Childhood emotional neglect and scapegoating – part 4

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Emotional Neglect vs Emotional Abuse

In this series I have mentioned emotional neglect and emotional abuse but what is the difference between them?

Emotional abuse

Emotional abuse is an active act. This is where the child is told repeatedly certain things about themselves, their situation or their role in the family. 

These things are harmful. The person saying it may deny the intention is to course harm and genuinely believe that however, it does cause significant harm.

Being on the receiving end of this can leave you believing it or fighting against it and it will have a long-term impact.

In the worst instances, there is a deliberateness to this. No one wants to accept that people exist alongside us that will behave that way but the truth is they do.

Emotional Neglect

Emotional neglect is a form of child abuse but it is much more passive, it’s a failure to act.

The parent or caregiver may themselves be very emotionally immature and not recognise that part of their role is to teach their child how to manage their emotions. They fail to help soothe and regulate when they are experiencing big emotions and the child struggles to learn these skills. 

Instead they may model the parent’s ways of coping. An emotionally immature adult may get angry a lot because they can’t regulate their own feelings and anger becomes the default. Or they lock up their emotions in boxes and pretend they aren’t there. In this last example they usually seep out in unpleasant ways for those around them. Through passive aggressiveness, sarcasm, the threat of violence being contained.

The parent  may also claim the victim role and be helpless and demand support and help to regulate from their children so the child ends up being the caregiver rather than the other way around.

Whatever way it presents, the child learns that they cannot rely on their parent for emotional support.

Both types of people, those who are emotionally abusive or emotionally neglectful may not appear that way from the outside. It’s why emotional abuse is so hard to recognise even for the person who’s been on the receiving end of it and it’s why their experiences get invalidated so often.

In the end, you are very likely to become the scapegoat if you challenge it or try and let people understand what’s going on. The person challenging it is the one causing conflict and problems in the agreed upo narrative. The experience they’ve had isn’t seen.

There still appears to be a concept of hierarchy in terms of childhood trauma and abuse. Emotional abuse and definitely emotional neglect are the ones minimised the most. “You should be grateful XYZ didn’t happen to you instead”. “You’re so lucky that you didn’t have to go through this”.

The truth is though lifelong harm is caused by both of these experiences and the process of even recognising it in ourself can be very difficult as it means re-writing the story of our lives.

Childhood emotional neglect and scapegoating – part 3

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What is scapegoating?

A scapegoat from a therapy viewpoint is the person in a system who gets blamed for things whether they are the cause or not of the issue. I am usually working with a family system but the system can also be for example a work environment, a social group or a team. Other peoples perception of the scapegoat are re-enforced time and again by other members of the system and their voice isn’t heard.

What does that look like for the scapegoat?

The scapegoat may learn that the other people in the system will not support them. Even if they know that the thing they are being blamed for is untrue or being distorted. Therefore they expect very little from the system and often eventually cut themselves off from it as they cannot tolerate the expectations placed on them to take on the guilt.

However, sadly the scapegoat may not learn this lesson, instead they learn to believe what is said about them. These messages become internalised and can take a lifetime to even begin to question.

Alternatively the scapegoat can try and hold both things as true, “I must be the problem because everyone says it, but I also don’t understand what they say I did wrong.” Completely confusing to live this way and may lead to a lot of arguments and disagreements.

How does that relate to attachment styles?

In my experience, there does seem to be some pattern emerging.

For avoidant attachment children, they are more likely to expect less from the system and cut themselves off sooner. Going no contact reduces the stress of trying to defend against the scapegoating behaviour. Where these children have had to develop a lot of self sufficiency it is somewhat easier to do this.

For anxious attachment children, the need to people please and accept the judgments and blaming continues and leads into internalising and believing the scapegoating narrative. Breaking the pattern may not happen until those who are re-enforcing it are no longer in their lives as the need to please is so profound. Any concept of challenging the scapegoating has long been suppressed to try and make life easier.

For disorganised attachment children, the need to have that connection whilst also distrusting it means that the scapegoating may be challenged leading to lots of conflict in the system. In time this may lead to estrangement but there may be lots of repair attempts when the need to be part of the system takes priority. This then can be weaponised and used as examples of why the scapegoating is “correct”. “You always come back as you need us”.

Next time I’ll explore emotional abuse and emotional neglect.

For part 1 and part 2 click links

Childhood emotional neglect and scapegoating – part 2

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Attachment styles

More people now are aware of the concept of attachment styles, but I just wanted to give a quick summary of what it can mean as and adult.

The theory is that as a young baby develops and grows the relationship with their primary caregiver means they then develop an attachment style.  Their attachment style may impact a lot of other things later in their life.

