POLL: Childhood Emotional Neglect Assessment

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Childhood Emotional Neglect - a condition which is the effect of a parent’s failure to respond enough to a child’s emotional needs. We all have differing levels of emotional needs and sometimes parents don't rise to meet those needs of one or more of their children. Parents who learn about childhood emotional neglect often wonder what they have done to cause it. Nonetheless, the effects can be significant on us as we become adults.

Jonice Webb, PhD., explores this issue in her book, Running on Empty.

What is your total score?  Let us know in the poll above and tell us (post) whether you are showing signs of someone who may not have gotten the emotional support that they needed.

0= Not at all        1=Somewhat        2=Moderately        3=A lot        4=Extremely        

------- 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

------- 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

------- 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

------- 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

------- 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

------------------------------------ Sometimes feel like you didn't belong when with your family or friends? Pride yourself on not relying upon others? Have difficulty asking for help Have friends or family who complained that you were aloof or distant? Feel you had not met your potential in life? Often just want to be left alone? Secretly feel that you may be a fraud? Tend to feel uncomfortable in social situations? Often feel disappointed with, or angry at, yourself? Judge yourself more harshly than you judged others? Compare yourself to others and often find yourself sadly lacking? Find it easier to love animals than people? Often feel irritable or unhappy for no apparent reason? Have trouble knowing what you’re feeling? Have trouble identifying your strengths and weaknesses? Sometimes feel like you’re on the outside looking in? Believe you’re one of those people who could easily live as a hermit? Have trouble calming yourself? Feel there’s something holding you back from being present in the moment? At times feel empty inside? Secretly feel there’s something wrong with you? Struggled with self-discipline? Have trouble identifying your values--the principles that guide your life? Lack confidence in how well you knew yourself?

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[unicorn2014]

I was a 27 tonight, mild emotional neglect bordering on moderate,  but I already knew I had coping issues, which is why I am reading Understanding the Borderline Mother

My lower score reflects the hard work I've done, a lot of it internal. I think through the process of recovery, we can recover our inner selves and get better. I do a lot of reparenting work in ACA and I believe that shows in my results. I believe that I can reparent myself and make up for the neglect I suffered in my childhood. I also had 7 years of continuous therapy with a therapist who believed I was neglected as a child, and I think that investment paid off as well. Internally I am stronger then I am in my relationship, that is where I experience the challenges: externally. That is because my partner has a far stronger personality then I do and is far less gentle then I am. Ultimately I hope to be able to stand up to him too. If we were to take a quiz for how we feel in our relationships, I am sure my score would be different.

[Turkish]

I'm the latchkey child of a single mother who suffers from depression and BPD. Her latest self-Dx tonight was OCD, which is strange coming from a messy, filthy hoarder, but that's for another thread. She got a little upset with me when I slightly messed up the kids' blankets she had neatly made. I internalized as a diametrically opposed oddity to the way she used to live, was slightly amused, and it helped.

She worked the night shift for most of my childhoid. I was on my own from when I most clearly remember was 6 or 7. When I was 8, I remember being locked out of the house during the day when she slept. So I was independent from a young age. I scored high on the hermity questions because I was forced to be that as a child. I'm struggling now with not triggering my mom (like I may have sometimes my Ex) by helping her to feel needed around the house. I've been on my own for 26 years, since my 18th birthday. Did my own laundry at the laundromat, and fed myself during the day since I was 12. I was largely away from the barn/camper/house and working since I was 14.

For two years,  I've dealt with being a single dad for half the weem, and taking up a little slack from the kids' mom (like watching them last weekend, which was her custody time she gave up). It's hard for me to ask for help because I feel that I don't need it, even when I do. But I don't... .but I may need it sometimes... .but won't ask for it.  

[HappyChappy]

I’m a 56 so on the cusp between well done and medium (just how I like my steak). But I was left alone with two older people with a PD one of whom was very physically violent. Like Turk I was self sufficient from an early age. Also don’t  ask or expect help and underestimate myself. Odd that being aware of these traits, in itself, doesn’t cure them. I was doing housework from as early as I can remember,  and cooking for my siblings from age 11 , I can do wonderful things with a fish finger.  Mind you, I did attempt suisid aged 12 and ran away from home couple of years latter. So I guess I always knew something was wrong. I expect my score would have been much worse, had I taken this test as a child.

[cleotokos]

I got a 43.

