Emotional neglect is a complex and often invisible form of emotional abuse that can have devastating effects on a person’s mental health.
Emotional neglect and depression are different concepts. Persistent low mood, loss of interest or difficulty functioning warrant an individual professional assessment.
What is emotional neglect:
👉Lack of emotional support: A person experiencing emotional neglect does not receive the emotional support they need from their partner or loved ones. Their feelings are ignored, denied, or minimized.
👉Lack of attention and care: A partner may not pay attention to a person’s emotional needs, show no interest in their life, and show no concern or sympathy.
👉Lack of empathy: A person experiencing emotional neglect may feel misunderstood and unsympathetic.
👉Constant criticism and negative comments: Instead of support, a person may be constantly criticized, judged, and make negative comments about their feelings, thoughts, and actions.
👉Comparison with others: The person may compare themselves to other people, which leads to feelings of inadequacy and lack of self-confidence.
Signs of emotional neglect:
👉Feeling lonely and alienated: Even though the person is in a relationship, he or she may feel lonely and alienated.
👉Low self-esteem: Emotional neglect can lead to low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence, and feelings of inadequacy.
👉Depression and anxiety: The person may experience depression, anxiety, feelings of helplessness, and hopelessness.
👉Relationship problems: Emotional neglect can lead to relationship conflicts, distance from the partner, and loss of trust.
How to deal with emotional neglect:
1. Recognize the problem: The first step is to recognize that you are being emotionally neglected.
2. Talk about your feelings: If it is safe, describe your feelings and the changes you need. If you fear intimidation or retaliation, individual safety planning and specialist support take priority over confronting your partner.
3. Set boundaries: It is important to set clear boundaries in the relationship and not allow your partner to neglect your needs.
4. Seek support: It is important to seek support from friends, family, or a psychologist.
5. Remember your value: It is important to remember that you deserve love, respect, and support.
Important:
Emotional neglect is a form of abuse, and you should not tolerate it.
Remember: You deserve a healthy and happy relationship where your feelings and needs are respected and valued 🙏❤️
Emotional burnout
Burnout. How to finally get out of the vicious circle and start living?
The following stages are a reflective description of how overwork can develop. They are not a diagnostic test or a fixed sequence that everyone experiences.
More about each stage:
INSPIRATION STAGE. You want to work a lot, you have inspiration and energy. It seems to you that you are able to move mountains and over-invest in a certain task (there is no balance between work and rest). An important wake-up call here is that there is no feeling of fatigue, this gives the illusion that it will always be like
this and there is a risk of taking on too much FATIGUE STAGE. The first manifestation of fatigue begins, while the pace of work from the previous stage is maintained. The main wake-up call here is that you already have promises, many responsibilities and tasks, so it is difficult to refuse them just like that (thought: "what will people think of me?")
RESISTANCE STAGE. Manifestation of psychosomatics (for example, you get sick more often, have no strength, headaches, sleep disturbances, etc.), there is also a feeling of internal anxiety that there are too many tasks that you can no longer overcome, but you force yourself to continue (thought: "what is my way out? I can't give up everything"). The main call is the inability to work, study, do something already on a physical level, there is instability in emotions and health
EXHAUST STAGE. Most often, it can happen in two ways: the first way is the realization that you can’t cope and revise your rest; the second way is immersion in an even more destructive psycho-emotional state, where the body literally becomes incapable of any activity. An important call is to make a choice in favor of yourself and your health.
I have GOOD NEWS for you and it is that you can get out of each stage of burnout and start to catch a balance between rest and work (even if it seems that it is impossible). Each choice not in your favor pushes us to do what others want first of all, and not ourselves, which is why it can be so difficult to break out of this circle.
In ICD-11, burnout is an occupational phenomenon associated with chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is not classified as a medical condition and refers specifically to the occupational context.
SIGNS OF EMOTIONAL BURNOUT (according to ICD-11):
- a feeling of exhaustion or exhaustion
- increasing emotional detachment from work, a negative or cynical attitude towards work
- a feeling of inefficiency and lack of achievement
It is important to note that with prolonged stress (which is what the burnout process is), each person reacts differently depending on their internal attitudes, temperament, and internal stability. Chronic fatigue does not occur immediately; it is a long process that can take several weeks, months, or years. Therefore, only you can more accurately understand when you begin to overload yourself, force yourself to do things that do not bring pleasure, and also become more emotionally vulnerable
“Everyone gets tired at work, it’s normal” — this is what many of my clients say during sessions. At the same time, they absolutely do not agree within themselves to follow the same path and continue to “just get tired”. It is a myth that there will always be a lot of energy and inspiration, since life is dynamic and our condition is too. But CHRONIC FATIGUE ≠ NORM
A questionnaire can support a discussion about exhaustion; it does not establish a diagnosis. Persistent fatigue or other physical symptoms also deserve appropriate medical assessment.
How to manage your emotions so that they serve, and not harm?
If we CONSCIOUSLY begin to manage our emotions, and not they us, then our life will become many times more interesting, will be happier and more successful! We will achieve our goals and desires faster - and this, you must admit, is so important to us!
1 If a conversation with another person has become very unpleasant for you, do not engage in a natural automatic reaction to respond negatively. Something went wrong on the other side and it may be absolutely unrelated to you. Consciously switch to something new, go to another place. Let the person “let off steam” and cool down on their own, and then, later, try to start this conversation over again, “from scratch”.
