of affection and love. Teenagers and children raised by emotionally cold parents are more likely to be wary of becoming attached to someone, receiving and showing love.
If in childhood you did not receive love, warmth, care from an adult, most likely, your psyche will form protective mechanisms, because of which you will always keep a distance from other people. It is difficult for such people to believe that they can be happy and feel safe in a relationship. Unfortunately, this also complicates psychotherapeutic work with them.
Selfishness. The inability to share with others is closely related to lack of emotional attachment and immature behavior. At one time, I had a client, a 10-year-old boy who was very fond of playing computer games on the iPad. His mother, who experienced abuse as a child, told me that she would not allow her son to play.
Many parents do not allow their children to play until they have completed their homework and some chores around the house. But, to my surprise, my client’s mother had very different motives. In the end, she admitted that it’s all about the iPad — she spent a lot of money on it and wanted the gadget to look like new. That is why the boy was not allowed to touch him.
As a child, she had almost no personal belongings, and therefore, now an adult woman, she was so fiercely protective of her “investment”. Behind her selfishness one could see a long-term parent-child conflict. Later, when her son grew up and could already evaluate the behavior of his mother, so much resentment accumulated in his soul that he decided to go live with his father. Relationship with mother was damaged.
Tendency to dependency. Trying to cope with difficult experiences, a person may seek solace in alcohol or drugs in order to «forget» or «drown the pain.» Unfortunately, such “self-help” usually becomes addictive, and everything goes downhill: relationships, work and other important areas of life for a person with addiction lose their value.
Problems with identity and self-control. One young client told me in almost every session, “Do you think you would have a normal relationship if all the previous relationships in your life were in one way or another connected with violence and exploitation?” In such cases, I always emphasize how important it is for us to have a solid foundation associated with moral principles and a coherent identity.
If you do not have a clear understanding of who you are, then you will most likely be influenced by the crowd and let anyone into your life who shows even the slightest bit of interest in you. Lack of identity can push you into unstable, superficial relationships that don’t last. But if you know who you are, what you want, what is good for you, then you will be much more careful in choosing your inner circle.
Loss of hope, trust and joy. Those who grew up around an emotionally devastated parent live with a deep sense of loss and regret. Such a loss with a living parent is a truly tragic experience.
Look into the eyes, hear the voice and at the same time feel that the mother or father is somewhere infinitely far away, understand that you cannot make contact with the person who gave you life … yes, this is tragic. And it leads to the fact that a person loses hope, trust and the ability to rejoice. And this can be followed by depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, drug use.
About the Author: Tamara Hill is a Psychotherapist, Certified Trauma Specialist, and Family Counselor.