"Feeling empty inside" is a new one for me. I scored as a somewhat for that one and the way I interpreted it is that lately I've been wondering if there's something wrong with me because I'm not sure I really love anybody in my life. I know I used to love my family before I realized how dysfunctional they were. I know I used to love people. I have a lot of anger at my mother, and I'm not sure if I love her. I love my dad, but not as much as I used to before I realized he was not the hero of my life that I believed he was for so long. My brother is a drug addict and possible BPD and as awful as it is to say, I don't know if I'd really care much if something awful were to happen to him. He's like an empty person to me, I don't "know" him. He causes a lot of pain to everyone around him and I haven't really talked to him in years. I love my boyfriend but sometimes when we fight I feel like I actually stop loving him and I don't think that's normal. I have a fear of abandonment and I think this is a defense mechanism - if I don't love him anymore it will hurt less if he leaves. I used to have friends that I loved but my social anxiety and other circumstances have isolated me. I don't even have the desire to have friends anymore; they're too much trouble and maintenance. My stepmother has been in my life since I was 4 but I feel zero love for her. I think she's NPD but should I at least feel *something*? I used to desire her approval, so I suppose that's something. Then I realized she would never give it, that was the game; now I feel nothing.

And lately I think of all these people in my life that you are supposed to love, that I should love, and think what the hell is wrong with me? I feel like I don't need or want anybody but my boyfriend. I know on a logical level that's not "healthy" but it is what makes me happy.

[daughterandmom]

I got a 76

Way too many of these things ring true for me. I feel like I am a little behind, as I am in my mid 40's and have only just started addressing these things with a therapist in the past year. I have always thought I was just not normal, but it was just a personality thing. I mean I knew my mom was nuts, but I never knew that so much about me and the way I think is coping mechanisms, not inborn personality traits.

[unicorn2014]

I'm the latchkey child of a single mother who suffers from depression and BPD. Her latest self-Dx tonight was OCD, which is strange coming from a messy, filthy hoarder, but that's for another thread. She got a little upset with me when I slightly messed up the kids' blankets she had neatly made. I internalized as a diametrically opposed oddity to the way she used to live, was slightly amused, and it helped.

She worked the night shift for most of my childhoid. I was on my own from when I most clearly remember was 6 or 7. When I was 8, I remember being locked out of the house during the day when she slept. So I was independent from a young age. I scored high on the hermity questions because I was forced to be that as a child. I'm struggling now with not triggering my mom (like I may have sometimes my Ex) by helping her to feel needed around the house. I've been on my own for 26 years, since my 18th birthday. Did my own laundry at the laundromat, and fed myself during the day since I was 12. I was largely away from the barn/camper/house and working since I was 14.

For two years,  I've dealt with being a single dad for half the weem, and taking up a little slack from the kids' mom (like watching them last weekend, which was her custody time she gave up). It's hard for me to ask for help because I feel that I don't need it, even when I do. But I don't... .but I may need it sometimes... .but won't ask for it. 

Wow Turkish, you and I definitely have some commonalities. I too moved out at 18, and I've been a single mom for a decade.

I think having a BPD mother shapes us and the course of our lives.

I'm very thankful for BPD family.

[unicorn2014]

I’m a 56 so on the cusp between well done and medium (just how I like my steak). But I was left alone with two older people with a PD one of whom was very physically violent. Like Turk I was self sufficient from an early age. Also don’t  ask or expect help and underestimate myself. Odd that being aware of these traits, in itself, doesn’t cure them. I was doing housework from as early as I can remember,  and cooking for my siblings from age 11 , I can do wonderful things with a fish finger.  Mind you, I did attempt suisid aged 12 and ran away from home couple of years latter. So I guess I always knew something was wrong. I expect my score would have been much worse, had I taken this test as a child.

Yes I can relate too. I had suicidal ideation at age 15, I ran away to a youth shelter and they took me to a suicide clinic and my parents just blew it off. I ended up paying for my own therapy, but I probably needed to be on medication because I found out at age 30 that I had been suffering from dsythmia since that incident.

---

OTOH my mother would not allow me to cook on a regular basis or clean because she said I didn't do it well enough or I would break things so I when I met my ex husband he taught me how to do things like laundry.  I loved cooking and I would check cookbooks out of the library and beg my mother to let me cook. She wouldn't let me use the washing machine however, she said I would break it. She is very OCD about cleaning, everyone in the family and her friends know it and comment on it.

Even talking about it now makes me feel sad.

She is also very emotionally distant, she'll send me these drive by texts. She never paid much attention to me all.She was very distracted. I don't think she could bond with me as an infant. I was an unplanned pregnancy, in fact my mom told me my dad wanted her to abort me. My parents lived in a 1BDR apartment and I cried a lot according to her and she had to take me in the living room so my dad could sleep so he could go to work. I'm sure that was quite unpleasant . I think she found me a very challenging child. I am quite sure I absorbed a lot of her frustration.

