Why People Neglected in Childhood Don’t Get Loved (4-video compilation)

Losing a parent can cut deep and shape a child’s emotional life for years — sometimes for a lifetime. But when a parent deliberately leaves — walking out for someone else, disappearing for long stretches, or showing up only when it suits them — the pattern of abandonment becomes a template that’s difficult to shake in adult relationships. How many times have you fallen for someone only to discover you were treated as disposable, used, or as the hidden option? You stayed anyway. Those habits don’t evaporate the moment you meet a genuinely good person; more often, the pattern repels a worthy partner before they really get to know you. Let’s look at how that plays out.
I received a letter from a 25-year-old I’ll call Emmy. She wrote:
“Dear Anna, my childhood was awful. It left me fiercely independent, but painfully insecure about my appearance and self-worth. My father was largely absent; he and my mother didn’t have a stable partnership but also never officially split. He drank, and he died when I was twelve. Before that, his pattern was predictable: he’d appear for a while — living in another town, taking odd jobs, often relying on my mother’s contacts — stay for a few months without contributing financially, then vanish without explanation. My mother tolerated this back-and-forth. I grew accustomed to that unstable rhythm. Now, as an adult, I’m in therapy because I recognize how profoundly that history has shaped me.
Fast forward: a few years ago, I met someone at work — let’s call him Noah. He seemed perfect: charming, bright, attractive. I’d been single for several months after a failed three-year relationship and was concentrating on a new job. The first time I saw him, it felt like destiny — time slowed and nothing else existed. We started seeing each other after work, and I soon learned he already had a girlfriend. That should have been an absolute stop sign, but I was captivated, and we began a secret hookup. For a while it felt wonderful: theater dates, feeling treated like a princess. But he never left his girlfriend. He claimed it was his first time cheating, and I blamed myself for going along with it.
Around Christmas, right before my birthday, he told me his girlfriend had dropped by unexpectedly and that they were on good terms. That was the end. We had no contact for five months. Then he called to say they’d split and asked me on a date. I still loved him, so I agreed. We had sex on that first meeting. He was explicit that he didn’t want anything serious, but my wounded self hoped I could turn persistence into love. For about a year we continued this on-and-off arrangement. I was never introduced to his friends; he kept my existence hidden. That hurt terribly, but I stayed quiet because I feared losing him.
In the last month of our on-again, off-again hookup, things looked positive. I gave him a present right before his birthday; he liked it, yet he didn’t invite me to his birthday celebration. A month of silence followed. When I messaged, he answered hours later, if at all. Then I saw a photo on Instagram: him with another woman. They looked very much alike — that made me feel it must be my personality that was wrong. I was inconsolable, physically sick for weeks. When I asked him what was happening, he told me he didn’t owe me updates after two years of knowing me as both friend and sexual partner. That sent me into a spiral and dredged up my childhood abandonment wounds. I unfollowed him on social media, but I repeatedly messaged him anyway, which I now regret.
It’s been seven months since the breakup and I still can’t stop thinking about him. I check his social media obsessively, fantasize about him, and wait for him to return. I know rationally that he won’t come back and that I deserve better, but these behaviors feel like that old loop of waiting for my father to return. My therapist calls both my dad and Noah narcissists and urges me to let go, but I haven’t had much success. We live in the same city, and I’m terrified of bumping into him with his girlfriend. I sometimes imagine him spotting me and regretting his choice. My self-esteem is in ruins. I’ve developed a fear of men and dread being alone forever. I feel devastated, confused, and helpless. I need help moving on. Warmly, Emmy.”
All right, Emmy — there is a way out, and I will show you step-by-step how to do it: practical tactics to stop re-creating this pattern, protect yourself in future relationships, and untangle the intense emotions you’re carrying. It will include some hard truths delivered kindly. Let’s unpack your letter again.
