In my experience "the manual" includes all the basic stuff on how to be a human in society, with other humans... I'm trucking through my 50s, and a couple of months ago I learnt to enjoy doing the dishes... I am bloody immature, and that goes hand in hand with my creativity, so I can live with that. Through most of my life it was a liability. I learnt to brush my teeth in my late 20s. As I get older though, it starts to present some upsides. I present not so much as "immature" and instead as rather "young", and that's quite cool. My music collection is awesome, I still dance, and today, I actually know how to do some shit quite well; I have skills and stuff :) Thanks for sharing your thoughts. For me personally, it's the identification with yourself on points of detail. It bolsters my sense of not being a freak. Again, thanks.
Patrick... I've had both. I'm both Dyslexic and had parental difficulties. I've always been resilient though.. I've had therapy but I'd never say it really helped? Insurance issues led to average care... but through my FAITH, I grew A LOT!! But it still dosen't answer the dynamic of being accused of mental health issues of my Bent as an ARTIST!! You Can Not FORCE Free Spirits to be normies... and call them mentally challenged... It's B.S
“A toxic parent expects adult behavior from a child”. My father still says “we treated you children like adults”, like a badge of honor. Zero awareness.
The day I turned 10 years old all my coloring books and my favorite cartoons were thrown out the door (because 10 was being an adult they said they don’t do cartoons and coloring anymore).
They don't know the difference between treating a kid like a person with respect and treating them like adults. Its a massive difference. Adultifying a child is harmful to them.
Yeah and I think of how other members of my family and extended family got that treatment too. And I think of how I sometimes joined in just so I wouldn't be the target for once. 😣
It took me a decade to finally realise just how much impact bad parenting had on me. Not teaching your child anything, then expecting them to know everything, then shaming them and insulting them for when they don't know what they simply don't know is so traumatizing and leads to so many toxic cycles throughout your life that you feel like you've gone completely insane. A child can't just be thrown into the world and be expected to excel in relationships, communication, career, school, friendships if there is zero education on it. I still live with extreme guilt for making horrible mistakes because I simply was not taught about life or how anything works. But I'll get there.
You've perfectly described my early life, and even as a younger senior - how I am STILL struggling. It has made me so sad to finally realize this. I always thought there was something terribly wrong with me (of course, I'd been told that very thing weekly thru childhood). So from my birth unit's home to my NPD husband's, and now beginning the healing journey. It's all the wasted decades, and few years left now. The overwhelming sense of being cheated of basic emotional and maternal needs, and the sorrow over how I repeated this with my children. That in itself is really hard to process.
Yes, it is difficult to process this when you realize both of your parents were narcissists, memories of your past are distorted, your sense of time is fractured, your present and future are an endless loop of pain and the continued mental abuse from them except that they laugh at you for finding out too late and that they achieve their final goal to then discard you.
My mom deems it a fun little story how, when I was a child, she'd ground me and send me to my room (after the spanking and the yelling) and then forget about me since I wouldn't cry or throw fits. She says after maybe four or five hours she'd remember she'd sent me off and then open the door to find me either napping or playing with my toys or whatever. She views this as little me “not giving a fuck”. The irony of it all. Now, whenever I'm in a situation of conflict or tension I find myself emotionally shutting down automatically. I've often been called cold, heartless, and oblivious
Wow! That resonates so much with what my family member went through and how he adapted his behavior to just shut down and become numb to all of it. Thanks for sharing.
I’m sorry she did that….best we can do is be good to others, but not to our detriment I think…. I was spanked too….all it does it gets their anger out…..they had 0 parenting education then ….not an excuse, but books, videos made a big difference for me with parenting
@@Ty-mu7gl I’m making real progress by focusing on my chronic neurological/emotional dysregulation. My mother co-regulated me with a wooden spoon, so shutting down into fawn/freeze was my safest option.
I do that, if someone tells me to not interact with them, I move on to another stuff I learned to keep myself occupied with something...music, books science etc.😊
My mum would regularly leave me at home alone at a young age. I used tv to self soothe. I realised years later as an adult I was addicted to watching tv shows and using it self soothe when I felt stressed and was procrastinating. I also really struggled while trying to study for my Masters, I felt so lonely in my room trying to study I would shut down. I would literally be exhausted even though I hadn’t done anything. I definitely felt behind in life in certain ways
My mother prided in her parenting skills in claiming that she was able to “break” her kids- like a horse. When we emerged from punishment after being spanked, sent to room, with her frightening yelling - we would emerge with sweet tearful apologies. She felt like she refined our behavior. I feel a freeze response quite often in the face of people’s anger and an overwhelming need to “make it right.”
My mum did that too plus an extra thing that scared me more than anything else. Whenever I was out in a public place with my mum, shopping, walking to school… if I ever started crying because it was cold or the loud noises, she’d say “Goodbye!” Let go of my hand and leave me behind. She would often completely disappear in crowds of people and I’d be left crying my eyes out, desperately trying to find her. Then as I got older, this turned into the silent treatment. She would pretend I didn’t exist for hours, days, weeks.. Then when she did talk to me again, she acted like nothing had happened and I’d be SO GRATEFUL, I’d do anything she demanded of me.
My friends used to say I behaved like a teen, co workers would say I’m like a grandpa one day but a kid the next, my mom without teaching me anything in life would mock me for not knowing how to do everyday life things, those comment really hurt me so having this video really helps bring the shame down. Thank you Patrick!
I relate to your experience, too. My mom once mocked me for not knowing how to sew on a button when I asked her for help. I also never learned how to tie my shoes differently than the "bunny ears" method.
I got similar comments. As a child, I was constantly told how grown up I was, now, as an adult, I feel undeveloped because I don't know certain things that others do, or I get anxious about completing certain tasks. Friends of mine are so surprised or even put-off. They don't mean it harshly, but it's so shaming to have them be confused as to why I get "glitchy" (stuttering, nervous, and overreactive) about what should be typical tasks.
@@danak2230Be kind to yourself. Anyone is a beginner at something always, so just remind yourself that with time, kindness and repetition, you will learn anything you didnt learn from your parents. It will take time, but knowing that you are working towards feeling competent in areas that matter most to you, is a big booster of self esteem. Treat yourself like the kind teacher, you never had and in time, you will emerge not just knowledgeable, but also with a lot of self confidence ❤️
same but I have a split consciousness, one that is the little me and one that is my age. Earlier this year when I went through something my little me appeared and got me through it, I never realized I had it until my therapist pointed it out. What’s pretty cool is after that traumatic event I had a dream of an eclipse which was telling me that my subconscious and conscious were finally aligned.
Ah the mocking...a full grown adult sneering at a kid because they didnt know how to do something, the so called😮 "adult" already knew. Ugh. Lording it over an ignorant child really gave the "adult" a sense if power which is sick/sad but also really harmed the kid and for what? A moment of ego propping ugh ugh. @leadidee
I always thought it was strange how I was so independent, mature and 'grown up' as a child, to the point of parenting my siblings - but as I grew up I seem to have got stuck and now feel so much more behind and less mature than my peers. As I have grown up, my siblings I looked after as children have all become independent adults and here I am, struggling to grow up myself and feeling left behind.
same I spent most of my childhood being the “teacher” in the family while neglecting my own personal growth. I learn everyday though. My dreams tell me where I am lacking and what needs correcting so I’m thankful for my own sub-conscious doing that for me.
Wow yeah I’ve hit that realization myself not too long ago and just recently started understanding and empathizing with those feelings cus I was afraid I wasn’t being mature enough to be having such thoughts and emotions.
I'm sorry, I'm still just blown away by the fact that I'm not the only person who still has to use their hands to determine right from left. I never would have thought of it as a developmental delay. I just thought I had terrible spatial skills. My mouth dropped open and my husband thought something was wrong. I really felt seen in this video.
I thought it was kind of normal! So it was equally shocking for me. Strangely, though, I automatically know port from starboard after learning to sail a bit later in life, but still have to tap each hand before knowing left from right.
my parents would often brag about how they didn't have to teach me anything and that I learned everything myself. This never really clicked for me until I started therapy. It's messed up. I started asking some of my friends if they had this happen and they were absolutely taught by their parents. No wonder I feel so behind my peers.
Oh yeah my mum always bragged to friends and family. “She’s so independent and capable!” Now I’m in my thirties she wonders why I don’t talk to her about my problems or ask her for help.
I have the same thing. "Oh, you were so independent, not like your sister" - my sister was the wanted one, so she got a whole 180 degrees different upbringing, and let me tell ya, watching her get in excess all that I never got as a child is a special taste of hell.
I think its awesome how we voted and get to see the video the audience chose. Thanks man. For those who have been too hurt by bad therapy to ever give it a millionth chance, your a life saver.
When I was very small and being ignored as usual because OCD ADHD mom was busy cleaning, I entered the kitchen. Mom’s goal was to get me to go way and play by myself. I didn’t know what I was feeling. She asked me what was wrong and I didn’t know. She asked me if I was bored. I didn’t know that word. She told me it was when you can’t think of anything to do and she told me what toy to go play with. So I learned that the word for lonely was “bored” and every time I was lonely, I would tell her I was “bored” and she would tell me to go away and play with a toy. So yeah, I’m lonely and you don’t care and it’s normal.
Same. Have only found the courage to divulge personal information a handful of times throughout my life. Each time my trust was betrayed. I’m 53 years old and trust no one, not even my partner of 27 years. Doctors are especially included - that’s a story in itself. It makes it near on impossible to seek help, although I recognise I truly, almost desperately, need it. I also recognise how unhealthy this is but feel stuck in an endless catch 22. 🤷♀️
@@Ichneumonxx me too, I've found that a lot of people , if not most people are in denial about their own traumas in which case, I steer clear, bc I think that sh*t is gonna come out somewhere and I don't want to be at the business end of that one.
I was a severely neglected child in ALL areas of life ! I have done a lot of work to grow myself up , but have never worked on the money department. I get so emotional ( angry, sad, shamed , frustrated) for not having a roadmap for simple things such as how to go about looking for job, interviewing, resume writing. I always end up crying . It feels unsafe and as if I am missing tools that other people do have. I wish someone else could hold my hand and teach me step by step how to go about these things .
If you haven't yet, you might try a temp agency, they often help with resume writing and can help organize your thoughts, usually just in their business, but it might help.
I know this doesn't solve your problem but I joined a couple websites where you input your resume data and AI helps you rewrite it. I did that and then went through and fixed some stuff or changed things that needed it because AI is not perfect. Sending you love ❤
@@bpassion4fashion581 I feel this so much. Omg. I’ve spent much of my life so codependent because of skills I never learned. It’s terrifying. I’ve actually been writing and about to publish a money course that’s all about the emotional side of money. I have STRUGGLED through so many years and I have just wanted to help anyone, even just one person to not have to struggle like me. My info is not so much the practical things that you have listed but I would love to have a conversation with you and offer any help I can. I’m starting a UA-cam channel all about this and would love to interview you if you would ever be interested:)
THIS IS AN EXCELLENT VIDEO! 1. Codependency & Romantic Intimacy Delays - magical thinking, special bond or fantasy of partner, struggling with going too fast in dating life (no process), not liking to mix partners with friends (fear of losing partner), not caring if our partners are abusive for fear of being wrong, level of need from our partners that goes beyond appropriate partnership stuff, taking normative bumps in the relationship as extreme evidence that we're not safe. 2. Security Delays - young children need a consistent safe attunement with a healthy parent to build inner resources for security (e.g., gradual withdrawal of security blankets or sucking your thumb, resistant to change, procrastination, social anxiety, controlling behaviors, trigger & projection, not being comfortable being seen or known, etc.). 3. Perception Problems Delays - problems of perception i.e., how we interpret people, the world and ourselves. Often the abuse itself is the parent damaging a child's perception. Are things done to us on purpose? We fight in our heads and may be offended by another hurting us. We tend to take things too personally. Toxic parents expect adult behavior from their child. 4. Functioning Delays - The evidence of parental neglect from childhood. We may hide that we struggle with basic learning skills due to a lack of consistent care from a parent. Magical thinking around functioning - may not be able to identify our limits (e.g., appetite, sleep, work, etc.) stretching ourselves too thin. Combination of neglect or being wrapped up in fear. Self-care may be neglected. We can't learn things if we're overwhelmed with shame. 5. Negative Coping Strategies Delay - Addictive behavior - Developmentally stuck in needing to be soothed from behaviors instead of having internal resources to manage them. Eating is always a good way to distract children from their emotions (unconsciously). Perfectionism is also a coping strategy. Workaholics, substance abuse, feel nothing we do is ever good enough. We become attached to processes. If children are encouraged to talk about their feelings, they reconnect with their parent and are able to manage their feelings. I also had a problem with reading comprehension in grade school. I had no idea that it was the result of having an emotionally neglectful "BPD" mother. I am an auditory learner. My father taught me how to write a check. But, my mother wasn't interested in teaching me anything. She wanted me to need her for everything. I am 67 and I'm still doing inner child work. The healing process may take a lifetime.
When I cried it was “crocodile tears”, and if I was hurt and upset it would hurt my mother to hear them so I stopped telling her things and dealt with it alone. She doesn’t understand why it doesn’t come naturally for me to tell her when things are hard. My partner helped me learn to digest and identify my feelings and find the words to explain what was going on in my head. My childhood wasn’t abusive, but after my dad died mum just couldn’t enough of herself to us. I remember wanting to play but being told “no I don’t feel like it.” I just thought it was normal that mums don’t play games, and got used being bored and lonely and not spoken to.