[unicorn2014]

I got a 43.

"Feeling empty inside" is a new one for me. I scored as a somewhat for that one and the way I interpreted it is that lately I've been wondering if there's something wrong with me because I'm not sure I really love anybody in my life. I know I used to love my family before I realized how dysfunctional they were. I know I used to love people. I have a lot of anger at my mother, and I'm not sure if I love her. I love my dad, but not as much as I used to before I realized he was not the hero of my life that I believed he was for so long. My brother is a drug addict and possible BPD and as awful as it is to say, I don't know if I'd really care much if something awful were to happen to him. He's like an empty person to me, I don't "know" him. He causes a lot of pain to everyone around him and I haven't really talked to him in years. I love my boyfriend but sometimes when we fight I feel like I actually stop loving him and I don't think that's normal. I have a fear of abandonment and I think this is a defense mechanism - if I don't love him anymore it will hurt less if he leaves. I used to have friends that I loved but my social anxiety and other circumstances have isolated me. I don't even have the desire to have friends anymore; they're too much trouble and maintenance. My stepmother has been in my life since I was 4 but I feel zero love for her. I think she's NPD but should I at least feel *something*? I used to desire her approval, so I suppose that's something. Then I realized she would never give it, that was the game; now I feel nothing.

And lately I think of all these people in my life that you are supposed to love, that I should love, and think what the hell is wrong with me? I feel like I don't need or want anybody but my boyfriend. I know on a logical level that's not "healthy" but it is what makes me happy.

Some of those things you are describing sound like BPD traits. I fully believe BPD is a heritable disorder.

I can totally relate as well.

I often found myself noticing I was emotionally shut down before I was finally able to take a step back from my current romantic  relationship.

Now I am being pushed to the wall by what is going on with my daughter coupled my ex husband's  unrelenting disordered behavior.

All I can say is I am thankful for BPD family because the more I read the more I think BPD and PD in general are a generational disorder.

I can definitely relate to not being able to feel love.

My relationship with my current partner completely smashed my romantic idealism to tiny bits.

I think that is what my mom was referring to when she told my family I was heartbroken.

She used to tell me I suffered a lot and that I was very romantic.

If that is the case my partner has done me a service as it was time for me grow up.

I no longer wanted a romantic idealized love.

The problem is my partner and I are different stages emotionally, but that's a story for another board.

[cleotokos]

Some of those things you are describing sound like BPD traits. I fully believe BPD is a heritable disorder.

I can totally relate as well.

I often found myself noticing I was emotionally shut down before I was finally able to take a step back from my current romantic  relationship.

Now I am being pushed to the wall by what is going on with my daughter coupled my ex husband's  unrelenting disordered behavior.

All I can say is I am thankful for BPD family because the more I read the more I think BPD and PD in general are a generational disorder.

I can definitely relate to not being able to feel love.

My relationship with my current partner completely smashed my romantic idealism to tiny bits.

I think that is what my mom was referring to when she told my family I was heartbroken.

She used to tell me I suffered a lot and that I was very romantic.

If that is the case my partner has done me a service as it was time for me grow up.

I no longer wanted a romantic idealized love.

The problem is my partner and I are different stages emotionally, but that's a story for another board.

I totally agree unicorn that these seem like BPD traits. It scares me a bit but also I'm glad I have bpdfamily so that at least I can have some kind of self-awareness about it. So the cycle continues... .at least we can be aware of what it is and try to fight it.

[unicorn2014]

Some of those things you are describing sound like BPD traits. I fully believe BPD is a heritable disorder.

I can totally relate as well.

I often found myself noticing I was emotionally shut down before I was finally able to take a step back from my current romantic  relationship.

Now I am being pushed to the wall by what is going on with my daughter coupled my ex husband's  unrelenting disordered behavior.

All I can say is I am thankful for BPD family because the more I read the more I think BPD and PD in general are a generational disorder.

I can definitely relate to not being able to feel love.

My relationship with my current partner completely smashed my romantic idealism to tiny bits.

I think that is what my mom was referring to when she told my family I was heartbroken.

She used to tell me I suffered a lot and that I was very romantic.

If that is the case my partner has done me a service as it was time for me grow up.

I no longer wanted a romantic idealized love.

The problem is my partner and I are different stages emotionally, but that's a story for another board.

I totally agree unicorn that these seem like BPD traits. It scares me a bit but also I'm glad I have bpdfamily so that at least I can have some kind of self-awareness about it. So the cycle continues... .at least we can be aware of what it is and try to fight it.