Emmy, your childhood pattern — parents breaking up and reuniting, your father appearing only when convenient, leaving the family without financial support, and your mother tolerating it — that creates a deep, logical wound. It’s not surprising you developed behaviors to cope. Many people raised in similar circumstances understand this deeply. You met Noah when you were vulnerable but rebuilding after a breakup and feeling newly competent in your life. You described the moment you first saw him with language that’s classic for limerence — that obsessive infatuation where you feel mesmerized and look for any sliver of hope to hold onto. Limerence is an intense yearning that isn’t always a reciprocal relationship; it’s often a fantasy state. It’s very common in people who have been traumatized or abandoned.
You noted the “red flag” that he already had a girlfriend. To be clear, having a partner is not merely a red flag; it’s a boundary — a “no-go zone.” Pursuing someone who is already attached usually doesn’t end well, and for those with CPTSD, it tends to lead straight into hurt. One of the most important standards to adopt in healing is: don’t date people who are already taken. Also, don’t have secret relationships. Being forced into secrecy destabilizes anyone, but especially someone with attachment wounds, because it undermines your ability to trust what is real and true. It invites cognitive dissonance and intensifies CPTSD symptoms.
You described the hookup period as “good,” but that term glosses over the real problem. When a man treats you like a “princess” in private but refuses to integrate you into his public life and is partnered with someone else, that is not honoring you; it’s using you. That kind of arrangement places you as a hidden option and normalizes lying and secrecy. Waking up to the fact that you were part of enabling that dynamic is painful, but it’s crucial: you have to claim responsibility for your choices now — not to shame yourself, but to reclaim your power and stop repeating the pattern.
Feeling ashamed for participating in the deception is understandable, but remember there’s a distinction between shame you’ve earned (from choices you genuinely regret) and the free-floating shame we inherit from being mistreated. The useful work is to honestly acknowledge what you did that contributed to the harm, learn from it, and move forward without being crushed by that feeling.
When Noah reappeared after his breakup and insisted he didn’t want anything serious but then had sex with you, that’s another indicator to watch. If someone says they aren’t interested in commitment, the appropriate response — especially if you’re healing attachment wounds — is to protect yourself. Sex in that context often functions as a trap that keeps you attached to someone who won’t commit. It perpetuates a damaging loop where you give all you have and receive little in return.
Here’s a practical rule to adopt: when someone who has mistreated you re-enters your life, don’t rush toward sex or intimacy as a way to “secure” them. Instead, erect guardrails. If you meet someone new who interests you, go slowly. If they are disrespectful or inconsiderate, create distance. That signals self-respect; it also signals to the other person that you have boundaries. People who are healthy respond to boundaries. People who are not, reveal themselves quickly.
You mentioned you thought Noah’s cheating was his “first time.” Even if it was, the fact he cheated is a huge indicator of character. People who cheat once are more likely to cheat again. The responsibility isn’t yours to stop him from being unfaithful; it’s yours to refuse to be the person who participates in that dynamic.
You kept hoping that persistence would turn his ambivalence into love. That’s a trauma-driven belief: maybe if I try hard enough, I can earn the presence I was denied as a child. That thinking has a logic born of survival, but it is destructive in adult romantic contexts. Good news: you’re only 25. You can change course now and save yourself years of pain. The practical steps are straightforward and effective.
Tactic 1: No contact. If someone is not treating you well, cut ties. Block phone numbers and social media. Don’t message repeatedly. Limerence thrives on fantasy and secret engagement; breaking contact cuts the fuel to that fire.
Tactic 2: Stop having secret relationships. Don’t become the hidden partner. If a relationship requires secrecy, it’s not safe emotionally. And if you feel the urge to return to a person who has shown you they won’t commit, use guardrails — remove the opportunity for impulsive contact.
Tactic 3: Don’t run toward sex as a way to fix things. When you catch yourself wanting to immediately sleep with someone who’s treated you badly, recognize that it’s trauma-driven thinking. Replace that pattern with a strategy — go on sober dates, invite a friend to check in, or schedule a pause.
Tactic 4: Build external accountability. Limerence is often secret and hidden. Share what’s happening with one honest person who will call you out gently and bring you back to reality. Stop storytelling about the fantasy; write it down and process it in private exercises instead of narrating it repeatedly to friends.
