Reasons for feeling unseen, unheard, misunderstood
So I was reading this blog post...and saw a lot of myself in it. Maybe you will, too?
2 Ways Emotional Validation Can Go Wrong
The Child’s Threshold of Emotional Need isn’t met. Many people can look back on their childhoods and remember a time when their parents emotionally validated them. But that doesn’t actually mean all that much. Here’s why. In order to grow up feeling seen, understood, and heard, you must be emotionally validated enough. Even the most well-meaning parents can “fail” their child in this way. Your parents may have loved you and tried their best with you, but they may not have had the emotional awareness or skills to meet the threshold that is enough.
The Child’s Emotions are Actively Invalidated. These parents have a profound misunderstanding of how emotions work in general. Here, your parents may view your feelings as your choice, which is patently wrong, and judge them as a form of bad behavior, which is also patently wrong. Your parents’ false concept of feelings can lead them to actively invalidate your emotions in all kinds of ways. This takes us beyond not getting enough. It is a form of active emotional harm.
Me: Mostly #1, with a crunchy topping of #2.
10 Ways You May Have Been Emotionally Invalidated as a Child
Your parents pretend to listen but actually don’t. When this happens enough during your childhood, you learn that you are not worth hearing
You have a learning disability or some other challenge that goes unacknowledged. This leads to misunderstandings and incorrect assessments of your strengths and weaknesses and may leave you incorrectly feeling deeply flawed.
This is the main one, and probably the cause of all the others. Then throw in parents who probably also had undiagnosed LDs/ADHD, and don’t understand it in themselves and have complicated feelings about it...
Your parents act like they are your friends instead of your parents. You don’t receive the limits and consequences that you need to have in order to have self-discipline and be able to structure yourself.
Not exactly. One of my parents was the “fun parent” with no experience providing structure and routine, and no consistent one for himself, so they were unable to provide the structure and calm discipline I needed.
Your feelings are ignored as if they don’t exist. You learn that your feelings are nothing so you build a wall to shield you (and others) from your feelings. You grow up without enough connection to your feelings. This is classic Childhood Emotional Neglect
Your natural needs to be seen, heard, and validated go unmet. This teaches you that you are not worth being seen and heard, and you feel less valid than other people.
A major event in your family or home is never talked about. This may be a large or small event; divorce, illness, or even the death of a parent may be left undiscussed. This leads you to feel deeply alone in the world and also fails to teach you vital emotional expression skills
Your emotional expressions are twisted and thrown back at you. This form of gaslighting teaches you that you cannot trust yourself. It also sets you up to struggle with generalized anger throughout your life which you may end up turning at yourself
Your parent acts as if you are the parent, not them. When this happens, you learn how to be overly responsible. You are set up to be excessively caretaking of others, putting others before yourself
You receive the message that it’s not okay to have needs. Here, you will learn very well how to have no needs. You may feel it’s wrong to ask for help or accept help. Needing help of any kind may make you feel vulnerable.
I had needs for food, naps, validation, redirection, coping with intense feelings, and so on, that I was constantly told were inconvenient and a hardship to others. My needs weren’t okay, and asking for them made me bad and selfish.
You are told that you don’t, or shouldn’t, feel what you feel. Also a form of emotional gaslighting, this teaches you to hide your feelings because they can and will be used against you. It also undermines your ability to trust your emotions or yourself.
This. I was told what I should feel, more than what I shouldn’t feel. But often, what I felt was very different from what I was supposed to feel, and I’ve struggled a lot with that.
Did you see yourself in any of the examples above?
Seriously, Jonice Webb’s ideas about childhood emotional neglect, and growing up without learning to understand and manage your feelings, are transformative. They explain and acknowledge the seriousness of the life problems one has, without blaming anyone, including the parents.
I think neurodivergent people, whether diagnosed or not, are especially likely to grow up with childhood emotional neglect, and are more likely to develop trauma as a result.
If any of this resonates with you, I encourage you to check out her CEN Questionnaire. It will help you understand yourself and your childhood more deeply.