I was given an immense amount of responsibility to care for my as a child. I saw it as "freedom" and felt bad for my peers who had their parents constantly checking up on them, telling them when and where to be. Now I struggle to go to bed at reasonable hours, I have never been able to brush my teeth regularly, and I feel unsafe almost all the time. I only just started inner child work, really sitting with myself and making a plan for the day, then checking in with myself throughout the day and before I go to sleep to see how things went. I felt invisible as a child, and often still do, but now I'm learning how to really see myself. Hugs to my fellow neglet-erinos out there ❤
The high pressure/no support job is a great metaphor for growing up with neglectful caregivers. Minimal teaching/coaching/support and high expectations. So many possible outcomes. I learned to be self-sufficient but often feel like no one likes me or that I am easily replaceable in interpersonal relationships. I like to hear praise but cannot internalize it. I fear asking for help because there are repercussions for being “inadequate”. I often feel alone and like I need to solve everything by myself.
I love it when my mother’s reply to neglect was “We aren’t psychologists”. Or the “ I’m ok as long as my kids are ok.” So we felt overly responsible for our mother’s reactions and anger or sadness.
As someone who got """home-educated""" (neglected), the part about functioning delays was insane. Never helped with learning how to read or write, handwrite, tell the time, the difference between left and right, I never even knew what the world map looked like, or where north/south/east/west were. I always had to ask my friend to tie my shoelaces well past when I should have learnt. Soul crushing stuff honestly
@@billpetersen298 for the most part yes. Took a lot of catching up in my teens but now going through university. The toughest part of it when I was younger was simply not being aware of what I didn't know until someone calls you out for it and you end up feeling stupid for not knowing something so basic.
@quc522 "I was simply not being aware about what I didn't know" ...that's so profound. Im here for my nephew who's suffered from childhood trauma and it now makes sense why his awareness of the basic stuff was non-existant. Thanks for sharing. This helps.
You know I'm a 67 year old woman and I've never caught up to any of the stuff that I was neglected about. School got harder and harder and harder I had severe memory problems from the abuse and stress just wiping out my short-term memory so that I couldn't remember anything that was said or explained in school they kept testing my IQ and I kept coming up above average so they couldn't understand what was going on even though I simply told every single psychologist that ever talked to me I told them about the abuse that was going on I would when they would ask me to draw a picture of my mother I would draw a screaming bug-eyed banshee and she was really like that I'm like what part of that does a psychologist not get! I dropped out of high school after the first year it was miserable and I must say they really were rotten as far as their placement of me in classes I did things to save myself and for instance I tried to take a typing class my first year of school because I knew if I could learn how to type I could probably get a job and get away from my mother but they wouldn't let me take a typing class cuz they said my spelling was poor and that was my last year of school. Then I was an excellent reader because I had 3 years of special ed in grade school in Southern California which was much ahead of the rest of the state and Nation. Then the idiots put me in a remedial reading class in high school with Tom Dick and Jane books when I had read an James Michener novel The Summer before what a waste of my precious time and that was my last year in school last class for reading or anything. From the beginning of the class I kept asking the teacher why I was there why I was there I told both the female and male teachers I could read perfectly well that I had special ed reading classes in grade school they completely ignored me. I think again they said it was because my spelling was poor but I was never giving given one single spelling remediation or tests or anything that last year of high school. The absolutely worst was a math class they were introducing algebra for the first time and they had work books that were self-teaching you read the littleexplanation then you took the test I thought this was wonderful and easy I loved it I made straight A's on every test because my reading comprehension was so good that I could easily self teach the algebra after making straight A's on every single test the teacher gave me an f and when I asked him why he said I couldn't possibly have made an a on every test I must be cheating. This same male teacher who I imagine was around 30 years old and married could not keep his eyes off my breasts. I was beautiful and I had beautiful breasts I was 14. I wanted to sit up front to better see the chalkboard because I was having blurred vision due to my medication for my peptic ulcer. But I got annoyed at his constant ogling and had to put myself back in the center of the room so that he could keep his f****** eyes off of me and then I couldn't see the board. I wanted to say to him hey you've got a pair of these at home get over it.I never could make any headway with my GED still to this day I am a high school dropout I never earned more than $2 an hour babysitting I guess the luckiest thing that happened to me and it really wasn't lucky at all is that I fell off a ladder and hit my head just a few years ago while staying with my abusive brother. My heart went into afib really bad over and over again and I had to be hospitalized even though I had no insurance. The doctor had to perform the ablation deal on my heart to keep it from going into constant AFib when I got out of the hospital I had the idea to apply for SSI my brother was so ugly and cruel he wouldn't even give me a ride to the nearby social security office I got a ride in with a neighbor who was going and applied for it and got it immediately just based on my hospital records that finally gave me a little money to get some medicine and that's how I'm living now I finally found subsidized housing which was an absolute miracle and now I'm living and able to live off the SSI. But I will never ever reach the potential that I had starting out in life because of lifelong abuse. Being scapegoated and now even abused by the three younger siblings who learned how to scapegoat and abuse. I would have been a talented musician and artist specifically I would have been a fabulous fashion designer as I taught myself to sew in my late teens and early twenties and became quite good at making beautiful clothes all I wanted was a 2-year associate degree in fashion design and my mother pulled a fast one on me saying for years that she would send me to community college if I could only pick something out when the fashion design degree finally became available she quickly changed her mind and went to school with my brother herself!!! Now I have congestive heart failure and I'm just trying to have the last few years of my life still looking for a companion such a shame such a waste the whole thing.
My parents would almost brag about our family struggles to everybody, but then at home I was expected to be fully independent and act like everything was good. I never understood why I carried heavy shame and had such a hard time on the inside when everyone around me appeared to be coping just fine. When I read your email about this video I totally related to the shame of “not getting the handbook”. Especially in school, everyone else seemed to know these secret rules that I didn’t know. No matter how hard I tried to compensate through over-performance and shrinking my needs, I never felt good enough. I’m so grateful for your work that has lead me down this path of healing and changed my entire life’s trajectory. I look forward to the video! 💜
I am fascinated by how these emotional developmental delays from abuse/neglect/chaos can manifest in the same way as autism spectrum traits. I was diagnosed “Asperger’s” a decade ago but the more I learn the more I think my autistic-like traits are a result of my being raised by a covert narcissist mother and grandiose narcissistic father and never really being able to be a child because of parentification and other stuff like all the crazy shape shifting and gaslighting and manipulation and basic lies.
Yeah... every time I hear a therapy person say "but it's not like conditions like ADHD or autism, those are due to neurological differences in the brain, they're different" my mind is just like, really? Is it? You sure about that? Neurology is very complicated and trauma can start being passed down even to an unborn child. I have ADHD but also definitely C-PTSD and any attempt to differentiate my symptoms between the two feels very artificial. There are so many ways that trauma and developmental issues and mental health conditions can be passed down other than DNA, and it's supremely useless to me to hold a belief that "my brain is just like this for no fucking reason, you just got born with a bad brain, bad genetic luck I guess, too bad" because it fosters helplessness, and coping instead of building a better-working neurology by working at it.
Youre not alone! This is me as well! I tested fairly high for being autistic but same for me, the more I see patricks videos the more I aha moments I get, and those are the most healing! ❤
You’re definitely on to something there! It reminds me of a friend I used to have: We met at work and both me and another colleague of mine had a suspicion that she was on the autism spectrum quite early but didn’t actually speak to each other about this or bring this up until much later - after we had become friends. She later talked to us about what must’ve been a very difficult childhood and how she was raised by a very emotionally immature, narcissistic, neglectful and verbally abusive mother - tho she never said these words exactly and she’d talk about all the horrible things her mom would say and do in such a strange cheerful upbeat tone and without making hardly any eye-contact. I don’t remember everything she told me, but I remember bursting into to tears at some point, which she obviously found very awkward lol. She hated hugs and told me she spent a lot of time rehearsing how to make eye contact and how to tolerate it back. She was also very.. childlike? and kind of (beautifully) naive about certain aspects about life, which I’m thinking now ties into the developmental delays. She had only been to a psychologist once as a teenager and was then diagnosed with an attachment disorder- not autism. She had a bf at the time tho and seemed very happy with her life and very "functional" despite everything- which kinda amazed me, how resilient she was/is - bc I was the single, non-functioning depressed one😂
@@charlie5115 that’s interesting to me because her experiences and her adult behaviors are same as mine. I wonder if it’s something we’ll never really know….
Know what bothers me, Patrick? Knowing that all sorts of people who have similar problems to mine actually had a "dating life" and relationships along the way. I never did. I was so shamed and made to feel unworthy, that I never pursued anything like that.
@@anwa6169 At least you replied. Thank you. Patrick Teahan there hearted every comment leading up to mine and those after, but completely skipped mine.
@@user-zr6pl6nb6z might be a technical glitch, who knows if it was even displayed fo him, in the dame moment. I do not like technical stuff for a reason.
I must say, I know enough awesome people who did not. And I am one of them. Had a difficult time to trust men. Was too scared to be in a relationship like my parents etc. Even though I was the one rejecting guys, it still felt like I was the one who was rejected. It hurt.
@@anwa6169 It was a little different for me, I guess. No one, to my knowledge, was attracted to me as I went through my adolescent years. I guess they could see the lack of confidence in my body language.
I was never learned anything by my parents. But yesterday, I learned to cook a new receipt all by myself for the first time (the other times I had assistance from social workers). Something my narcissistic parents would have never taught me. And I learned to my laundry three weeks ago. I am 28 years old. I was never taught these things.
You go, love! Keep it up! You'll get better and better with everything and discover more and more things you want to and are able to learn. I hope you enjoy the process of learning and expanding. I believe in you!!! 💚💚💚
I learned how to mop the floor just last year. I am 28 years old. Some people look down on me and call me lazy but they don't know how difficult it is. I hide it much of the time how much i struggle and I'm often overwhelmed by the world and expectations. Peace 🙂❤️🩹
I’m 34 and didn’t learn how to do most basic chores (cooking/cleaning, etc., until I was an adult 20-28 years old). I learned most of it from my mother-in-law.
Wow, Patrick, I hope millions of people will see this talk. You never shame. You've managed to both brilliantly inform and nurture at the same time. I found your discussion enlightening, very supportive, and helpful. Thank you.
This. This all describes my sister. She's deaf and cognitively and emotionally a child, at 52. She's had so much trauma lifelong, and our family failed her. Society fails her. There are no resources to help her understand trauma or anything, let alone learn how to deal with it all.
This is something that worries me: it's so common for disabled people to experience neglect and abuse within families (also within adult relationships), yet it often seems there are very few supports or resources specifically geared to that dual set of circumstances - you can seek support in the abuse sector and find it's literally not accessible to you disability-wise, or that the disability context is not understood/the service is actively ableist. Or you can go to the disability sector and find that it's not geared up to support you from the abuse angle. The popular image of disabled people's families as saintly just for putting up with us goes a long way to hiding the scale of need. I'm sorry you and your sister are dealing with that.
I did some vandalism when I was eleven. I think my motivation was anger and frustration. My teachers told my mother she should take me to a therapist to find out more about my issues. My mother told them, "No, I could never do that to her." She probably told herself she wanted to protect me from the trauma of having my psyche exposed. It was common in the 1960's that seeing a mental health professional was considered shameful. If people found out they said you were "crazy," behind your back. She informed me of this conversation she had with my teachers when I was twenty-two years old, and up to then I had been clueless. I was stunned. I said nothing to her but I mentally ranted: "If I had gone to counseling WHEN it was suggested, YOUR secrets would have become exposed. THAT is why you denied me the help I needed back then. Instead, I struggled all through my teen years thinking that something was wrong with ME!" I finally went to counseling in my mid-twenties.
Counseling is relative...I started with a family psychiatrist at age 13, who ended up bringing in the whole family, since I was such a "good barometer..." He advised my father that he needed to get me out of the house, or I .."would be sitting across from psychiatrists for the rest of my life." He wouldn't do it until my suicide attempt several years later.... Counseling off and on, out of my own pocket, most of my life....still grew up thinking something was wrong with me....rejected by my "oh so perfect" mother (SMH).....absolutely blows my mind to take a walk down memory lane and remember how incredibly sadistic they were.....Lord come quickly!!!
Yup yup yup. And congrats for getting help so young. I’m in 2 12 step groups for relationships and family of origin issues and it’s kinda depressing that the average age in the zoom rooms is north of 40…keep advocating for yourself!
OMG-so that is why I have struggled. A child trying to raise herself into adulthood was like putting together a puzzle with 1/2 the pieces missing and the other 1/2 from 5 different puzzles. 😮😢
It really is like trying to fit together a puzzle. The lack of a safe place is you not having a table to build it on. The neglect is your puzzle only having one quarter of the pieces. The abuse is your parents knocking the pieces out of your hands to make themselves feel better. The trauma is all the pieces that they're responsible for you losing or have superglued to other pieces that don't fit together. The coping mechanisms are the pieces you take from other puzzles to try and fit into yours. The lack of support is you not being shown the picture on the box to know what it's supposed to look like.
“some survivors have a parent who actually lived in fantasies with an abusive coparent” ok - i always knew my mother would far prefer to take her imaginary elevator up to the penthouse in the building in her head to gaze at the view rather than stop our father from abusing us, but it never occurred to me that she lived in a fantasy WITHIN her relationship with my father. that makes so much sense!! thank you! edit: also, i have or have had every single one of these. and i realize that while i never sucked my thumb, i stim in certain ways.
Same here. She only started to notice his abuse when it was FINALLY directed at her, when my brother and I left for college. THEN she finally started hating him. Not when he was raging at her children. No - he was our father then and she'd remind us. And he was "so smart"! (the man has severe brain damage).
This is so enlightening. Ive just realised that my mother took pride in our being so independent and taking care of ourselves, not looking for any help from her. She constantly derides my kids for not being "independent " enough and being " too sensitive", as she still says to me. I used to worry that I was being too soft on my kids and felt ashamed that they couldn't do as much as I could at their age. I wanted so much to be the opposite of my mother. I now realise that I've done a good job. My kids are emotionally very mature and secure. They can talk to me about anything. Thank you so much Patrick. I feel very relieved to know that instinctively I was doing the right things instead of making their lives a misery like mine was. Your videos brilliant and have been helping me so much. I really appreciate the work you do and the resources you provide for us all . This community is great and I love reading comments from people who totally get it. ❤
Humans are communal animals. We function at our best in groups. Sure some will learn the skills to live alone in a cabin in the woods because they're just that kind of introvert, but even they need to.learn the social skills and make that choice.