Tactic 5: Use a daily practice to regulate excess emotion. There are evidence-based practices and structured exercises that help reduce obsessive thinking and reacquaint you with reality — tools that give temporary relief and gradually change how reactive you are.
Tactic 6: Reframe your self-talk. Stop calling yourself “stupid.” Trauma-driven choices don’t mean you’re stupid; they mean you’ve been wounded. Start calling the behavior what it is and treat yourself with firmness and compassion: “I was traumatized; now I’m choosing differently.”
A few clarifying points about Noah: you said it hurt that the woman in the Instagram photo looked like you. That doesn’t mean your personality is the problem. It’s more likely that your histories caused you to accept a role where you were hidden, and that signaled to him that it was acceptable to keep you second-rate. Your behavior was not a personality flaw — it was trauma-driven.
If you keep checking his social media, feeling humiliated, and messaging him, the immediate step is to stop doing that. Every time you catch yourself slipping into obsession, interrupt it. Don’t talk about him with others; write it out in a private exercise and read it to a trusted person if you must. The process of withdrawal is real. When we quit speaking about the obsession publicly, our healers and friends can’t unknowingly reinforce the pattern. This prevents limerence from being dramatized and keeps it where you can manage it.
You described feeling like you might be stuck in a childhood loop of waiting for your father to return. That understanding is useful because it explains why these dynamics draw you in — but now the responsibility is in your hands. You are the one who chooses whether you allow people who treat you like this to occupy your emotional life. Your power is to decide boundaries, to refuse crumbs, and to cultivate a life that doesn’t revolve around waiting.
If your therapist calls these men narcissists, that’s one perspective; whether or not they are, the key is to take ownership of your choices and stop outsourcing your boundaries. You can learn techniques to manage cravings to reconnect and to move through withdrawal. They can be learned, practiced, and become reliable tools.
People with CPTSD often develop patterns of codependence: becoming intensely focused on another person to fill what’s missing inside. Codependence is not passive — it’s an active strategy of putting your energy into someone else in hopes of getting back validation, safety, or identity. That tends to backfire. A healthier approach is to cultivate those needs internally: feel seen, secure, and purposeful without relying on another person to provide it.
Next I’ll summarize another letter I received, from someone I’ll call Chloe. She wrote that my videos on isolation, limerence, and abandonment resonated. She reports healing progress but remains stuck in a loop: she’s attracted to unavailable people and turns perfectly decent, available partners into friends. Her pattern is: if someone listens attentively and shows up as a potential partner, she instinctively friendzones them; if someone is self-absorbed or unavailable (like her father), she idolizes them and becomes overly accommodating. She describes always asking questions about the other person, making herself excessively available, and mentally rehearsing a future with them — particularly in their absence, where fantasy fills the gap. When someone reciprocates interest consistently, she loses attraction and becomes avoidant.
She grew up with parents who were outwardly “loving and providing,” but her father remained emotionally unavailable and her mother was an enabler. She carries a lot of shame from that upbringing. In friendships, she’s often found herself close to controlling friends who centered themselves and later discarded her.
Her questions: Why do I instinctively convert potentially healthy romantic matches into friendships? Why do I abandon myself in the face of interest from someone stable? How can I lift this veil of habitual friendzoning and instead allow myself to pursue a real romantic relationship, even if I’ve already lost interest in someone who turned out to be available?
Here’s what I see in Chloe’s story. Growing up with inconsistent mirroring from parents — where you weren’t truly seen and reflected — can delay the development of an internal sense of self. If caregivers don’t mirror and respond to you, the internal framework for “who am I?” develops slowly. You then gravitate toward people who appear fully embodied and self-assured because being around someone who is clearly themselves gives you a temporary model of what being a person could look like. That can feel nourishing, and you instinctively jump into caretaking and adoration.
This strategy becomes self-sabotaging when you effectively disappear in service of someone else: bulldozing your own needs, asking hundreds of questions, and making your life revolve around another person. For many people, a conversation that’s all about one person feels flattering, but it can also be emotionally exhausting for the listener and unattractive in the long term. Healthy relationships usually involve a back-and-forth exchange, shared interests, and mutual reveal — not one-sided pedestalizing.
