What Childhood Emotional Neglect Does

How do we learn to really know ourselves and discover what we need to forgive someone who has hurt us when we never had the time or space to figure it out as children? When we find ourselves in neglectful or abusive situations as children, we lose the ability to know and care for ourselves first. Knowing ourselves and our emotional needs are too rich for our blood. We must survive, and to do so, we must just forgive and forget. We cannot hold a grudge, lest we drop the fragile thread that connects us to our abuser. It is our work and ours alone to maintain the fragile attachment. What is, a 2-person job, becomes a 1-person job. While the other person (often a parent) is busy jeopardizing the attachment with manipulation, we are scrounging to keep it together, for our very survival depends on it. So, taking our eye off the ball for even one second to look inside of ourselves, see what we need, or ask for what we need is just too rich for our blood. If we do, that ball will fall, and we will be even more alone. Things can get worse than they are now. At least if we are being abused, we are being noticed and spoken to and seen.