We may overdo going the opposite way of what our parents did, but we make happier more attached children. Big props to you. You probably changed the trajectory of generational trauma with your own family.
I struggled with school because of an abusive stepmom entering the picture when I was 7. Barely graduated, and I'm now a 50 year old college senior. Straight A's now, but part time and at this point I realize that I missed out on a lot of childhood/life experiences at the right age, due to being abused every day. I learned to abuse myself, and now I am trying to unpack that in EMDR. Romance? I stopped in my mid 30s. Women would come to me when they wanted to date, and I would just go along with whomever paid me the most attention. I was in love with the last one, but I didn't know how to stand-up for my boundaries, and that eventually led to me shutting down and her leaving because I shut down. I had no idea how to communicate strongly enough to be heard or something. I would saying something once, and put up zero resistance if it was argued with. I was afraid of arguing because I was so used to being screamed at as a child. Security? I lived in the most ghetto places in order to save money while I was existing in state of constant PTSD. I didn't know I had CPTSD yet. I just felt like I was a bad person and that I was on my own when it came to survival. Survival was all I knew. Not thriving, not goals, not happiness, just safety in sleeping. Perception? I still have problems putting everyone else's needs first, and then hitting a breaking point where I lash out or making dangerous overcorrections in my boundaries. Thankfully I am in therapy and I am present while watching this happen. I feel bad about some of my lashing out, and I'm now better and speaking my mind, but there are just simple moments where I want to take up my fair share of space and I do something really brazen in public. Not mean, but just like "Well, eff it. I'm here too and I am always patient and people are walking all over me so I'm going to just buffalo my way through this current obstacle and move on." LOL. Function? I kind of over function. Not OCPD, but more like hypervigilance to underpromise and over deliver in everything I do. I will also do all the dirty work just because I'm asked, and then find that no one else is doing any of the dirty work. They are doing things that give them the most joy, while expecting me to do the dirty work, even when I am better at the joyful work than they are, not just better at the dirty work. Coping? OMG. Rumination. Rumination. Rumination. I'm trying to stop that now. I have a lot of conversations in my head trying to reason with people that are benefiting from me doing said dirty work, and now I trying to create physical boundaries into these relationships where I defensively calendar my boundaries into place so that others HAVE to do the dirty work themselves. EMDR has been amazing for trauma reprocessing for me. I can not recommend it enough. I'm realizing that I am a really freaking nice person who is mean to themselves, and sometimes others, because I try to hard to please everyone, and then get upset when people do not reciprocate my kindness. I'm getting much quicker and stating my boundaries directly, but still with mindfulness.
@@kayhansen9229 EMDR is a therapy technique. You select the earliest traumatic experience you can remember, and then you sort of meditate on that memory a few minutes at a time. You will do multiple rounds of this per therapy session, and between rounds you will reflect on what you felt and what you noticed that round. The goal is to reprocess these traumas multiple times, and as you do you become more desensitized to that trauma, as well as notice unhealthy patterns in you own mind that you can begin letting go of.
Your videos are more helpful than my therapist. I have a therapist that says "your giving your power away"...what does that mean? No real explanation is given. I get angry at people that abuse me and that's not ok with this therapist..."that's in the past"...I'm getting ready to let go of this therapist as they are not helping but hindering and shameing ...shaming my responces to things in my life past and present. Time to say goodbye. I've survived and will survive as I move forward.
Why is it so hard to find a good therapist?? These phrases are not useful at all. Good luck to you! I hope you can find a more understanding one 🙏 Im in a similar situation.. I'm thinking why should i pay someone who's going to say similar stuff to the toxic parents I'm trying to heal from? They act like the past is irrelevant. It's frustrating. That's why I'm here 😂
It's ok to leave and find another one. My last therapist told me talking about my mother was a waste of time. Like, dude, why do you think I'm here??? He was definitely in the wrong business. 😂
I had so many unmet needs as an unrecognised autistic child being raised by unrecognised neurodivergent parents. Common for so many of us who are late identified. It's hard now to know how much my areas of challenge are like that because of developmental neglect. I was often told "fake it til you make it" but it was just an excuse for neglecting to guide and prepare me. My parents couldn't teach what they hadn't mastered. I try and do better and be accountable with my own children. As a middle-aged adult I've been learning basic things - eating regularly, noticing pain and responding to it, etc.
@@linden5165 Patrick hasn't even touched on the autistic aspect of trauma. It would be amazing twist of events if he did. It would help us neurodivergent/aspires if he did. We could listen to him all day long on that topic. I'm so glad more is coming out about autism and how so many people especially females and older were undiagnosed. More for us to learn and accept about ourselves ❤😊🕊
Patrick: your statement about being expected to grow up without much guidance is true. We were expected to do whatever, usually without guidance, and little to no acknowledgement or "attaboy/girl". They just moved us on to the next thing. But if we made a mistake, that brought attention. And in my case, a long lecture, often accusing me of things I've never done. It's really damaging. So, thank you for sharing this!
Yeah my mum always honed in on the ONE thing I didn’t do. And even if I did everything perfectly “What do you want? A medal. You’re supposed to do that everyday anyway”
I honestly just assumed that my social anxiety, and fear of the unknown, and not wanting to be seen etc were just aspects of being an introvert. This is just my “personality type”. With every video I watch I somehow become more enlightened and more confused at the same time. But i am thankful to have them. How many of us are just walking around everyday, all kinds of dysfunctional, and have no idea?
59 next month & no romantic relationships, never encouraged by narc Mom (w/fear of abandonment); fantasy magical thinking & many times in limerance...fearful avoidant/fear of engulfment/emotional anorexic w/deep desire for connection. Thank you Patrick for the validation & creating awareness.
I now see myself as a high achiever in school, considering all the developmental deficits and dysregulation from childhood trauma. Also, I don’t blame myself for acting out unconsciously as a “repetition compulsion” because I was trying desperately to make sense of my experience and heal while still trauma bonded to my parents. I have deep gratitude for all the validation and education I get here. Thanks to Patrick and everyone here.
I appreciate the example in the Perception Delays. I actually had trouble believing that people had done things on purpose, because i was told so many times that everything that was done to me was accidental, and that because it was accidental, it wasnt really harmful and i wasn't allowed to take it seriously.
When you said that “all self positivity is grandiose unconsciously,” I just started crying hard since that’s how I’ve felt my entire life. I’m only just starting to learn that I have an abusive and controlling mindset within an intimate relationship and I abused my previous partner in different ways that I am seeing now that I’m reflecting back. Of course it doesn’t help that I have some of these codependency and perception problems delays on top of that, and I’m hoping to really work on all of it so I can be loved and secure within myself before I can give love to anyone else. I’m only halfway into this video and this is so insightful. Thank you so much ❤
I identified so deeply with the part about one's parents never teaching basic hygiene techniques. For example, how to effectively wash one's hair with shampoo and conditioner. It's only natural that if a child doesn't learn these critical life skills from their parents, they will perceive any and every mistake not as a learning opportunity but as a shameful personal failure. As a child, I assumed that everybody naturally knew how to thoroughly clean their hair, how to properly brush their teeth (and avoid overbrushing)-everybody except me. Again, it's that magical thinking that fills the gap left by neglect: "I should already know how to do this stuff, and if I don't it means that I'm dumb, that something is fundamentally wrong with me." What i didn't know yet-couldn't have known at that age-is that these weren't signs that I was defective, they were signs of parental neglect.
I'm in my late thirties, and I only learned to do the dishes 3 years ago and do my laundry last year, and it was my older sister who taught me because my mother never taught me ANYTHING, even when I begged her to.
I was 30 when the pandemic broke, my mom retired and taught me how to cook, preserve food, crochet etc before that it was just rages from her and constant neglect and verbal abuse, So I feel you❤❤
This is my childhood. I missed months of school every year. I had no idea what was going on and felt so stupid, so I would miss even more school in order to cope. The whole problem could have been solved if at least one of the parents intervened but instead they never even so much as cared to look at my report card. I had to teach myself how to do everything. My childhood was so sad and depressing and my life is so broken and fractured as a result. I feel locked in low status roles and feel like I'll never be able to have a normal adulthood.
This video has hit home. I've always struggled to act like an adult while inside have been secretly expecting absolutely everyone to hold my feelings and keep me safe, only to be disappointed over and over. You mention finding "resources"; I can't thank the invention of UA-cam enough for helping me learn seemingly simple things that have been daunting and embarrassing all this time, simply because I did not get the guidance from my parents on how to live life. Patrick, thank you for creating these videos for us. And to everyone watching, I see you and send you love.
The functional development delay that I struggle with the most to this day is not knowing how to make and have friends. And the few that I have, I constantly struggle with so much insecurity. Maybe they don't like me anymore. Maybe I'm too intense or too self-centered. They're not treating me right, I'll just get rid of the friendship. So grateful to have a good therapist to bounce this friendship stuff off. The other day I asked her point blank, is there something about me that people don't want to be friends with me? And she replied immediately and firmly, absolutely not! Patrick, the other day you sent out a really short email that said - you're not in trouble. That little message has helped me out so often! If you have the wherewithall, similar little messages would be greatly appreciated!
@@lizblock9593 I’m just now (age 60) coming to terms with how insecure I really am. Insecure attachment = insecure person. And it’s shows up at the nervous system level, reptilian brain. Pre-cognition. It’s the ocean I swim in, mostly unconscious because I’ve known nothing else.
This is so affirming to me. I was profoundly neglected in a home where there were abundant financial resources and parental time available. I was simply not prioritized. Community standing of our family meant no one would take my situation seriously enough to intervene. Status and power dynamics in the community isolated me further in the neglect. My parents weren’t that wealthy or prominent BUT RFK Jr running for president has shown me similar themes in others and has been affirming too. Money and prestige does not mean child neglect isn’t an issue. I’m grateful my life was lived on a much smaller stage. But, yah, the impacts of neglect are profound and ubiquitous.
I'm relating to this a lot... it's taken me over 40 years to fully grasp that some of what happened to me even was a form of neglect, and that there was abuse in the sense of enmeshment, because I always had my physical needs met, and I wasn't physically punished more than was normative here then (and having just googled, I'm horrified to learn that the corporal punishment of kids remains legal). I feel like there were big things I wasn't adequately prepared for, and while I do have disabilities, there's still a lot more I could have been supported to do, and I think I would've grown up less fearful about the future and less clingy toward my mother. The fact these parental failings were not from malign intent helped me miss their significance long into adulthood, as did the judgmental way outsiders asked me about them: people saw me as a spoilt only child, and as my mother had a somewhat justified persecution complex I was defending her from childhood. It's only very recently that I've been able to look back and realise those people had a point... but nothing they could have said would have helped me see that, because of what I was hearing at home.
Now I finally understand why my youngest brother is the way he is.He ruined his car's engine because he never got the oil changed.He just doesn't do the many things in life that we are required to do.
Thank you I'm 42 and I've never been able to express all that happened to me even though I went to therapy , hearing all that you say is really important to me
I relate to the segment about negative coping mechanisms right now, in particular. Before I got chronically ill, it was possible to use perfectionism and masking in all areas of life to get by. Now, in my mid 20s, I've found myself resorting to the same coping mechanisms I used as a teenager - avoidance, video games, and maladaptive daydreaming. It's jarring to feel like a child when carrying adult responsibilities, without knowing how to navigate them. And worse, when you've sought help from teachers, doctors and therapists but remain stuck.
You always find me out, Patrick! I hadn't yet realised that some of these are traits I have due to survival tactics. I still strongly recall my almost pathological inability to ask for help, or accept it - even when a kind person offered. I use to feel threatened when caring people saw that I was struggling, and try to throw them off. I still don't know why, but I couldn't bare to be seen to be vulnerable.
I sucked my thumb until I was 11 years old, and yes the negative attention didn't help. I used all the coping techniques, I was on the honor roll, the whole house was clean by the time my parent came home, exercise, and substances. To this day I have oral issues and it has been a lifetime getting out of these delays. Luckily I had therapists and was also a nurse, the ultimate co dependent job. I have at least recognized it now I need to work on eating, smoking and drinking as a negative outcome from my childhood.
This video helped me understand that the self soothing behaviors of my siblings and I were coping mechanisms and not anything to be ashamed of.I was so ashamed of the rocking in bed and rocking on a couch I did always to music . I did this even in college. I was very secretive about it and very careful not to get caught doing it. I didn't want people to see me as some kind of freak. I was able to stop eventually as I was able to separate myself from the family and then interact with them on my own terms as an adult. That being said, music is so important to me and always will be. It helped to save my life.
The concept of delays is definitely much easier to explain as a result of an experience rather than an intrinsic deficit, which "too sensitive" sounds like.
''We are entertainment for the toxic family'' this reminded me of when my father was laughing (as if entertained) at me at my wedding when something didn't go according to planned, and he was saying: ''Look at them! They are running around like a chicken with its head cut off!'' and not getting up to help or anything. I think this is where my perfectionism comes from, because of him. Thank you Patrick. You made me realize so many things and now I am not ashamed anymore, I know why I am this way now and I don't blame myself for it anymore.
I feel like I live in the center of a big tangled ball of disfunction due to childhood abuse and neglect and other life trauma. Trying to work through it all overwhelming and exhausting. Thanks you for this and other very helpful videos.
Unspoken family rules, perception problem delays (@11:32): “A child is a person who the parent says they are”. “It’s your fault things go wrong”. “Expect unreliability from people”. “Read my mind”. “Don’t trust”. “You’re a terrible kid and I can’t believe that you just did that”. As an adult, the perception delay is: “We’re convinced we’ve done something wrong without evidence”. “We’re convinced some things can be done on purpose when maybe they’re not”. “We can be convinced that speaking up can be wrong or dangerous or even lame”. “We can be convinced that everyone is doing so much better than us when maybe that’s not true “. “We can be convinced that we’re the only one with problems”. “We can be convinced that we’re the problem “. Childlike, not childish. So true! Love these videos! Thank you!
