Healing Your Emotional Self by Beverly Engel Read Free Book Online Page A

to eat solid food, or before I was able to chew or digest properly.
Did not provide me with adequate clothing, such as a warm coat in the winter.
Did not bathe me regularly or wash my clothes.
Ignored my physical needs; did not provide me with med- ical or dental care when needed.
Did not provide me physical nurturing, such as holding, or did not comfort me when I was upset.
Frequently left me alone for days or weeks in the care of others.
Left me alone with an irresponsible or abusive caretaker.
On more than one occasion forgot to pick me up at the movies or after school.
Forced me to live in an uninhabitable place (drafty, unclean, unsafe).
Did not get out of bed to take care of my needs.
Did not allow me to leave my room or my home for long hours, days, or weeks.
Neglected me because they were alcohol abusers or drug users.

    The Abandoning or Rejecting Parent
    Parental Mirror: “You Are Worthless”

    Some parents abandon their children physically through death, pro- longed illness, or divorce (leaving the home and seldom if ever seeing them again), or by shipping them off to boarding school. Other par- ents abandon their children emotionally (by being emotionally
    unavailable, by punishing their children with silence or rejection). Both forms of abandonment are devastating to a child, usually creat- ing emotional scars that do not heal without professional inter- vention.
    Children who are physically abandoned are particularly wounded because they often feel as if they have no value. This is how my client Nancy described her feelings about being abandoned by her parents. “I felt like my parents threw me away, like some worthless garbage.” Nancy’s parents got a divorce when she was four years old and sent her to live with her grandparents (“just until they each got settled in their new jobs and new lives”). Her grandmother was very strict; Nancy missed her parents terribly and could not understand why they had abandoned her. Her mother came to see her once in a while and always promised to take her to live with her soon. Each time her mother left, Nancy felt abandoned all over again. She would lock her- self in her room and cry for hours—certain that she had done some- thing wrong to make her mother abandon her like that. Occasionally her father called but always had some excuse as to why he couldn’t visit. Nancy became convinced that her parents had rejected her because she hadn’t been a good daughter. She became very insecure, fearing that her grandmother would reject her as well. This made her try hard to be a perfect child, but since this was impossible, she began feeling like a worthless failure whenever she made a mistake or disap- pointed her grandmother.
    Some parents find parenting too demanding or difficult. They resolve their dilemma by abandoning the burden of parenting, leaving their children solely in the care of a nanny or babysitters, sending them off to boarding school, or giving them away. Parents who aban- don their children often rationalize their actions by saying that the child is better off without them or, in the case of boarding school, that they are providing him or her with the best opportunities money can buy. But their real intention is to be free of child care.
    Parents who escape into alcohol, drugs, sleep, television, or books also abandon their children because they are essentially not there emotionally. Jennifer told me the painful story of how it felt to be raised by a mother who was emotionally detached from her. “My mother is just never present. Even if she is in the same room with me
    I can’t really feel her. I just can’t connect with her. When I was a child it was extremely painful to be around her because I always felt so empty and alone in her presence. She didn’t take an interest in any- thing I did or listen to anything I had to say. She would just look at me with a blank stare when I tried to talk to her. She reminded me of a ghost sometimes, kind of