If you find yourself immediately friendzoning stable suitors, one practical step is to stop spending time on people you’re not genuinely attracted to. It’s radical, but protecting your availability means you don’t leak emotional energy into half-relationships that drain you. Spend time building a life that excites you independently — pursue hobbies, study challenging subjects, travel alone, and cultivate inner depth. Those activities increase your ‘magnetism’ because they give you content to bring to conversations and make you appear more fully alive to potential partners.
Work on slowing down the initial approach. Don’t try to fix or over-invest early. Let curiosity be reciprocal rather than performative. When you find yourself obsessively fantasizing about someone, bring those thoughts into a written practice or share them with a recovery buddy who will gently redirect you. Limiting the number of people you emotionally invest in at once helps preserve your vitality.
Some practical actions: meditate regularly to build inner steadiness, read and engage with challenging books or projects to deepen your interior life, practice new hobbies that give you independent joy, and join recovery groups if needed. These steps help you expand beyond playing small and being overly available.
Now another letter, from Nora. She wrote that she has CPTSD and ADHD, raised by emotionally immature, unavailable parents; her father drank excessively and later died. She’s been dating a man, “Matt,” for almost four years after meeting online. He seemed mature and strong, and she experienced love with him for the first time. Their goals ostensibly aligned toward a long-term relationship, but early on his behavior triggered red flags: he worked around the clock, they saw each other rarely (maybe once a week for a few hours), never vacationed together, never spent holidays together, and never even spent a single full night together. He explained this as exhaustion from work and severe anxiety, promising that “one day” he’d be able to change. Nora hoped it would improve, but after nearly four years, little had changed. He’d started therapy, but Nora is worn out from waiting for him to “get it together.” During their time together, her life deteriorated: she lost a job she loved as a TV reporter and took lower-paying, less satisfying work; her parents had housing problems; her father died; a nephew committed suicide; and her general support network evaporated. She’s depressed, scared, exhausted, and can’t imagine moving forward with big shared projects like cohabitation. She’s unsure whether to keep waiting or to take steps to protect herself. She asks for help.
Nora, your situation maps closely onto what you experienced as a child: your partner’s chronic unavailability has replicated the abandonment and instability you grew up with. You described a relationship that functions as a “thin” partnership — it occupies the role of relationship on paper, yet provides none of the mutual support, shared life, or energy you need. That’s draining you emotionally and practically: your job problems and other life stress make it impossible for you to sustain both the relationship and your own recovery. Consider that a healthy, committed partner would share holidays, nights, and life plans — and would help you feel energetically uplifted, not depleted.
A few specific observations and suggestions for Nora:
– If we map “long-term relationship” to something like building a life together (marriage, living together, shared finances and responsibilities), then Matt’s insecurity and severe avoidance make him unlikely to be able to provide that now. He might be in the throes of his own disorders that require long-term work; therapy is a start, but you aren’t guaranteed results.
– A relationship that requires you to wait indefinitely for the partner to become available is not a healthy functioning relationship. Your life is finite and your energy limited. Waiting for someone to “finally get it together” is often a form of self-sabotage driven by attachment fears.
– You’ve experienced significant losses and traumas in the last few years. These cluster; when several hard events hit together, it’s natural to feel broken down. However, those periods can also catalyze enormous personal growth when you’re supported.
– Practical next steps: consider drawing a firm boundary with Matt. If he’s not willing to be present now — to cohabit, spend holidays, or otherwise be available — you can reclaim the time he occupies and allow someone else to potentially enter your life who is actually available. This means no more breadcrumb relationship; choose people who bring energy to your life rather than drain it.
– Build a support network: adult children of alcoholics groups, local recovery or support meetings, and community networks can offer social contact, holiday plans, and steady friendships, so you aren’t isolated. These places can be lifesaving when finances and social networks fray.
– Start restoring your energy and agency: a daily practice to process anxiety and resentment, perhaps meditation or a structured journaling routine, can help you keep perspective and ground. Small steps like that produce measurable shifts if practiced consistently.