The topic of security delays hit me hard. I have stuffed animals as an adult, as well as other security delays, that I had never had access to as a child, because doing that would also invoke wrath. It is a mechanism that is the most positive out of the ones I used to have, so let me have my squishmellows and anxiety blanket. This is my first time coming across your channel, and it is very informative. I’m definitely subscribing.
Loving support from my pops was, “If you don’t do it right the first time, don’t do it at all!” Fear of failure in public, embarrassment is something I still avoid to this day fifty plus years later.
I realized this had happened to me as a crawled my way back from survival mode, about a year into really working on recovery. It’s Good to know I’m Not the only one . I realized I was probably stuck at a preteen headspace with preteen attitudes and skills. Like I was taking off where I left . I’m learning the things that were neglected now as an adult . I’m so glad to know that’s common .
I was really surprised to discover that I have literally all the issues associated with the absence of security growing up. The other stunning thing was learning that toxic families don't really believe in incremental growth and obtaining new skills, which was exactly my case as well. I read in the book that it's possibly because immature parents often do not perceive time the way we might expect, that's why they often break promises for example - they just don't understand how a situation at hand is relevant to whatever they said or did in the past, or can't be expected to know that today's choices might affect the future. This is really some deep dark stuff and I wish to everyone who experienced this a brighter tomorrow. Thanks for the video, Patrick.
Wow I really needed to hear this...I did not develop emotionally not due to my own fault, but because my caregivers were not resourced enough themselves. I definitely saw the security delay in my brother, and "when we have a toxic parent, a child is whatever the parents say they are"...hit the nail on the head. Lol on the deductible, I have been struggling with this..I think it's important to not make excuses, but also see that the "adult" world is immensely flawed as well. Neurodivergence can help us break through old patterns of human behavior, but it's good to know that there is such a thing as a "functional delay" as well. I also relate to the straight A student as a way to get recognition, I was devastated when I got my first B in junior year of high school. Also the dressing up, self medicating through drugs, sex, social media, workaholism etc...definitely still eating the same lunch every day lol. Thought I was the only one, but nope.
Thank you.This is very powerful and has reminded me of how teachers described me at school as a late developer.I now realise that that was due to all the arguing screaming and shouting between my parents which took place on a very regular basis as well as their neglect and lack of know how regarding parenting.
I am a codependent. I grew up in abusive dysfunctional family. I am three years in recovery. I stayed with my husband who is in recovery and working a 12 step program. We both realize that we don't respect each other and our relationship isn't going to work. We both aren't ready to part ways. I am waiting on having surgery and currently haven't work for a year. It feels good to be living my truth. I am not afraid but relieved. I did a lot of therapy and EMDR. I am listening to my body and know understand why I haven't been happy. My husband lied to me a lot so I don't trust him. He admits he still lies about some stuff. We have more of a trauma bond. I stayed with my husband for 19 years.
I remember when I was 14 years old. I was watching TV, and there was a bit of a storm passing outside with heavy rain and some thunder/lightning a few miles in the distance. The phone rang. I picked it up - it was my mother calling from 2 doors away, in a neighbour's house, "Are you okay?" she said. "Not frightened by the thunder?" I thought it was weird - now I realise she was both trying to infantilize me, and also manipulate our neighbour into believing she was this great 'mother' and I was this 'scared small boy' - who was 14 years old. I haven't seen or spoken to the woman in 6 years - my only regret is not cutting off all contact 30 years sooner.
I’ve been noticing things like this in me about each of these delays and just how stuck I feel and how much I want to move on and be free and grow up from them. It’s been driving me crazy and to know that they’re specific things caused by neglect and abuse gives me clarity and some sense of not being crazy or incompetent.
75% of what you said describes me. Thank you for putting it into words, because I struggle to explain this to therapists who hand wave it away or dismiss it.
I am 60 years old and wish I had your videos in my 20s. Therapy has helped, but you really get to the heart of the problem. Thank you so much for all you do.
I had anxiety attacks when going home to visit very insecure. Overeating and watching tv coping skills leading to obesity and a host of other health problems. Thank you so much for your videos. So validating as to what happened to us. We are blessed by you. Thank you. ❤😢😊❤
Oh yes. Eating in front of the TV while my parents screamed at eachother and broke things. Then denied they'd ever fought when they'd make up later. It was the only thing that numbed the pain.
12:57 I remember describing this to my mom when I was maybe 13, about how I would have arguments with people in my head and then actually feel upset. And I asked her if she ever did that. I remember she looked super confused and said no, and I felt so judged and never brought it up again 🥴
You mentioned staying in relationship with a partner that isn't suited. There's also the flip side of that where you're in a good compatible nurturing relationship but you have trouble bonding. It would suck for a person and for society as a whole if they/everyone repeatedly threw away good relationships.
Another thing I noticed with childhood neglect is an odd speech pattern. I was told I had a bit of an accent, and dismissed it because I did grow up in Europe. But after 15 years in the US with English as my first language, I started to think it odd. Then I heard a recording of myself... I don't pronounce my "s" correctly, or my "t" or "th". I'm certainly not dumb, but I talk more slowly with this odd lisp, and I was perceived as dumb (I was a straight A student in college, and I have a PhD). For the longest time I couldn't figure out why people treat me like they think I'm an idiot until they got to know me a bit better (an odd first impression thing. Was it my clothes, my hair? Lol). I had no idea I sounded like a child in my speech! Maybe to sound innocuous in the face of abuse? Or my parents just never bothered to teach me how to pronounce things correctly?
I wish you would stop narrating my life ;-) I've been in therapy for 5 years, read so much, learnt so much, but so much of what you say and the examples you give are dead on. It makes me believe in psychotherapy rather than CBT. CBT's okay, but it never gets to the core of the problem and very often it's 'duh, don't you think I know that' and just plain irritating. So often it comes back to self care, realising where things got stuck and giving yourself time and support to grow again. I'm 62 and to anyone out there who's just starting the new journey, it's awkward and painful but remaining in pain is no way to live life. It gets better. Thanks to you for this channel, Patrick.
Me too 🫂🫂🫂 Math is so traumatic for me even, now, as an adult but this does NOT mean that I am unable to be fiscally responsible which are two completely different things....I am EXTREMELY responsible when it comes to finances.
I relate to this, and it pained me as someone who really enjoyed math in school. I’m now mending that relationship by allowing myself to delve into basic maths at my own pace, and ensuring that it’s a pleasant, joyful, and enriching experience.
20:46 my mom came to visit for a couple of days in August (after I talked her out of extending her trip 2 days beforehand), and it was a surreal experience on the other side of an ADHD diagnosis. There were so many moments where I felt like I was looking in a mirror: doing from the place of doing, going without food for hours, and not realizing how long things took. Having her here meant taking care of her and doing a lot of those things, which was a bittersweet moment of feeling stuck in that dynamic again but feeling validated + grateful for the progress I've been able to make in the past year. A lot of it happened outside of therapy through videos like these, tysm for all the work you do 💜
Patrick is just so gentle with describing the nuances of thw thoughts and reasoning that goes on inside my head. It helps me also think of it gently, and takes the feeling, omg this is such a big problem that only I am handling, to a small habit that I need to connect with
It’s like you wrote this about me, so helpful thank you. My dad mocks me for not knowing how to do things, like read a bus timetable. I’m like, that was your job!
Oh dear Patrick You described my existence. Thank you for helping me again. I am so fatigued from redoing my entire perception from childhood. Grateful for more understanding. I just wish people understood what it feels like to Be so dis regulated. ❤️
My parents always complained I was "bad with money," but looking back, not only was I never taught to understand money, they were terrible with it themselves! I also realise now that they had no idea what my personal upkeep actually cost since they had always given me the bare minimum, so felt I was frivolous when I met my own needs in ways they didn't approve of. Not that I've always made good decisions, how could I, but I'm ready to discard the belief that I'm bad with money and to start educating myself about how finances work. I am totally capable of learning a new skill! And so are you!
I'm 67, and I still have my teddy bear. 🧸 I talked to him as a child like he was real. It's what got me through the trauma. I could never "get rid" of him but he's in a box in the cupboard now.
woah why don’t more professionals share this information. it was presented really well! kind of sad to process, but very helpful! like getting the therapy cheat codes
After watching this, I’m still a bit confused about what has happened to me that I was really REALLY afraid of making important telephone calls. Like call the bank, the boss, the doctor…I’m much better at this after realizing that even if I don’t get everything right the first time, nobody would scream at me or punish me for saying something wrong or not “getting” it immediately. Most of the time people on the other side of the phone would just calmly repeat the process, or explain etc so I have learned that it is relatively safe to call people….altough I still struggle sometimes
I sucked my thumb until I was a maybe 12 or 13. Thinking of that reminded me of my dad coating my hands in hot sauces and dried peppers once to break the habit. He did similar things to two other siblings who had coping behaviors. I'm realizing how messed up that is. The environment was terrifying and he tried to take our coping mechanism away.
Adult development is also an important aspect, especially for ppl with gifted traits like super- empathy and intense mental focus. I learned in adulthood how much trauma my peers had gone through. We reach got stuck in different things. My parents had no respect for our property whether we were emotionally attached to it or not. My mother would "clean" our room while we were at school and throw away our possessions. We had no property, Even if we earned the money elsewhere and bought it ourselves. When we got work in our tweens they expected to be given the money we were earning.
Im so thankful for you and these vids... I often spiral at work, it's a skill based job, and I have such a hard time with telling others they're doing something wrong, or correcting people. I often talk down my opinion and what I know, which just makes me seem unconfident and unsure. But inside, I know that I have worth and I'm just trying to help someone! I also tell myself I can never rely on others and must do things myself. Which causes me to feel unsafe and as if im in some outgroup, alone on my own island.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
3:02 Codependency & Romantic Intimacy Delays
7:18 Security Delays
11:33 Perception Problems Delays
17:11 Functioning Delays
23:39 Negative Coping Strategies Delay
28:01 Final Thoughts
30:24 Outro
In my experience "the manual" includes all the basic stuff on how to be a human in society, with other humans... I'm trucking through my 50s, and a couple of months ago I learnt to enjoy doing the dishes... I am bloody immature, and that goes hand in hand with my creativity, so I can live with that. Through most of my life it was a liability. I learnt to brush my teeth in my late 20s. As I get older though, it starts to present some upsides. I present not so much as "immature" and instead as rather "young", and that's quite cool. My music collection is awesome, I still dance, and today, I actually know how to do some shit quite well; I have skills and stuff :)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. For me personally, it's the identification with yourself on points of detail. It bolsters my sense of not being a freak. Again, thanks.
Patrick... I've had both. I'm both Dyslexic and had parental difficulties. I've always been resilient though.. I've had therapy but I'd never say it really helped? Insurance issues led to average care... but through my FAITH, I grew A LOT!! But it still dosen't answer the dynamic of being accused of mental health issues of my Bent as an ARTIST!! You Can Not FORCE Free Spirits to be normies... and call them mentally challenged... It's B.S
@@CarnaghSidhe- If your music collection is Awesome!
You're Awesome ❤
I still use Maladaptive Daydreaming to cope with my isolation and late diagnosed Autism.
@@maryvelneelemantenaya1966 thanks, you put a proper smile on my face :)
“A toxic parent expects adult behavior from a child”. My father still says “we treated you children like adults”, like a badge of honor. Zero awareness.
I have a family member who says the same thing to me, in the same way
The day I turned 10 years old all my coloring books and my favorite cartoons were thrown out the door (because 10 was being an adult they said they don’t do cartoons and coloring anymore).
They don't know the difference between treating a kid like a person with respect and treating them like adults. Its a massive difference. Adultifying a child is harmful to them.
An embedded confession!
same here. Not only that, I had to become THEIR parents while they regressed into childish behaviors.
“Toxic families love to point out your functioning delays while not understanding that they caused them.” 🎯🎯🎯
E.g. my father would regularly criticize for not knowing things that was his responsibility to teach
💯
Because they didn’t teach us anything, they just yelled at us or made fun of us because we didn’t know how.
that is so true and it is frustrating
Yeah and I think of how other members of my family and extended family got that treatment too. And I think of how I sometimes joined in just so I wouldn't be the target for once. 😣
It took me a decade to finally realise just how much impact bad parenting had on me. Not teaching your child anything, then expecting them to know everything, then shaming them and insulting them for when they don't know what they simply don't know is so traumatizing and leads to so many toxic cycles throughout your life that you feel like you've gone completely insane. A child can't just be thrown into the world and be expected to excel in relationships, communication, career, school, friendships if there is zero education on it. I still live with extreme guilt for making horrible mistakes because I simply was not taught about life or how anything works. But I'll get there.
yes you will
You've perfectly described my early life, and even as a younger senior - how I am STILL struggling. It has made me so sad to finally realize this. I always thought there was something terribly wrong with me (of course, I'd been told that very thing weekly thru childhood). So from my birth unit's home to my NPD husband's, and now beginning the healing journey. It's all the wasted decades, and few years left now. The overwhelming sense of being cheated of basic emotional and maternal needs, and the sorrow over how I repeated this with my children. That in itself is really hard to process.
Yes, it causes brain damage. Narcissistic abuse can affect you mentally and physically.
I had the same experience but didn’t quite know how to put it into words. We’ll get there one day!
Yes, it is difficult to process this when you realize both of your parents were narcissists, memories of your past are distorted, your sense of time is fractured, your present and future are an endless loop of pain and the continued mental abuse from them except that they laugh at you for finding out too late and that they achieve their final goal to then discard you.
Growing up is a process. Having developmental delays because of abusive parenting is not a moral failing.
