Neglect

Not having clothing, shelter, or basic physical care

Going without appropriate clothing, a safe place to sleep, heat, or basic hygiene. The physical basics that other kids had and you did not.

Going without the basics leaves more than cold memories. It can leave a lasting sense of being different, of watching other kids have things you could not explain not having, and of learning to hide need before you learned to spell it. Shame like that grows in silence, and it starts to loosen the first time someone else says they lived it too.

What can follow an experience like this

No two people carry the same experience the same way. These are some of the effects that people with this experience often describe. Having some of them, all of them, or none of them says nothing about how real what happened to you was.

Hypervigilance The nervous system that learned to scan for danger all the time. Emotional numbing Not depression exactly. Depression Not just sadness. Shame Not guilt about something you did. Anxiety The background hum of dread that is always there. Self-abandonment When you grew up learning that your needs were inconvenient, dangerous, or simply irrelevant, you stopped tracking them. C-PTSD When trauma happened repeatedly, over a long time, or at the hands of people who were supposed to care for you, the effects go deeper than a single event. Housing instability Homelessness and housing instability are often what trauma produces.

Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.

You do not have to carry this alone.

Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.

Find a meeting Join the fellowship

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