When you are drained by a relationship, it’s crucial to ask: does this relationship increase my energy or decrease it? If it drains you, it’s not sustaining your life. Relationships that lift you both toward fuller versions of yourselves are the healthy ones. If Matt is pulling you down, let the metaphorical mercury out of your system: stop consuming the toxic thing. That may mean ending the relationship and investing in renewal for yourself.
Finally, a few words to another correspondent I’ll call Kira, who wrote about coming out of emotional neglect and abuse as a woman of color in predominantly white spaces. She started meditating three years ago and has been doing deep work: grief, rage, and hope surfaced. She’s made progress but has never had a long-term romantic relationship. In her teens and twenties there were encounters, one-night stands, and a few brief situationships, but nothing that developed into a partner relationship. After a humiliating breakup in her early thirties, she vowed not to form new romantic attachments until she felt internally ready. She’s been mostly celibate for nearly four years. Recently she had an emotionally meaningful relationship with a younger man who was emotionally available — it was immersive and painful when it ended. Now she’s noticing some emotional stirrings for two men who feel emotionally stable and potentially good partners, but both live two hours away and she has only seen each a handful of times. She’s wondering whether this is genuine potential or magical thinking. She worries she is “sex and love anorectic” — forbidding herself intimacy out of fear — while also wanting to be open to desire. She asks how to balance patience, self-protection, higher standards, self-control, and the permission to explore a sex life and make mistakes.
Kira, first, well done. Meditation and willingness to look at what’s inside you are huge achievements. You’ve already made substantial internal progress. For someone raised in neglect and abuse, the task is to allow yourself to become someone who can safely and confidently participate in a reciprocal relationship. In your case, there’s a mix of avoidant tendencies (playing small, being self-reliant) and a yearning for connection.
A few key points and recommendations:
– It’s okay to experience desire and curiosity. It’s also okay to be cautious. Your strategy should be to have both: curiosity and a set of protective guidelines. Don’t treat every spark as a green light for full immersion, but don’t punish yourself by forbidding all possibilities forever either.
– If the person is two hours away and you’ve only met them a few times, you’re still mostly in the land of possibility and fantasy. That’s not bad, but be intentional. Gather information slowly: are they single, are they emotionally available, what are their life goals? If not single, the situation is a hard no.
– The idea of “dating as an experiment” can be useful if it’s framed as gentle exploration rather than reckless trial-and-error. For people with attachment wounds, sex early on often re-activates trauma and reduces clarity. If you want to re-engage with a sex life, consider doing so within an intentional structure: slow dating, mutual sharing, and clear boundaries about availability and intent.
– Work on becoming someone who does not always “play small.” Invest in practices that increase your presence: meditation, reading challenging material, cultivating hobbies, traveling alone, and participating in recovery communities. These deepen you and make you attractive in a healthy way because you’re bringing a full, interesting life to a relationship.
– If you suspect you are “sex and love anorectic,” there are recovery groups and 12-step communities that address sexual and romantic compulsions and avoidances. Those groups can give you guidance for re-integrating intimacy in a way that doesn’t retraumatize you.
– Create a clear list of what you’re looking for in a partner — specifics about values, availability, life direction, and core behaviors. Don’t be vague or apologetic about it. Being clear helps you discern quickly whether someone is promising or not.
– If you feel erotic longing and fantasize, don’t beat yourself up. Notice it, journal it, and move on with a small deliberate action — like reading a page of a book, walking, or calling a friend — so that longing does not become the entire script of your life.
Overall, the through-line in all these letters is familiar: childhood neglect and abandonment create predictable patterns — limerence, tolerating secrecy, idolizing the unavailable, or avoiding intimacy entirely. The route to different results is consistent: increase self-awareness, practice steady daily tools to regulate emotion, set and enforce firm boundaries, stop secret relationships, prioritize connections that enliven rather than drain you, and cultivate an inner life rich enough that you no longer need to borrow your identity from others. It’s doable, and it’s not quick, but the change is available. Take one small, concrete step today: cut off contact with the person who’s harming you, join a supportive group, start a short meditation or journaling practice, and make a list of the qualities you truly want in a partner. From there, build outward — a little at a time — toward the relationships you deserve.