Sometimes we're held culpable for the delays and blameshifted, I'm learning to ignore unearned criticism.
This this this!
@@David-eu1ms”unearned criticism” 🙌🙌🙌
It's not a moral failing in regards to the abused child. It IS in regards to the abusive parent.
@@David-eu1ms Unearned Criticism, I like that.
My mom deems it a fun little story how, when I was a child, she'd ground me and send me to my room (after the spanking and the yelling) and then forget about me since I wouldn't cry or throw fits. She says after maybe four or five hours she'd remember she'd sent me off and then open the door to find me either napping or playing with my toys or whatever. She views this as little me “not giving a fuck”. The irony of it all.
Now, whenever I'm in a situation of conflict or tension I find myself emotionally shutting down automatically. I've often been called cold, heartless, and oblivious
Wow! That resonates so much with what my family member went through and how he adapted his behavior to just shut down and become numb to all of it. Thanks for sharing.
I’m sorry she did that….best we can do is be good to others, but not to our detriment I think…. I was spanked too….all it does it gets their anger out…..they had 0 parenting education then ….not an excuse, but books, videos made a big difference for me with parenting
@@Ty-mu7gl I’m making real progress by focusing on my chronic neurological/emotional dysregulation. My mother co-regulated me with a wooden spoon, so shutting down into fawn/freeze was my safest option.
@@Amberlocks100 Dissociation. I actually go somewhere else at the dentist, like a hypnotic trance, they say I'm the BEST patient! 😆
I do that, if someone tells me to not interact with them, I move on to another stuff I learned to keep myself occupied with something...music, books science etc.😊
My mum would regularly leave me at home alone at a young age. I used tv to self soothe. I realised years later as an adult I was addicted to watching tv shows and using it self soothe when I felt stressed and was procrastinating. I also really struggled while trying to study for my Masters, I felt so lonely in my room trying to study I would shut down. I would literally be exhausted even though I hadn’t done anything. I definitely felt behind in life in certain ways
I so relate to what you're describing!
Omg so relate to this
I can relate too ☹️
Hard relate
Yes!
My mother prided in her parenting skills in claiming that she was able to “break” her kids- like a horse. When we emerged from punishment after being spanked, sent to room, with her frightening yelling - we would emerge with sweet tearful apologies. She felt like she refined our behavior. I feel a freeze response quite often in the face of people’s anger and an overwhelming need to “make it right.”
Brainwashing a child is not a life skill, it's just barbaric
Phew 😮💨 my mom used intimidation and fear to squash us under control too
Same, isn’t it sad how some adults can’t control their temper and have to intimidate helpless children. I’m glad I’ve found this community 🤍
Oh boy I can relate to this so much
My mum did that too plus an extra thing that scared me more than anything else.
Whenever I was out in a public place with my mum, shopping, walking to school…
if I ever started crying because it was cold or the loud noises, she’d say
“Goodbye!”
Let go of my hand and leave me behind.
She would often completely disappear in crowds of people and I’d be left crying my eyes out, desperately trying to find her.
Then as I got older, this turned into the silent treatment. She would pretend I didn’t exist for hours, days, weeks..
Then when she did talk to me again, she acted like nothing had happened and I’d be SO GRATEFUL, I’d do anything she demanded of me.
For anyone here who's been affected by these issues, I'm rooting for you and hope you all find peace, recovery, and happiness.
That we deserve cheers
thank you so much, sending the same back your way and to all.
Every day is healing. Routing for us all. 🌻
Thank you. Me too. ❤
Love this - we can get there together.
My friends used to say I behaved like a teen, co workers would say I’m like a grandpa one day but a kid the next, my mom without teaching me anything in life would mock me for not knowing how to do everyday life things, those comment really hurt me so having this video really helps bring the shame down. Thank you Patrick!
I relate to your experience, too. My mom once mocked me for not knowing how to sew on a button when I asked her for help. I also never learned how to tie my shoes differently than the "bunny ears" method.
I got similar comments. As a child, I was constantly told how grown up I was, now, as an adult, I feel undeveloped because I don't know certain things that others do, or I get anxious about completing certain tasks. Friends of mine are so surprised or even put-off. They don't mean it harshly, but it's so shaming to have them be confused as to why I get "glitchy" (stuttering, nervous, and overreactive) about what should be typical tasks.
@@danak2230Be kind to yourself. Anyone is a beginner at something always, so just remind yourself that with time, kindness and repetition, you will learn anything you didnt learn from your parents.
It will take time, but knowing that you are working towards feeling competent in areas that matter most to you, is a big booster of self esteem.
Treat yourself like the kind teacher, you never had and in time, you will emerge not just knowledgeable, but also with a lot of self confidence ❤️
same but I have a split consciousness, one that is the little me and one that is my age. Earlier this year when I went through something my little me appeared and got me through it, I never realized I had it until my therapist pointed it out. What’s pretty cool is after that traumatic event I had a dream of an eclipse which was telling me that my subconscious and conscious were finally aligned.
Ah the mocking...a full grown adult sneering at a kid because they didnt know how to do something, the so called😮 "adult" already knew. Ugh. Lording it over an ignorant child really gave the "adult" a sense if power which is sick/sad but also really harmed the kid and for what? A moment of ego propping ugh ugh. @leadidee
I always thought it was strange how I was so independent, mature and 'grown up' as a child, to the point of parenting my siblings - but as I grew up I seem to have got stuck and now feel so much more behind and less mature than my peers. As I have grown up, my siblings I looked after as children have all become independent adults and here I am, struggling to grow up myself and feeling left behind.
same I spent most of my childhood being the “teacher” in the family while neglecting my own personal growth. I learn everyday though. My dreams tell me where I am lacking and what needs correcting so I’m thankful for my own sub-conscious doing that for me.
Your comment completely resonates with me, same here!
Same
Same
Wow yeah I’ve hit that realization myself not too long ago and just recently started understanding and empathizing with those feelings cus I was afraid I wasn’t being mature enough to be having such thoughts and emotions.
I'm sorry, I'm still just blown away by the fact that I'm not the only person who still has to use their hands to determine right from left. I never would have thought of it as a developmental delay. I just thought I had terrible spatial skills. My mouth dropped open and my husband thought something was wrong. I really felt seen in this video.
Me too!
OMG me too!
I thought it was kind of normal! So it was equally shocking for me.
Strangely, though, I automatically know port from starboard after learning to sail a bit later in life, but still have to tap each hand before knowing left from right.
Same!
Same here! I have a scar on my right hand… I almost always have to check it when determining R vs L.
my parents would often brag about how they didn't have to teach me anything and that I learned everything myself. This never really clicked for me until I started therapy. It's messed up. I started asking some of my friends if they had this happen and they were absolutely taught by their parents. No wonder I feel so behind my peers.
Yes I definitely relate. According to my parents “I just picked up how to do things.” Looking back, I’m sure I had no choice!
@@noellenicolas9436 ditto
Oh yeah my mum always bragged to friends and family.
“She’s so independent and capable!”
Now I’m in my thirties she wonders why I don’t talk to her about my problems or ask her for help.
My mum, a single mother of an only child, proudly exclaims that I raised myself as if it was some cool party trick
I have the same thing. "Oh, you were so independent, not like your sister" - my sister was the wanted one, so she got a whole 180 degrees different upbringing, and let me tell ya, watching her get in excess all that I never got as a child is a special taste of hell.
I think its awesome how we voted and get to see the video the audience chose. Thanks man. For those who have been too hurt by bad therapy to ever give it a millionth chance, your a life saver.
After watching this...I now have fear of being afraid. 😅
democracy is dead
"Sit in the loneliness " Alone, after school and on the weekends just sitting in the loneliness 😢
When I was very small and being ignored as usual because OCD ADHD mom was busy cleaning, I entered the kitchen. Mom’s goal was to get me to go way and play by myself. I didn’t know what I was feeling. She asked me what was wrong and I didn’t know. She asked me if I was bored. I didn’t know that word. She told me it was when you can’t think of anything to do and she told me what toy to go play with. So I learned that the word for lonely was “bored” and every time I was lonely, I would tell her I was “bored” and she would tell me to go away and play with a toy. So yeah, I’m lonely and you don’t care and it’s normal.
Can relate to difficulty knowing if someone is trustworthy or not.
Same.
Have only found the courage to divulge personal information a handful of times throughout my life.
Each time my trust was betrayed.
I’m 53 years old and trust no one, not even my partner of 27 years. Doctors are especially included - that’s a story in itself.
It makes it near on impossible to seek help, although I recognise I truly, almost desperately, need it.
I also recognise how unhealthy this is but feel stuck in an endless catch 22. 🤷♀️
I just assume nobody is.
@@Ichneumonxx me too, I've found that a lot of people , if not most people are in denial about their own traumas in which case, I steer clear, bc I think that sh*t is gonna come out somewhere and I don't want to be at the business end of that one.
Yes. I’m so bad at seeing red flags. I’ve got into so much trouble in life (65 now) because I trusted people I shouldn’t have.
I was a severely neglected child in ALL areas of life ! I have done a lot of work to grow myself up , but have never worked on the money department. I get so emotional ( angry, sad, shamed , frustrated) for not having a roadmap for simple things such as how to go about looking for job, interviewing, resume writing. I always end up crying . It feels unsafe and as if I am missing tools that other people do have. I wish someone else could hold my hand and teach me step by step how to go about these things .
If you haven't yet, you might try a temp agency, they often help with resume writing and can help organize your thoughts, usually just in their business, but it might help.
Same!
I know this doesn't solve your problem but I joined a couple websites where you input your resume data and AI helps you rewrite it. I did that and then went through and fixed some stuff or changed things that needed it because AI is not perfect. Sending you love ❤
Im in the same situation and feel exactly the same!!!
@@bpassion4fashion581 I feel this so much. Omg. I’ve spent much of my life so codependent because of skills I never learned. It’s terrifying. I’ve actually been writing and about to publish a money course that’s all about the emotional side of money. I have STRUGGLED through so many years and I have just wanted to help anyone, even just one person to not have to struggle like me. My info is not so much the practical things that you have listed but I would love to have a conversation with you and offer any help I can. I’m starting a UA-cam channel all about this and would love to interview you if you would ever be interested:)
THIS IS AN EXCELLENT VIDEO!
1. Codependency & Romantic Intimacy Delays - magical thinking, special bond or fantasy of partner, struggling with going too fast in dating life (no process), not liking to mix partners with friends (fear of losing partner), not caring if our partners are abusive for fear of being wrong, level of need from our partners that goes beyond appropriate partnership stuff, taking normative bumps in the relationship as extreme evidence that we're not safe.
2. Security Delays - young children need a consistent safe attunement with a healthy parent to build inner resources for security (e.g., gradual withdrawal of security blankets or sucking your thumb, resistant to change, procrastination, social anxiety, controlling behaviors, trigger & projection, not being comfortable being seen or known, etc.).
3. Perception Problems Delays - problems of perception i.e., how we interpret people, the world and ourselves. Often the abuse itself is the parent damaging a child's perception. Are things done to us on purpose? We fight in our heads and may be offended by another hurting us. We tend to take things too personally. Toxic parents expect adult behavior from their child.
4. Functioning Delays - The evidence of parental neglect from childhood. We may hide that we struggle with basic learning skills due to a lack of consistent care from a parent. Magical thinking around functioning - may not be able to identify our limits (e.g., appetite, sleep, work, etc.) stretching ourselves too thin. Combination of neglect or being wrapped up in fear. Self-care may be neglected. We can't learn things if we're overwhelmed with shame.
5. Negative Coping Strategies Delay - Addictive behavior - Developmentally stuck in needing to be soothed from behaviors instead of having internal resources to manage them. Eating is always a good way to distract children from their emotions (unconsciously). Perfectionism is also a coping strategy. Workaholics, substance abuse, feel nothing we do is ever good enough. We become attached to processes. If children are encouraged to talk about their feelings, they reconnect with their parent and are able to manage their feelings.
I also had a problem with reading comprehension in grade school. I had no idea that it was the result of having an emotionally neglectful "BPD" mother. I am an auditory learner. My father taught me how to write a check. But, my mother wasn't interested in teaching me anything. She wanted me to need her for everything. I am 67 and I'm still doing inner child work. The healing process may take a lifetime.
Proud of you for doing the work ❤
"She wanted me to need her for everything." 100000%
Thank you
Good for you!! Keep going girl!
When I cried it was “crocodile tears”, and if I was hurt and upset it would hurt my mother to hear them so I stopped telling her things and dealt with it alone.
She doesn’t understand why it doesn’t come naturally for me to tell her when things are hard.
My partner helped me learn to digest and identify my feelings and find the words to explain what was going on in my head. My childhood wasn’t abusive, but after my dad died mum just couldn’t enough of herself to us. I remember wanting to play but being told “no I don’t feel like it.”
I just thought it was normal that mums don’t play games, and got used being bored and lonely and not spoken to.
I was given an immense amount of responsibility to care for my as a child. I saw it as "freedom" and felt bad for my peers who had their parents constantly checking up on them, telling them when and where to be. Now I struggle to go to bed at reasonable hours, I have never been able to brush my teeth regularly, and I feel unsafe almost all the time. I only just started inner child work, really sitting with myself and making a plan for the day, then checking in with myself throughout the day and before I go to sleep to see how things went. I felt invisible as a child, and often still do, but now I'm learning how to really see myself. Hugs to my fellow neglet-erinos out there ❤
HUGS BACK!
I was so much more" responsible" back then.
Lol. I feel ya.
The high pressure/no support job is a great metaphor for growing up with neglectful caregivers. Minimal teaching/coaching/support and high expectations. So many possible outcomes. I learned to be self-sufficient but often feel like no one likes me or that I am easily replaceable in interpersonal relationships. I like to hear praise but cannot internalize it. I fear asking for help because there are repercussions for being “inadequate”. I often feel alone and like I need to solve everything by myself.