If the child’s needs are predominantly being met in a healthy way, they develop what it’s called a secure attachment style. They know safety and feel a sense of security. They understand that they can try new things and take risks and they will be supported to stop them getting into actual danger and to help pick them up if they fall over. They will be taught to regulate when they do get upset and generally these have really positive impacts in the future.

For adults with a secure attachment style the world feels safer. Other people feel more reliable and there is more trust in relationships.

However, there’ are lot of people who have an insecure attachment style and these get broken down into three different versions.

Anxious attachment

Children who develop an anxious attachment style grow up and find it very difficult in relationships. They may be very needy but are potentially very wary of those relationships. They can need regular reassurance and potentially would tolerate a lot of poor behaviour from other people to stay in those relationships. 

They don’t necessarily trust their own judgement and their own ability to cope so they need other people to be there for them to back them up or to do for them. They hadn’t been taught when young to take risks and try things and explore the world and to develop resilience. 

They don’t necessarily trust their own abilities and can often have low self-confidence. They don’t have a sense of self-worth and that they are a value to others so they can seek reassurance a lot or do a lot of acts of service for people to justify why people are with them in any sort of relationship. They’re very vulnerable to being abused by people who take advantage of their insecurity.

Avoidant attachment

Children with avoidant attachment style have to learn to cope on their own as they don’t get enough support and back up from their primary caregivers. They have to learn their own regulation skills without it being modelled healthfully, they have to learn to do things for themselves too young and this leads to adults who are seen as very independent.

This independence is there but it can also be a mask. If they’ve had to do everything for themselves to achieve anything they will do it but they may not be happy. However, they also don’t know how to trust other people to do things for them. They have learnt not to rely on anyone else. They may believe people are incapable and they’re the only one who can do it or they may acknowledge that others could help them if they wanted to, but believe no one will. 

Asking for help becomes incredibly difficult because They’re so used to not getting it that it’s almost inconceivable that someone would actually give it to them. It’s better not to ask again only be disappointed and just push themselves to do it alone.

This can severely impact intimacy and relationships because there isn’t trust there. It can also lead to severe burnout because they’ve got no backup and even if people have been willing to be their backup, they haven’t been able to allow them into their life close enough to be that back up.

Therefore the mask of competence and even potentially success can also hide deep sadness and loneliness.

Disorganised attachment

This attachment style is believed to be the one most linked to childhood trauma and abuse. Experiencing it directly from the primary caregiver or witnessing the caregiver being abusive to others. 

This leads to constant doubt about what version of the caregiver will show up, one who is present, emotionally absent or one who actively causes harm so the child is growing up with a lot of fear and uncertainty.

This fear will continue into adulthood with other relationships. Whilst craving them and pulling towards them, the fear and distrust can be overwhelming and they will pull away or create and environment that the person they are in a relationship with (whatever form that is) eventually ends it. This them confirms they were right to be fearful, and re-enforces their fear.

The distrust they experience can be very harmful for those on the receiving end as well. Worst case it can be aggressive and controlling as they are needing proof of loyalty. Even without that it can be extremely hurtful to be under frequent suspicion and in the end it drives people away.

Next time I will introduce scapegoating and how that can link to attachment styles which you will find here.

Return to part 1

Childhood emotional neglect and scapegoating – part 1

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On family estrangements

I know over the last week there’s been a lot of speculation and commentary over one particular celebrity family breakdown but as someone who has worked in this field for many years I wanted to give my perspective in general on what these are about. I won’t comment on the celebrities themselves.

  • Never assume it’s easy for anyone being impacted.
  • Never assume you know what someone’s reality has been like from watching it from outside the core family. 
  • Never assume people haven’t tried to fix things before they make a break. 
  • Never assume that people living in the same house have the same experience of people.

The reality is we don’t live other peoples lives and it’s incredibly difficult to fully understand what people are going through because we bring our own prejudice, biases, innocence and naivety into our perspectives.

Sometimes abusive behaviour is overt. I mean that the abuser knows they are being abusive and there is an element where they want to hurt someone in what they do. These people are usually very skilful at hiding that behaviour from everyone else because they have developed a very good mask to show to other people.

The person that they abuse is often disbelieved if they tell their version of event because of the way a skilful abuser has created and crafted a story. This can often include setting up the abused family member as a scapegoat. 

  • They are the problem.
  • They are the one who makes it difficult. 
  • They are the one who we try to help and doesn’t appreciate things, et cetera. 
  • They are ungrateful.
  • They don’t understand I did what I did for their own good.
  • They are the one who then isn’t believed when they try to speak out if they ever do speak out. 

Part of that abuse can be that they actually end up believing the story that’s been crafted about them and it can take a lifetime to realise that it was false. 