2 If your emotions are “off the charts” and you are overcome by strong anger, at this moment it is difficult to quickly “come to your senses”. Your task is to look at the problem from the other side - as another experience in life, which is simply important for you to experience differently now. Otherwise, everything will remain the same, new behavior will not form. Just remind yourself in such moments of “testing your emotional strength” that you are forming in yourself “internal support for calmness” and your “earthly firmness”.
3 Your main new task in a difficult emotional situation with hardening emotions is to be able to slow down, take a pause. At this moment, think about yourself, about what is happening, why you are reacting THIS WAY. Mentally tell yourself your observations. Then CONSCIOUSLY decide what is the best way to act in this situation, and only then start acting (and not reacting!).
4 What does it mean to understand a CONSCIOUS decision in an emotionally difficult situation with hardening emotions? It means remembering the main goal of your interaction. Why are you here and what useful (value) task are you solving in this way for yourself and for other people?
5 REMEMBER emergency methods of self-help in the most difficult situations. For example, managing emotions with breathing.
If it feels comfortable, try gentle, unforced breathing for a short time, allowing the exhale to be a little longer than the inhale. Avoid forcing deep breaths or holding your breath. Stop if it makes you dizzy or more distressed; a grounding activity may suit you better.
6. Be sure to relieve the physical tension in the body from a stressful situation immediately after it (if you have the opportunity to leave the room) or after a few hours, for example, through physical activity: sports, fitness, dancing. Take out your negative emotions on a punching bag, do yoga, Pilates. This will definitely FILL you with energy and a good mood, and this is what you need to solve the problems set before you!
Life cycles of development
The following passage, attributed in the original article to Bernard Werber, is a literary model of seven-year life cycles. It is a prompt for reflection, not an established developmental timetable or a prediction about any person. Families, identities, relationships and life paths vary widely.
☀️From 0 to 7: a strong connection with the mother. Horizontal perception of the environment. Formation of feelings. The main sensations: the smell of the mother, the milk of the mother, the voice of the mother, the warmth of the mother, the kisses of the mother. Basically, the period ends with a crack in the protective cocoon of mother's love and a relatively anxious discovery of the rest of the world.
☀️From 7 to 14: a strong connection with the father. Vertical perception of the environment. Formation of personality. Father becomes a new privileged partner in exploring the world outside the family cocoon. Father expands the family protective cocoon. Father becomes a point of reference. Mother is loved, father should be admired.
☀️From 14 to 21: rebellion against society. Perception of matter. Formation of intelligence. This is an adolescent crisis. A desire to change the world and destroy existing structures appears. The teenager attacks the family cocoon, then society as a whole. The teenager is attracted to everything "rebellious", aggressive music, romantic actions, he develops a desire for independence, a desire to run away, to join groups of young people who place themselves outside of society, he admires anarchic values and systematically denies the values of the society around him. The period ends with liberation from the family cocoon.
☀️From 21 to 28: joining society. Stabilization after the rebellion. After a futile attempt to destroy society - integration with it based on the desire to work more effectively than previous generations. Search for a more interesting profession than the profession of the parents. Search for a more interesting place to live than the parents. An attempt to create a happier couple than the married couple of the parents. Selection of a partner, creation of a hearth. Construction of one's own cocoon. The period usually ends with a wedding.
Now the person has fulfilled his mission and created his first protective cocoon.
Thus the first square of 4x7 years is completed.
Having completed the first square by creating his own cocoon, the person begins the second row of seven-year cycles.
☀️28-35: consolidation of the hearth. Following the wedding, apartment, car, children come. Property accumulates inside the cocoon. But if the first four cycles were not very successful, the hearth will be fragile. If a woman's relationship with her mother did not work out as it should have, she will pester her daughter-in-law. If a man had problems with his father, he will interfere and influence the life of the young couple. If the rebellion against society did not take place, conflicts may arise at work. At thirty-five, a cocoon without a solid base often falls apart. Divorces, dismissals, depressions, psychosomatic diseases occur. In this case, the first cocoon is abandoned and...
☀️35-42: we start from scratch. The crisis has passed, the next cocoon is being reconstructed, the person is enriched with the experience of mistakes made when creating the first. There is a revision of relationships with the mother and femininity, with the father and masculinity. This is the time when divorced men discover mistresses, and divorced women discover lovers. They try to understand what they need not from marriage, but from the opposite sex.
Relationships with society are also reconsidered. Now a profession is chosen not for reasons of reliability, but for something interesting or leaving a lot of free time. After the collapse of the first cocoon, a person often wants to build the next one as soon as possible. A new marriage, a new job, a new life. If a person has gotten rid of the circumstances that hindered him, he is quite capable of creating an improved cocoon. If he has not understood past mistakes, he will build the same prison for himself and face the same problems. This is called going in circles. Then the cycles will turn into just a repetition of previous delusions.
☀️42-49: victory over society. Having created a successful cocoon, a person can enjoy the joys of love, family life, work, the blossoming of his personality. This victory leads to two possible options:
Either a person craves ever greater materially expressed confirmations of his success: more money, more comfort, more children, more mistresses or lovers, more power - and endlessly increases and enriches his new successful cocoon. Or he throws himself into a new area of conquests - spiritual. The real construction of personality begins. Logically, this period should end with an identity crisis, an existential question. Why am I here, why am I living, what must I do to give my life meaning other than achieving material comfort?
☀️49-56: spiritual revolution. If a person has managed to create his cocoon and realize himself in the family and at work, he begins to crave wisdom. And the next journey begins.
© Bernard Werber
Where are you?
Every minute you are angry with someone, you lose 60 seconds of happiness that you will never get back /Wil Rogers/.
Further information: WHO: burnout in ICD-11.