I love it when my mother’s reply to neglect was “We aren’t psychologists”. Or the “ I’m ok as long as my kids are ok.” So we felt overly responsible for our mother’s reactions and anger or sadness.
I love the phrase you used "didn't get the handbook in life", exactly!
Too many of us did not get this handbook!
As someone who got """home-educated""" (neglected), the part about functioning delays was insane. Never helped with learning how to read or write, handwrite, tell the time, the difference between left and right, I never even knew what the world map looked like, or where north/south/east/west were. I always had to ask my friend to tie my shoelaces well past when I should have learnt.
Soul crushing stuff honestly
Have you been able to catch up, schooling wise?
Parental neglect, is incredibly unfair, and negligent.
@@billpetersen298 for the most part yes. Took a lot of catching up in my teens but now going through university.
The toughest part of it when I was younger was simply not being aware of what I didn't know until someone calls you out for it and you end up feeling stupid for not knowing something so basic.
@quc522 "I was simply not being aware about what I didn't know" ...that's so profound. Im here for my nephew who's suffered from childhood trauma and it now makes sense why his awareness of the basic stuff was non-existant. Thanks for sharing. This helps.
@@Amberlocks100 I'm glad it helps. I'll be rooting for you and your nephew, and thank you for helping him however you can.
You know I'm a 67 year old woman and I've never caught up to any of the stuff that I was neglected about. School got harder and harder and harder I had severe memory problems from the abuse and stress just wiping out my short-term memory so that I couldn't remember anything that was said or explained in school they kept testing my IQ and I kept coming up above average so they couldn't understand what was going on even though I simply told every single psychologist that ever talked to me I told them about the abuse that was going on I would when they would ask me to draw a picture of my mother I would draw a screaming bug-eyed banshee and she was really like that I'm like what part of that does a psychologist not get!
I dropped out of high school after the first year it was miserable and I must say they really were rotten as far as their placement of me in classes I did things to save myself and for instance I tried to take a typing class my first year of school because I knew if I could learn how to type I could probably get a job and get away from my mother but they wouldn't let me take a typing class cuz they said my spelling was poor and that was my last year of school. Then I was an excellent reader because I had 3 years of special ed in grade school in Southern California which was much ahead of the rest of the state and Nation. Then the idiots put me in a remedial reading class in high school with Tom Dick and Jane books when I had read an James Michener novel The Summer before what a waste of my precious time and that was my last year in school last class for reading or anything. From the beginning of the class I kept asking the teacher why I was there why I was there I told both the female and male teachers I could read perfectly well that I had special ed reading classes in grade school they completely ignored me. I think again they said it was because my spelling was poor but I was never giving given one single spelling remediation or tests or anything that last year of high school.
The absolutely worst was a math class they were introducing algebra for the first time and they had work books that were self-teaching you read the littleexplanation then you took the test I thought this was wonderful and easy I loved it I made straight A's on every test because my reading comprehension was so good that I could easily self teach the algebra after making straight A's on every single test the teacher gave me an f and when I asked him why he said I couldn't possibly have made an a on every test I must be cheating. This same male teacher who I imagine was around 30 years old and married could not keep his eyes off my breasts. I was beautiful and I had beautiful breasts I was 14. I wanted to sit up front to better see the chalkboard because I was having blurred vision due to my medication for my peptic ulcer. But I got annoyed at his constant ogling and had to put myself back in the center of the room so that he could keep his f****** eyes off of me and then I couldn't see the board. I wanted to say to him hey you've got a pair of these at home get over it.I never could make any headway with my GED still to this day I am a high school dropout I never earned more than $2 an hour babysitting I guess the luckiest thing that happened to me and it really wasn't lucky at all is that I fell off a ladder and hit my head just a few years ago while staying with my abusive brother. My heart went into afib really bad over and over again and I had to be hospitalized even though I had no insurance. The doctor had to perform the ablation deal on my heart to keep it from going into constant AFib when I got out of the hospital I had the idea to apply for SSI my brother was so ugly and cruel he wouldn't even give me a ride to the nearby social security office I got a ride in with a neighbor who was going and applied for it and got it immediately just based on my hospital records that finally gave me a little money to get some medicine and that's how I'm living now I finally found subsidized housing which was an absolute miracle and now I'm living and able to live off the SSI. But I will never ever reach the potential that I had starting out in life because of lifelong abuse. Being scapegoated and now even abused by the three younger siblings who learned how to scapegoat and abuse. I would have been a talented musician and artist specifically I would have been a fabulous fashion designer as I taught myself to sew in my late teens and early twenties and became quite good at making beautiful clothes all I wanted was a 2-year associate degree in fashion design and my mother pulled a fast one on me saying for years that she would send me to community college if I could only pick something out when the fashion design degree finally became available she quickly changed her mind and went to school with my brother herself!!! Now I have congestive heart failure and I'm just trying to have the last few years of my life still looking for a companion such a shame such a waste the whole thing.
I still use Maladaptive Daydreaming to cope with my isolation and late diagnosed Autism.
Every day man. Every day.
My parents would almost brag about our family struggles to everybody, but then at home I was expected to be fully independent and act like everything was good. I never understood why I carried heavy shame and had such a hard time on the inside when everyone around me appeared to be coping just fine. When I read your email about this video I totally related to the shame of “not getting the handbook”. Especially in school, everyone else seemed to know these secret rules that I didn’t know. No matter how hard I tried to compensate through over-performance and shrinking my needs, I never felt good enough.
I’m so grateful for your work that has lead me down this path of healing and changed my entire life’s trajectory. I look forward to the video! 💜
I am fascinated by how these emotional developmental delays from abuse/neglect/chaos can manifest in the same way as autism spectrum traits. I was diagnosed “Asperger’s” a decade ago but the more I learn the more I think my autistic-like traits are a result of my being raised by a covert narcissist mother and grandiose narcissistic father and never really being able to be a child because of parentification and other stuff like all the crazy shape shifting and gaslighting and manipulation and basic lies.
Yeah... every time I hear a therapy person say "but it's not like conditions like ADHD or autism, those are due to neurological differences in the brain, they're different" my mind is just like, really? Is it? You sure about that? Neurology is very complicated and trauma can start being passed down even to an unborn child. I have ADHD but also definitely C-PTSD and any attempt to differentiate my symptoms between the two feels very artificial. There are so many ways that trauma and developmental issues and mental health conditions can be passed down other than DNA, and it's supremely useless to me to hold a belief that "my brain is just like this for no fucking reason, you just got born with a bad brain, bad genetic luck I guess, too bad" because it fosters helplessness, and coping instead of building a better-working neurology by working at it.
Youre not alone! This is me as well! I tested fairly high for being autistic but same for me, the more I see patricks videos the more I aha moments I get, and those are the most healing! ❤
You’re definitely on to something there! It reminds me of a friend I used to have: We met at work and both me and another colleague of mine had a suspicion that she was on the autism spectrum quite early but didn’t actually speak to each other about this or bring this up until much later - after we had become friends. She later talked to us about what must’ve been a very difficult childhood and how she was raised by a very emotionally immature, narcissistic, neglectful and verbally abusive mother - tho she never said these words exactly and she’d talk about all the horrible things her mom would say and do in such a strange cheerful upbeat tone and without making hardly any eye-contact. I don’t remember everything she told me, but I remember bursting into to tears at some point, which she obviously found very awkward lol. She hated hugs and told me she spent a lot of time rehearsing how to make eye contact and how to tolerate it back. She was also very.. childlike? and kind of (beautifully) naive about certain aspects about life, which I’m thinking now ties into the developmental delays. She had only been to a psychologist once as a teenager and was then diagnosed with an attachment disorder- not autism. She had a bf at the time tho and seemed very happy with her life and very "functional" despite everything- which kinda amazed me, how resilient she was/is - bc I was the single, non-functioning depressed one😂
@@charlie5115 that’s interesting to me because her experiences and her adult behaviors are same as mine. I wonder if it’s something we’ll never really know….
i also relate to all this!
Know what bothers me, Patrick? Knowing that all sorts of people who have similar problems to mine actually had a "dating life" and relationships along the way. I never did. I was so shamed and made to feel unworthy, that I never pursued anything like that.
You are not alone with this one. I can relate.
@@anwa6169 At least you replied. Thank you. Patrick Teahan there hearted every comment leading up to mine and those after, but completely skipped mine.
@@user-zr6pl6nb6z might be a technical glitch, who knows if it was even displayed fo him, in the dame moment. I do not like technical stuff for a reason.
I must say, I know enough awesome people who did not. And I am one of them. Had a difficult time to trust men. Was too scared to be in a relationship like my parents etc. Even though I was the one rejecting guys, it still felt like I was the one who was rejected. It hurt.
@@anwa6169 It was a little different for me, I guess. No one, to my knowledge, was attracted to me as I went through my adolescent years. I guess they could see the lack of confidence in my body language.
I was never learned anything by my parents. But yesterday, I learned to cook a new receipt all by myself for the first time (the other times I had assistance from social workers). Something my narcissistic parents would have never taught me. And I learned to my laundry three weeks ago. I am 28 years old. I was never taught these things.
You go, love! Keep it up! You'll get better and better with everything and discover more and more things you want to and are able to learn. I hope you enjoy the process of learning and expanding. I believe in you!!! 💚💚💚
❤ huge well done to you, this is no small victory. It is immense. May you continue to celebrate your healing and milestones.
I learned how to mop the floor just last year. I am 28 years old. Some people look down on me and call me lazy but they don't know how difficult it is. I hide it much of the time how much i struggle and I'm often overwhelmed by the world and expectations.
Peace 🙂❤️🩹
I’m 34 and didn’t learn how to do most basic chores (cooking/cleaning, etc., until I was an adult 20-28 years old). I learned most of it from my mother-in-law.
I’m so happy to hear that!! Thank you for sharing.
Wow, Patrick, I hope millions of people will see this talk. You never shame. You've managed to both brilliantly inform and nurture at the same time. I found your discussion enlightening, very supportive, and helpful. Thank you.
This. This all describes my sister. She's deaf and cognitively and emotionally a child, at 52. She's had so much trauma lifelong, and our family failed her. Society fails her. There are no resources to help her understand trauma or anything, let alone learn how to deal with it all.
I feel so much gratitude that you, at least, see her. I am her, in my family. It ruined so many things for me.
And you?
This is something that worries me: it's so common for disabled people to experience neglect and abuse within families (also within adult relationships), yet it often seems there are very few supports or resources specifically geared to that dual set of circumstances - you can seek support in the abuse sector and find it's literally not accessible to you disability-wise, or that the disability context is not understood/the service is actively ableist. Or you can go to the disability sector and find that it's not geared up to support you from the abuse angle. The popular image of disabled people's families as saintly just for putting up with us goes a long way to hiding the scale of need. I'm sorry you and your sister are dealing with that.
This is so sad and hard.
EMDR?
I did some vandalism when I was eleven. I think my motivation was anger and frustration. My teachers told my mother she should take me to a therapist to find out more about my issues. My mother told them, "No, I could never do that to her." She probably told herself she wanted to protect me from the trauma of having my psyche exposed. It was common in the 1960's that seeing a mental health professional was considered shameful. If people found out they said you were "crazy," behind your back.
She informed me of this conversation she had with my teachers when I was twenty-two years old, and up to then I had been clueless. I was stunned. I said nothing to her but I mentally ranted: "If I had gone to counseling WHEN it was suggested, YOUR secrets would have become exposed. THAT is why you denied me the help I needed back then. Instead, I struggled all through my teen years thinking that something was wrong with ME!" I finally went to counseling in my mid-twenties.
Counseling is relative...I started with a family psychiatrist at age 13, who ended up bringing in the whole family, since I was such a "good barometer..."
He advised my father that he needed to get me out of the house, or I .."would be sitting across from psychiatrists for the rest of my life." He wouldn't do it until my suicide attempt several years later....
Counseling off and on, out of my own pocket, most of my life....still grew up thinking something was wrong with me....rejected by my "oh so perfect" mother (SMH).....absolutely blows my mind to take a walk down memory lane and remember how incredibly sadistic they were.....Lord come quickly!!!
Yup yup yup. And congrats for getting help so young. I’m in 2 12 step groups for relationships and family of origin issues and it’s kinda depressing that the average age in the zoom rooms is north of 40…keep advocating for yourself!
Took me u til my mid thirties 😕
Marnie (the Albert Hitchcock movie) is a great example of this repression dynamic.
OMG-so that is why I have struggled. A child trying to raise herself into adulthood was like putting together a puzzle with 1/2 the pieces missing and the other 1/2 from 5 different puzzles. 😮😢
And without an example of how the bigger picture actually looks.
Yeah or like building a car while somehow you're supposed to be driving in it to get to work to be able to afford to build the car
It really is like trying to fit together a puzzle.
The lack of a safe place is you not having a table to build it on.
The neglect is your puzzle only having one quarter of the pieces.
The abuse is your parents knocking the pieces out of your hands to make themselves feel better.
The trauma is all the pieces that they're responsible for you losing or have superglued to other pieces that don't fit together.
The coping mechanisms are the pieces you take from other puzzles to try and fit into yours.
The lack of support is you not being shown the picture on the box to know what it's supposed to look like.
“some survivors have a parent who actually lived in fantasies with an abusive coparent”
ok - i always knew my mother would far prefer to take her imaginary elevator up to the penthouse in the building in her head to gaze at the view rather than stop our father from abusing us, but it never occurred to me that she lived in a fantasy WITHIN her relationship with my father. that makes so much sense!!
thank you!
edit: also, i have or have had every single one of these. and i realize that while i never sucked my thumb, i stim in certain ways.
Same here. She only started to notice his abuse when it was FINALLY directed at her, when my brother and I left for college. THEN she finally started hating him. Not when he was raging at her children. No - he was our father then and she'd remind us. And he was "so smart"! (the man has severe brain damage).