In other instances the abuser is not aware that their behaviour is abusive. That their behaviour is causing harm to another person.

This can be for many reasons but often it’s a lack of emotional maturity, the ability to emotionally regulate and maybe they have been raised themselves in a emotionally abusive household so they do not understand what is appropriate.

I think back to the tales of stage mothers as shown in films from the 1930’s, 40’s and 50s. These are mothers usually raised in poverty who want more for their children and push them to work from a really young age and dedicate everything to making their child stars and make money but at what cost?

There’s a lot of films and literature about that system in Hollywood and now it’s acknowledged how abusive it was and how harmful. Those mothers I think in many ways were motivated by their own trauma. They wanted more for their children and then through them more for themselves.

Parents who overshare with their children from a young age and treat them as a confidant can also cause a lot of harm. There children become the support system for the parent and their own needs and support gets neglected.

Absent parents through economic poverty and necessity can also leave a legacy of harm to children. Parents who are never there for their child because they’re working all the time to provide some stability think they’re doing the right thing. However we do know that children need connection with their primary carers to feel emotionally safe and secure and to learn from them. 

They learn how to regulate emotions, learn trust, confidence and to know they are loved. When work takes so much time and energy, even when it’s coming from trying to provide for them, that child may feel unloved, unsafe, unconnected, and ultimately that can also become a form of emotional neglect.

Emotional neglect is one of the most unseen forms of child abuse. Its legacy can be lifelong and hidden, even in the one who experienced it. It can shape and influence all their life choices.

Sadly, if they ever do come to understand what was happening and work on healing themselves it also often gets dismissed and even mocked by those who they share their story with later in life. 

These types of examples can lead to different insecure attachment styles which are covered in part 2.

Vulnerability

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In my experience showing vulnerability is incredibly difficult for clients and I am always honoured when they share this with me.

When a facade, a mask has been carefully constructive to help cope with the difficulties life has brought to a person, it takes enormous courage to let someone see behind it.

To trust a professional with that can be the first step to finding a way to bring down the mask that is no longer needed for protection. 

“Not too good actually, not good at all”

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“Not too good actually, not good at all”

Walking through the station recently I overheard someone saying this into their phone.

I don’t know the context or what was going on as I moved passed and didn’t hear anything else but I was really struck by the statement.

How often do we really tell the truth when it isn’t very good? This could have been about anything, an interview, work, physical or mental health, relationships or life itself.

  • We don’t usually tell people though for many reasons.
  • We don’t want to worry them
  • We don’t want to admit failure
  • We don’t want to be seen as weak
  • We don’t want to be a burden
  • We don’t think they will care
  • We don’t think they can help
  • We don’t want to be ashamed

So we don’t admit what is really going on. And when we hold back we create a barrier between us and them. Sometimes this is necessary, but what if this barrier is a hindrance? If we can show our vulnerability to our nearest and dearest, how near are they truly?

Coming to therapy may be the first time the client really admits to the things that are not good. Finding the words can be a struggle and take time if they have spent a lot of their time not sharing it.

It can leave us feeling incredible vulnerable to admit that things aren’t going the way we would like them to be. My experience though is that it’s an enormous step in bringing about change. Not all relationship can adjust to it, but those they do are often deeper and much more fulfilling.

The impact of childhood trauma

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There is more and more research being done on the long term effects of childhood trauma on mental health issues.

Some of the figures are alarming, especially when you consider how hard it is to for children and young people to get access to the necessary mental heath care in this country. The long term costs on a persons overall health and life expectancy are huge due to trauma.

The following article gives some of the details.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/childhood-trauma-effects-life-expectancy-mental-health-relationships-a7470106.html

Why are people not seeking help?

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I see such conflicted views from people seeking help. Some people seem to feel they don’t really have a problem but they are just checking things out (this usually means there is a problem but they aren’t ready to acknowledge it as such), others know they have a problem but don’t think it is bad enough to warrant much attention.

Other people know there is a lot going on, but for one reason or another they are just not ready to commit the time it takes to work on it and others seem to believe it can all be solved in just one session.

All of these experience show how confusing it can be be when people do reach out for counselling, the article below explores more about those I never hear from.

The bottom line is there is still a lot of misunderstanding about what counselling is and what it can achieve.

It is hard work. It can at times be very upsetting and mean revisiting painful emotions and experiences in our life. By doing that we can view them from a different perspective with an impartial person accompanying the journey.

This process can take a short time or a long time, it depends on so many factors.

But if there is something going on for you that you are not happy with, then what is holding you back from trying to change it?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/29/many-people-still-scared-seeking-help-mental-health/?platform=hootsuite