is there anyone felt that they were EMOTIONALLY (not sexual or physical) abused as a child......?

Question

and if you were, how does it affect you as an adult, as far as your relationships with others.

Answer 1

Yes extreamly
and I have an eating disorder and am extreamly self conscious I have no probs in relationship with my hubby but worry about the kind of mother I will be to my kids

Answer 2

Yes, I was emotionally and physically abused growing up. My Mom is bipolar so I never knew which personality would meet me at the door after school. I was told that if I had a 50/50 chance at something, I would get it wrong every time. This phrase still causes me some trouble to this day. I have a hard time trusting my decisions because I was told I would always make the wrong one. I carried a lot of resentment with me for a long time towards my parents. If I didn't get the laundry folded right, I'd get a beating with a wooden spoon to the head. I have worked things out with them now and have a good relationship with them. It definitely has adverse effects on us even as adults.

Answer 3

Yes. Ever since i was in primary school i just hated math and i so happen to be bad in studies but not in English. My parent mostly my mum would say i am so stupid. I should be smart like my two younger sisters. My aunts and uncles called me fat loads of time. The affect of all those has made me so quiet and shy. I can't look people in the eye. I would just sit in class quietly. I still have a low self esteem.

When i went into high school the pressure was worse. My mum kept saying i have to study really hard or just get married after high school. I tried my best my math has improved a lot but my add math was terrible. I was always failing till i decided to write all my feelings in my diary. I wrote a lot of negative stuff like thinking about running away or people won't miss me much if i died because i was fat and stupid. I always thought my mum loved my sister more than me. One day my mum read my diary and she confronted me. She said that she loved me and i was the most well behaved child she had.

We both cried a lot that day. After that she didn't call me anything. She just keeps advising me. I am still the quiet girl and still have a low self esteem but at least i don't have any negative thoughts and i know i am loved. I am now that the fat girl anymore somehow i got thinner and i am not stupid. I am in college now and doing great.

Answer 4

Same as fresh bliss, from my mother. Divorced parents, Dad came back for me every Sunday but one, I think, till I moved in with he and his wife at 1, at my insistence.
The thing is, this terribly depressed, panicky woman taught me that there is no god, and if there is one, he's an expletive expletive that deserves only hatred.
She taught me that people are always out for themselves, and no cares. That she was so nice to people, and they walked all over her- but she never figured out how to avoid it.
She told me she wanted to die since I was five years old, and then played dead til I cried.
And made sure I was never close to my father or his side- b/c god forbid I had a good time each Sunday visit- I'd be in a smily mood when I came home and have to pay for it all week and sometimes two weeks.
So, I avoid people, b/c se could give me no help in social skills, etc.
And the odd thing is, both she and I were always told that I'd be great with people. All I've doneis sing and act and dance and cashier, work well with special children, work for a lawyer settling lawsuits, waitress, bartend, and be with people.
But I'm scared and ashamed everyday of my life anyway.
Sick, hunh?
So, I've only passed a little bit of my mental and hormonal hell to my son, who lives with his (strict, controlling, bill-paying) father and his school psychologist nad very compassionate stepmom.
I've shielded him as much as I could.
But my religion, instead of god, is Anti-God, anti-people (misanthropy), and a desire to die and get it over with already.
Well, my health insuranc just came through... can we undo this kind of thing? No. Can we re-train our brain? Yes, my psych degree tells me at least that much.To what extent?
Well, that's a lot more what you determine is possible, than what the textbooks say!

Answer 5

Oh heck yeah. My parents were extra-ordinarily critical. I was told all the time how much I was like my mother in all kinds of explicatives and how much he hated her. - and how I am like my dad - and how much thats a bad thing.
I grew up feeling like I never fit in - I didnt fit in at home, I didnt fit in at school, etc.
I still have a hard time feeling like I fit in, or that anyone would want to keep my company, etc. There is this pervasive sense of shame despite accomplishments etc.
In relationships - I tend to avoid people, but needing a romantic relationship. Sigh. thats really tough. I have this messed up mind set that love is critisizing people and so I get very critical and drive people away. Its a weird compulsion - its so they don't get to know me as this messed up insecure person...
Read "fear of intimacy" if you need some ideas of what its like and what we deal with. Its lenghy but good.

Answer 6

Yeah, and I have extremely low self confidence because of it. I'm sure it probably has something to do with me being really introverted as well.