This is so enlightening. Ive just realised that my mother took pride in our being so independent and taking care of ourselves, not looking for any help from her. She constantly derides my kids for not being "independent " enough and being " too sensitive", as she still says to me. I used to worry that I was being too soft on my kids and felt ashamed that they couldn't do as much as I could at their age. I wanted so much to be the opposite of my mother. I now realise that I've done a good job. My kids are emotionally very mature and secure. They can talk to me about anything. Thank you so much Patrick. I feel very relieved to know that instinctively I was doing the right things instead of making their lives a misery like mine was. Your videos brilliant and have been helping me so much. I really appreciate the work you do and the resources you provide for us all . This community is great and I love reading comments from people who totally get it. ❤
Humans are communal animals. We function at our best in groups. Sure some will learn the skills to live alone in a cabin in the woods because they're just that kind of introvert, but even they need to.learn the social skills and make that choice.
We may overdo going the opposite way of what our parents did, but we make happier more attached children. Big props to you. You probably changed the trajectory of generational trauma with your own family.
I struggled with school because of an abusive stepmom entering the picture when I was 7. Barely graduated, and I'm now a 50 year old college senior. Straight A's now, but part time and at this point I realize that I missed out on a lot of childhood/life experiences at the right age, due to being abused every day. I learned to abuse myself, and now I am trying to unpack that in EMDR.
Romance? I stopped in my mid 30s. Women would come to me when they wanted to date, and I would just go along with whomever paid me the most attention. I was in love with the last one, but I didn't know how to stand-up for my boundaries, and that eventually led to me shutting down and her leaving because I shut down. I had no idea how to communicate strongly enough to be heard or something. I would saying something once, and put up zero resistance if it was argued with. I was afraid of arguing because I was so used to being screamed at as a child.
Security? I lived in the most ghetto places in order to save money while I was existing in state of constant PTSD. I didn't know I had CPTSD yet. I just felt like I was a bad person and that I was on my own when it came to survival. Survival was all I knew. Not thriving, not goals, not happiness, just safety in sleeping.
Perception? I still have problems putting everyone else's needs first, and then hitting a breaking point where I lash out or making dangerous overcorrections in my boundaries. Thankfully I am in therapy and I am present while watching this happen. I feel bad about some of my lashing out, and I'm now better and speaking my mind, but there are just simple moments where I want to take up my fair share of space and I do something really brazen in public. Not mean, but just like "Well, eff it. I'm here too and I am always patient and people are walking all over me so I'm going to just buffalo my way through this current obstacle and move on." LOL.
Function? I kind of over function. Not OCPD, but more like hypervigilance to underpromise and over deliver in everything I do. I will also do all the dirty work just because I'm asked, and then find that no one else is doing any of the dirty work. They are doing things that give them the most joy, while expecting me to do the dirty work, even when I am better at the joyful work than they are, not just better at the dirty work.
Coping? OMG. Rumination. Rumination. Rumination. I'm trying to stop that now. I have a lot of conversations in my head trying to reason with people that are benefiting from me doing said dirty work, and now I trying to create physical boundaries into these relationships where I defensively calendar my boundaries into place so that others HAVE to do the dirty work themselves.
EMDR has been amazing for trauma reprocessing for me. I can not recommend it enough. I'm realizing that I am a really freaking nice person who is mean to themselves, and sometimes others, because I try to hard to please everyone, and then get upset when people do not reciprocate my kindness. I'm getting much quicker and stating my boundaries directly, but still with mindfulness.
@@jmfs3497 I really enjoyed reading your share. Made my heart cry 😢 Hope you find peace my fellow traveler 🕊
I realize I am no longer on my own. Thankyou
What is EMDR I'm a 67 year old woman and I do pretty good but I have a lot of problems left over from childhood abuse myself.
You are really self aware and that is the first step to healing ❤ I’m wishing you the best ❤
@@kayhansen9229 EMDR is a therapy technique. You select the earliest traumatic experience you can remember, and then you sort of meditate on that memory a few minutes at a time. You will do multiple rounds of this per therapy session, and between rounds you will reflect on what you felt and what you noticed that round.
The goal is to reprocess these traumas multiple times, and as you do you become more desensitized to that trauma, as well as notice unhealthy patterns in you own mind that you can begin letting go of.
Your videos are more helpful than my therapist. I have a therapist that says "your giving your power away"...what does that mean? No real explanation is given. I get angry at people that abuse me and that's not ok with this therapist..."that's in the past"...I'm getting ready to let go of this therapist as they are not helping but hindering and shameing ...shaming my responces to things in my life past and present. Time to say goodbye. I've survived and will survive as I move forward.
Why is it so hard to find a good therapist?? These phrases are not useful at all. Good luck to you! I hope you can find a more understanding one 🙏
Im in a similar situation.. I'm thinking why should i pay someone who's going to say similar stuff to the toxic parents I'm trying to heal from? They act like the past is irrelevant. It's frustrating. That's why I'm here 😂
never put up with shaming from a therapist. trust your feelings. a bad therapist can do a lot of harm.
It's ok to leave and find another one. My last therapist told me talking about my mother was a waste of time. Like, dude, why do you think I'm here??? He was definitely in the wrong business. 😂
My therapist: oh and why do you do that behaviour?
Me: well when I was a kid…
Therapist: that’s not relevant, focus on your life now.
@@jdprettynails pfffft lordy
Emotionally Stuntin' on em 🌹
😂😂😂😂😂
😂😂😂
My security item was a pocket knife
Not as a weapon, as a tool. It felt very important to be prepared for anything.
I had so many unmet needs as an unrecognised autistic child being raised by unrecognised neurodivergent parents. Common for so many of us who are late identified. It's hard now to know how much my areas of challenge are like that because of developmental neglect.
I was often told "fake it til you make it" but it was just an excuse for neglecting to guide and prepare me. My parents couldn't teach what they hadn't mastered. I try and do better and be accountable with my own children.
As a middle-aged adult I've been learning basic things - eating regularly, noticing pain and responding to it, etc.
@@linden5165 Patrick hasn't even touched on the autistic aspect of trauma. It would be amazing twist of events if he did. It would help us neurodivergent/aspires if he did. We could listen to him all day long on that topic.
I'm so glad more is coming out about autism and how so many people especially females and older were undiagnosed. More for us to learn and accept about ourselves ❤😊🕊
i relate!
Patrick: your statement about being expected to grow up without much guidance is true. We were expected to do whatever, usually without guidance, and little to no acknowledgement or "attaboy/girl". They just moved us on to the next thing. But if we made a mistake, that brought attention. And in my case, a long lecture, often accusing me of things I've never done. It's really damaging.
So, thank you for sharing this!
Yeah my mum always honed in on the ONE thing I didn’t do. And even if I did everything perfectly
“What do you want? A medal. You’re supposed to do that everyday anyway”
Ohhh yeah, that rings a bell. Perfection was expected, failure was punished.
I honestly just assumed that my social anxiety, and fear of the unknown, and not wanting to be seen etc were just aspects of being an introvert. This is just my “personality type”. With every video I watch I somehow become more enlightened and more confused at the same time. But i am thankful to have them. How many of us are just walking around everyday, all kinds of dysfunctional, and have no idea?
I remember graduating from High School and College and feeling so disconnected from reality, my family, school, work and life.
59 next month & no romantic relationships, never encouraged by narc Mom (w/fear of abandonment); fantasy magical thinking & many times in limerance...fearful avoidant/fear of engulfment/emotional anorexic w/deep desire for connection. Thank you Patrick for the validation & creating awareness.
That’s so heartbreaking. But remember, it’s never too late. My grandma found a boyfriend well into her 60’s after my grandfather died.
Time is now, find your joy❤
I now see myself as a high achiever in school, considering all the developmental deficits and dysregulation from childhood trauma. Also, I don’t blame myself for acting out unconsciously as a “repetition compulsion” because I was trying desperately to make sense of my experience and heal while still trauma bonded to my parents. I have deep gratitude for all the validation and education I get here. Thanks to Patrick and everyone here.
I appreciate the example in the Perception Delays. I actually had trouble believing that people had done things on purpose, because i was told so many times that everything that was done to me was accidental, and that because it was accidental, it wasnt really harmful and i wasn't allowed to take it seriously.
When you said that “all self positivity is grandiose unconsciously,” I just started crying hard since that’s how I’ve felt my entire life. I’m only just starting to learn that I have an abusive and controlling mindset within an intimate relationship and I abused my previous partner in different ways that I am seeing now that I’m reflecting back. Of course it doesn’t help that I have some of these codependency and perception problems delays on top of that, and I’m hoping to really work on all of it so I can be loved and secure within myself before I can give love to anyone else. I’m only halfway into this video and this is so insightful. Thank you so much ❤
I identified so deeply with the part about one's parents never teaching basic hygiene techniques. For example, how to effectively wash one's hair with shampoo and conditioner. It's only natural that if a child doesn't learn these critical life skills from their parents, they will perceive any and every mistake not as a learning opportunity but as a shameful personal failure.
As a child, I assumed that everybody naturally knew how to thoroughly clean their hair, how to properly brush their teeth (and avoid overbrushing)-everybody except me. Again, it's that magical thinking that fills the gap left by neglect: "I should already know how to do this stuff, and if I don't it means that I'm dumb, that something is fundamentally wrong with me."
What i didn't know yet-couldn't have known at that age-is that these weren't signs that I was defective, they were signs of parental neglect.
I'm in my late thirties, and I only learned to do the dishes 3 years ago and do my laundry last year, and it was my older sister who taught me because my mother never taught me ANYTHING, even when I begged her to.
What about internet? It had been around for a while.
I've learned many learning skills internet even before social media was tha popular
Sounds like me! I only learned to do laundry in my late teens and i had to ask to be shown i didn't know how to make a meal for myself, etc.
I was 30 when the pandemic broke, my mom retired and taught me how to cook, preserve food, crochet etc before that it was just rages from her and constant neglect and verbal abuse, So I feel you❤❤
This is my childhood. I missed months of school every year. I had no idea what was going on and felt so stupid, so I would miss even more school in order to cope. The whole problem could have been solved if at least one of the parents intervened but instead they never even so much as cared to look at my report card. I had to teach myself how to do everything. My childhood was so sad and depressing and my life is so broken and fractured as a result. I feel locked in low status roles and feel like I'll never be able to have a normal adulthood.
This video has hit home. I've always struggled to act like an adult while inside have been secretly expecting absolutely everyone to hold my feelings and keep me safe, only to be disappointed over and over. You mention finding "resources"; I can't thank the invention of UA-cam enough for helping me learn seemingly simple things that have been daunting and embarrassing all this time, simply because I did not get the guidance from my parents on how to live life. Patrick, thank you for creating these videos for us. And to everyone watching, I see you and send you love.
Beautifully said. I can relate i am so disconnected from myself that I lack the ability to articulate. So i will second what you said haha.
The functional development delay that I struggle with the most to this day is not knowing how to make and have friends. And the few that I have, I constantly struggle with so much insecurity. Maybe they don't like me anymore. Maybe I'm too intense or too self-centered. They're not treating me right, I'll just get rid of the friendship. So grateful to have a good therapist to bounce this friendship stuff off. The other day I asked her point blank, is there something about me that people don't want to be friends with me? And she replied immediately and firmly, absolutely not!
Patrick, the other day you sent out a really short email that said - you're not in trouble. That little message has helped me out so often! If you have the wherewithall, similar little messages would be greatly appreciated!
@@lizblock9593 I’m just now (age 60) coming to terms with how insecure I really am. Insecure attachment = insecure person. And it’s shows up at the nervous system level, reptilian brain. Pre-cognition. It’s the ocean I swim in, mostly unconscious because I’ve known nothing else.
This is so affirming to me. I was profoundly neglected in a home where there were abundant financial resources and parental time available. I was simply not prioritized. Community standing of our family meant no one would take my situation seriously enough to intervene. Status and power dynamics in the community isolated me further in the neglect.
My parents weren’t that wealthy or prominent BUT RFK Jr running for president has shown me similar themes in others and has been affirming too. Money and prestige does not mean child neglect isn’t an issue. I’m grateful my life was lived on a much smaller stage. But, yah, the impacts of neglect are profound and ubiquitous.
I'm relating to this a lot... it's taken me over 40 years to fully grasp that some of what happened to me even was a form of neglect, and that there was abuse in the sense of enmeshment, because I always had my physical needs met, and I wasn't physically punished more than was normative here then (and having just googled, I'm horrified to learn that the corporal punishment of kids remains legal). I feel like there were big things I wasn't adequately prepared for, and while I do have disabilities, there's still a lot more I could have been supported to do, and I think I would've grown up less fearful about the future and less clingy toward my mother. The fact these parental failings were not from malign intent helped me miss their significance long into adulthood, as did the judgmental way outsiders asked me about them: people saw me as a spoilt only child, and as my mother had a somewhat justified persecution complex I was defending her from childhood. It's only very recently that I've been able to look back and realise those people had a point... but nothing they could have said would have helped me see that, because of what I was hearing at home.
The handwriting thing is real. I never understood why I’m so distressed about my handwriting until now. You are spot on Patrick! ❤
Now I finally understand why my youngest brother is the way he is.He ruined his car's engine because he never got the oil changed.He just doesn't do the many things in life that we are required to do.
This was very organized and fast and I appreciate that. I have a little bit more empathy and understanding for myself.
❤
Thank you I'm 42 and I've never been able to express all that happened to me even though I went to therapy , hearing all that you say is really important to me
I understand. Similar story here.
I relate to the segment about negative coping mechanisms right now, in particular.
Before I got chronically ill, it was possible to use perfectionism and masking in all areas of life to get by. Now, in my mid 20s, I've found myself resorting to the same coping mechanisms I used as a teenager - avoidance, video games, and maladaptive daydreaming. It's jarring to feel like a child when carrying adult responsibilities, without knowing how to navigate them. And worse, when you've sought help from teachers, doctors and therapists but remain stuck.