Its ok, we know that  BPD traits are treatable. I had a few  myself.  My former therapist told me that there was a joke among psychologists that when people started slashing and burning their friends list on Facebook that that was a sign of BPD. I used to do that.

You don't have to fight it on your own. For me I more look at it as treatment. My traits were treated and I now have the tools to deal with it when I am triggered.

I fully believe that BPD and other pd are heritable and generational, like alcoholism .

I can say for myself that my father told me his mother threatened to commit suicide in front of him when he was a child, and I struggled with my own suicidal ideation both as a teen and when I ended my marriage. And unfortunately my d15 has already had one self harm incident in her life when she was 12. I never took it that far which is why I am concerned about my d15, but that's a story for a different board.

[HappyChappy]

I had been suffering from dsythmia since that incident.

---

She never paid much attention to me all.She was very distracted. I don't think she could bond with me as an infant. I was an unplanned pregnancy, in fact my mom told me my dad wanted her to abort me... .I think she found me a very challenging child. I am quite sure I absorbed a lot of her frustration.

Hi Unicorn2014

The way I read the above, and forgive me if I’m wrong, is your BPD was simply applying BPD techniques. Sounds like you were a “lost child” in the triangulation dynamic. Purposefully give the silent /indifferent treatment.

My BPD repeatedly told me I was unwanted because my Dad desperately wanted a girl.  Totally believed her, but on checking recently, denied by my Dad. But my BPD never tires of the “I dropped you as a child” *s___* and "You had a week spot in your head, I wonder if that’s healed yet" stories ? Bizarre stories to repeat endlessly, until you realise a BPD is continually trying to put you in your place. They make us feel vulnerable as we are then easier to manipulate. It’s a very effective principle, the “can do better” school of control. If you want to see this done at the very highest level, check out Margaret Thatcher at work.  

[HappyChappy]

I wonder if PTSD or eating disorders are also an indication of more severe abuse. My sis has an eating disorders and I PTSD. As I was older and male, I took pretty much most of the physical violence, and as the scapegoat I took most of the unjustified blame.  Sis also told me I was the only one to validate her feelings in our FOO, I also protected her, when I could, yet I had none of that. My sister had the abuse that comes with being a "lost child", i.e. ignored etc... .  So do these ailments indicate the nature of abuse ? Do they indicate the severity of abuse ? What do others think ?

[unicorn2014]

I had been suffering from dsythmia since that incident.

---

She never paid much attention to me all.She was very distracted. I don't think she could bond with me as an infant. I was an unplanned pregnancy, in fact my mom told me my dad wanted her to abort me... .I think she found me a very challenging child. I am quite sure I absorbed a lot of her frustration.

Hi Unicorn2014

The way I read the above, and forgive me if I’m wrong, is your BPD was simply applying BPD techniques. Sounds like you were a “lost child” in the triangulation dynamic. Purposefully give the silent /indifferent treatment.

There is a part I have not shared yet and that is my younger brother has an impairment and so all the attention went to him. I don't think I was given the silent treatment nor do I think I was purposely given the indifferent treatment. I am familiar with the lost child role from ACA but I think my role was more of a scapegoat.

My BPD repeatedly told me I was unwanted because my Dad desperately wanted a girl.  Totally believed her, but on checking recently, denied by my Dad. But my BPD never tires of the “I dropped you as a child” *s___* and "You had a week spot in your head, I wonder if that’s healed yet" stories ? Bizarre stories to repeat endlessly, until you realise a BPD is continually trying to put you in your place. They make us feel vulnerable as we are then easier to manipulate. It’s a very effective principle, the “can do better” school of control. If you want to see this done at the very highest level, check out Margaret Thatcher at work.   

My mom wasn't using this story of me being an unwanted pregnancy by my dad over and over again, I think she was using it to create some kind of bond between us and to cause me to look unfavorably upon my dad. She repeatedly denigrates him and I think she wanted me to think she was better then him. I have also had my dad try to promote himself to me, but in his case he doesn't do it at the expense of my mom. Both my parents want me to think well of them. I was very rejecting of my family as a teenager, ran away a number of times. My  mother reminds me of the things I said to her when I was a teenager.

In terms of Margaret Thatcher, one much older man who tried to date me called me iron side because of my internal strength of will. So I have to say unfortunately that I have admired Margaret Thatcher. I think I  have reminded more then one person of her.

I am now working on another issue, my codependency, over on the personal inventory board, on a thread called keeping the love you find.

I am also struggling with my undecided issues in my romantic relationship which I think I'm going to be posting about again later today when I have had time to compose a post.