I'm literally in the same boat right now. I hope everything is going better for you now, a month on since you posted this.
You always find me out, Patrick! I hadn't yet realised that some of these are traits I have due to survival tactics. I still strongly recall my almost pathological inability to ask for help, or accept it - even when a kind person offered. I use to feel threatened when caring people saw that I was struggling, and try to throw them off. I still don't know why, but I couldn't bare to be seen to be vulnerable.
Same way here. Pathological is a great word to describe it. It feels like tearing off a limb to have to ask someone for help.
@@msfleepup You feel almost physically as if your mouth can't formulate the words!
I struggle with the same thing even when I desperately need support
I sucked my thumb until I was 11 years old, and yes the negative attention didn't help. I used all the coping techniques, I was on the honor roll, the whole house was clean by the time my parent came home, exercise, and substances. To this day I have oral issues and it has been a lifetime getting out of these delays. Luckily I had therapists and was also a nurse, the ultimate co dependent job. I have at least recognized it now I need to work on eating, smoking and drinking as a negative outcome from my childhood.
"Flipflops in an ice storm", reminds me of a book I once read called "Sunbathing in the rain".
This video helped me understand that the self soothing behaviors of my siblings and I were coping mechanisms and not anything to be ashamed of.I was so ashamed of the rocking in bed and rocking on a couch I did always to music . I did this even in college. I was very secretive about it and very careful not to get caught doing it. I didn't want people to see me as some kind of freak. I was able to stop eventually as I was able to separate myself from the family and then interact with them on my own terms as an adult.
That being said, music is so important to me and always will be. It helped to save my life.
@@SuperBookdragon rocking in bed, age 3 is my earliest memory.
I did the same thing --- the rocking! A way to escape into fantasies with music.
Video game addiction was my coping sense I was teenager
Reading for me, but it's actually a gift, A bright spot in the dark.
Both reading and video games for me.
I definitely struggle with Perception Problem delays. I had no idea it had a name, I was mostly just called overly sensitive
The concept of delays is definitely much easier to explain as a result of an experience rather than an intrinsic deficit, which "too sensitive" sounds like.
''We are entertainment for the toxic family'' this reminded me of when my father was laughing (as if entertained) at me at my wedding when something didn't go according to planned, and he was saying: ''Look at them! They are running around like a chicken with its head cut off!'' and not getting up to help or anything.
I think this is where my perfectionism comes from, because of him.
Thank you Patrick. You made me realize so many things and now I am not ashamed anymore, I know why I am this way now and I don't blame myself for it anymore.
I feel like I live in the center of a big tangled ball of disfunction due to childhood abuse and neglect and other life trauma. Trying to work through it all overwhelming and exhausting. Thanks you for this and other very helpful videos.
Be kind to yourself!
Unspoken family rules, perception problem delays (@11:32):
“A child is a person who the parent says they are”.
“It’s your fault things go wrong”.
“Expect unreliability from people”.
“Read my mind”.
“Don’t trust”.
“You’re a terrible kid and I can’t believe that you just did that”.
As an adult, the perception delay is:
“We’re convinced we’ve done something wrong without evidence”.
“We’re convinced some things can be done on purpose when maybe they’re not”.
“We can be convinced that speaking up can be wrong or dangerous or even lame”.
“We can be convinced that everyone is doing so much better than us when maybe that’s not true “.
“We can be convinced that we’re the only one with problems”.
“We can be convinced that we’re the problem “.
Childlike, not childish.
So true!
Love these videos! Thank you!
The topic of security delays hit me hard. I have stuffed animals as an adult, as well as other security delays, that I had never had access to as a child, because doing that would also invoke wrath. It is a mechanism that is the most positive out of the ones I used to have, so let me have my squishmellows and anxiety blanket.
This is my first time coming across your channel, and it is very informative. I’m definitely subscribing.
Loving support from my pops was, “If you don’t do it right the first time, don’t do it at all!” Fear of failure in public, embarrassment is something I still avoid to this day fifty plus years later.
I realized this had happened to me as a crawled my way back from survival mode, about a year into really working on recovery. It’s
Good to know I’m Not the only one . I realized I was probably stuck at a preteen headspace with preteen attitudes and skills. Like I was taking off where I left . I’m learning the things that were neglected now as an adult . I’m so glad to know that’s common .
this man is one of the few therapists that can really put words into many of the feelings i had difficulty describing. Thank you. God bless.
I was really surprised to discover that I have literally all the issues associated with the absence of security growing up.
The other stunning thing was learning that toxic families don't really believe in incremental growth and obtaining new skills, which was exactly my case as well. I read in the book that it's possibly because immature parents often do not perceive time the way we might expect, that's why they often break promises for example - they just don't understand how a situation at hand is relevant to whatever they said or did in the past, or can't be expected to know that today's choices might affect the future. This is really some deep dark stuff and I wish to everyone who experienced this a brighter tomorrow.
Thanks for the video, Patrick.
Wow I really needed to hear this...I did not develop emotionally not due to my own fault, but because my caregivers were not resourced enough themselves. I definitely saw the security delay in my brother, and "when we have a toxic parent, a child is whatever the parents say they are"...hit the nail on the head. Lol on the deductible, I have been struggling with this..I think it's important to not make excuses, but also see that the "adult" world is immensely flawed as well.
Neurodivergence can help us break through old patterns of human behavior, but it's good to know that there is such a thing as a "functional delay" as well. I also relate to the straight A student as a way to get recognition, I was devastated when I got my first B in junior year of high school. Also the dressing up, self medicating through drugs, sex, social media, workaholism etc...definitely still eating the same lunch every day lol. Thought I was the only one, but nope.
Thank you.This is very powerful and has reminded me of how teachers described me at school as a late developer.I now realise that that was due to all the arguing screaming and shouting between my parents which took place on a very regular basis as well as their neglect and lack of know how regarding parenting.
I am a codependent. I grew up in abusive dysfunctional family. I am three years in recovery. I stayed with my husband who is in recovery and working a 12 step program. We both realize that we don't respect each other and our relationship isn't going to work. We both aren't ready to part ways. I am waiting on having surgery and currently haven't work for a year. It feels good to be living my truth. I am not afraid but relieved. I did a lot of therapy and EMDR. I am listening to my body and know understand why I haven't been happy. My husband lied to me a lot so I don't trust him. He admits he still lies about some stuff. We have more of a trauma bond. I stayed with my husband for 19 years.
I remember when I was 14 years old. I was watching TV, and there was a bit of a storm passing outside with heavy rain and some thunder/lightning a few miles in the distance. The phone rang. I picked it up - it was my mother calling from 2 doors away, in a neighbour's house, "Are you okay?" she said. "Not frightened by the thunder?"
I thought it was weird - now I realise she was both trying to infantilize me, and also manipulate our neighbour into believing she was this great 'mother' and I was this 'scared small boy' - who was 14 years old. I haven't seen or spoken to the woman in 6 years - my only regret is not cutting off all contact 30 years sooner.
I’ve been noticing things like this in me about each of these delays and just how stuck I feel and how much I want to move on and be free and grow up from them. It’s been driving me crazy and to know that they’re specific things caused by neglect and abuse gives me clarity and some sense of not being crazy or incompetent.
I didn't know anyone else had problems with writing a check. It makes me so anxious!
Me,too!
75% of what you said describes me. Thank you for putting it into words, because I struggle to explain this to therapists who hand wave it away or dismiss it.
I am 60 years old and wish I had your videos in my 20s. Therapy has helped, but you really get to the heart of the problem. Thank you so much for all you do.
I had anxiety attacks when going home to visit very insecure. Overeating and watching tv coping skills leading to obesity and a host of other health problems.
Thank you so much for your videos. So validating as to what happened to us.
We are blessed by you. Thank you. ❤😢😊❤
Oh yes. Eating in front of the TV while my parents screamed at eachother and broke things. Then denied they'd ever fought when they'd make up later. It was the only thing that numbed the pain.
12:57 I remember describing this to my mom when I was maybe 13, about how I would have arguments with people in my head and then actually feel upset. And I asked her if she ever did that. I remember she looked super confused and said no, and I felt so judged and never brought it up again 🥴
You mentioned staying in relationship with a partner that isn't suited. There's also the flip side of that where you're in a good compatible nurturing relationship but you have trouble bonding. It would suck for a person and for society as a whole if they/everyone repeatedly threw away good relationships.
Another thing I noticed with childhood neglect is an odd speech pattern. I was told I had a bit of an accent, and dismissed it because I did grow up in Europe. But after 15 years in the US with English as my first language, I started to think it odd. Then I heard a recording of myself... I don't pronounce my "s" correctly, or my "t" or "th". I'm certainly not dumb, but I talk more slowly with this odd lisp, and I was perceived as dumb (I was a straight A student in college, and I have a PhD). For the longest time I couldn't figure out why people treat me like they think I'm an idiot until they got to know me a bit better (an odd first impression thing. Was it my clothes, my hair? Lol). I had no idea I sounded like a child in my speech! Maybe to sound innocuous in the face of abuse? Or my parents just never bothered to teach me how to pronounce things correctly?
I wish you would stop narrating my life ;-) I've been in therapy for 5 years, read so much, learnt so much, but so much of what you say and the examples you give are dead on. It makes me believe in psychotherapy rather than CBT. CBT's okay, but it never gets to the core of the problem and very often it's 'duh, don't you think I know that' and just plain irritating. So often it comes back to self care, realising where things got stuck and giving yourself time and support to grow again. I'm 62 and to anyone out there who's just starting the new journey, it's awkward and painful but remaining in pain is no way to live life. It gets better. Thanks to you for this channel, Patrick.
Great Explanation of work force TRAUMA... No Training yet expecting immediate perfection..
Functioning delays: maths. I was shamed and humiliated multiple times because of it. Figure out most of it on my own but it's still stressful for me
Me too 🫂🫂🫂 Math is so traumatic for me even, now, as an adult but this does NOT mean that I am unable to be fiscally responsible which are two completely different things....I am EXTREMELY responsible when it comes to finances.
Same. I’m really sorry you experienced this. It sucks.
I relate to this, and it pained me as someone who really enjoyed math in school. I’m now mending that relationship by allowing myself to delve into basic maths at my own pace, and ensuring that it’s a pleasant, joyful, and enriching experience.
20:46 my mom came to visit for a couple of days in August (after I talked her out of extending her trip 2 days beforehand), and it was a surreal experience on the other side of an ADHD diagnosis.
There were so many moments where I felt like I was looking in a mirror: doing from the place of doing, going without food for hours, and not realizing how long things took. Having her here meant taking care of her and doing a lot of those things, which was a bittersweet moment of feeling stuck in that dynamic again but feeling validated + grateful for the progress I've been able to make in the past year. A lot of it happened outside of therapy through videos like these, tysm for all the work you do 💜
I'm 62 years old and I struggle with most of these things that you've mentioned. Thank you for your video it really answers a lot for me.
Patrick is just so gentle with describing the nuances of thw thoughts and reasoning that goes on inside my head. It helps me also think of it gently, and takes the feeling, omg this is such a big problem that only I am handling, to a small habit that I need to connect with
It’s like you wrote this about me, so helpful thank you. My dad mocks me for not knowing how to do things, like read a bus timetable. I’m like, that was your job!
Oh dear Patrick You described my existence. Thank you for helping me again. I am so fatigued from redoing my entire perception from childhood.
Grateful for more understanding. I just wish people understood what it feels like to Be so dis regulated. ❤️
My parents always complained I was "bad with money," but looking back, not only was I never taught to understand money, they were terrible with it themselves! I also realise now that they had no idea what my personal upkeep actually cost since they had always given me the bare minimum, so felt I was frivolous when I met my own needs in ways they didn't approve of. Not that I've always made good decisions, how could I, but I'm ready to discard the belief that I'm bad with money and to start educating myself about how finances work. I am totally capable of learning a new skill! And so are you!
so relate to the bit about them not knowing the cost of our upkeep because we had to grow up with so many unmet needs!
I look forward to this one. You have another one "why they can't cope with your emotions". It was excellent. I listened to it 20 times
I'm 67, and I still have my teddy bear. 🧸 I talked to him as a child like he was real. It's what got me through the trauma. I could never "get rid" of him but he's in a box in the cupboard now.
woah why don’t more professionals share this information. it was presented really well! kind of sad to process, but very helpful! like getting the therapy cheat codes
After watching this, I’m still a bit confused about what has happened to me that I was really REALLY afraid of making important telephone calls. Like call the bank, the boss, the doctor…I’m much better at this after realizing that even if I don’t get everything right the first time, nobody would scream at me or punish me for saying something wrong or not “getting” it immediately. Most of the time people on the other side of the phone would just calmly repeat the process, or explain etc so I have learned that it is relatively safe to call people….altough I still struggle sometimes
I sucked my thumb until I was a maybe 12 or 13. Thinking of that reminded me of my dad coating my hands in hot sauces and dried peppers once to break the habit. He did similar things to two other siblings who had coping behaviors.
I'm realizing how messed up that is. The environment was terrifying and he tried to take our coping mechanism away.
Adult development is also an important aspect, especially for ppl with gifted traits like super- empathy and intense mental focus.
I learned in adulthood how much trauma my peers had gone through. We reach got stuck in different things.
My parents had no respect for our property whether we were emotionally attached to it or not. My mother would "clean" our room while we were at school and throw away our possessions. We had no property, Even if we earned the money elsewhere and bought it ourselves. When we got work in our tweens they expected to be given the money we were earning.
Im so thankful for you and these vids... I often spiral at work, it's a skill based job, and I have such a hard time with telling others they're doing something wrong, or correcting people. I often talk down my opinion and what I know, which just makes me seem unconfident and unsure. But inside, I know that I have worth and I'm just trying to help someone! I also tell myself I can never rely on others and must do things myself. Which causes me to feel unsafe and as if im in some outgroup, alone on my own island.
I find this so relatable and I'm also an allycat lol