Neglect: Can Childhood Neglect Take Away Someone’s Will To Live?

Although someone will have been given life and will have the rest of their life ahead of them, it doesn’t mean that they will be able to make the most of the life that they have been given or appreciate that they have more years to live. Instead, they could generally see life as a burden and be happy for it to come to an end.

This can show that they have the tendency to feel very low and depressed, and often think of ending their life. Just about every day can be a struggle and, if they could, they might prefer to stay in bed.

A Flat Existence

By being this way, they are only likely to do what they have to do in order to survive. So, if they have a job, they are likely to go to work, do what they have to do and then come home.

They won’t be interested in moving up the ladder, so to speak, or in being successful. Additionally, they might not eat very well, exercise, spend time learning about anything or have any hobbies.

From The Outside

As for the people in their life, they might not have any close friends and only have people around them who are more like associates. Then again, they may have a few people in their life who care about them but they might rarely see them.

If this is the case and one of their friends was to think about how they live their life, they could wonder what is going on. They could wonder why they are not making the most of the life that they have been given.

One Conclusion

In their eyes, they could believe that they lack motivation and are depressed. Based on this, they could believe that they need to go on medication and/or to have some kind of counselling.

If they don’t do this, they could believe that their life will continue to pass them by and they will be filled with regret sooner or later. However, if they were to make a suggestion to them, it could fall on deaf ears.

Stepping Back

Taking into account how they behave, it will be as if they have been in a battle and were heavily defeated. As a result of this, they don’t the desire or the strength that they need to truly embrace life.

If they were to hear this, they could say that they haven’t been in a battle and that this is just what they are like. Nonetheless, if the people in their life were to hear this, they might agree with what has been said.

What’s going on?

If this is how they have been for as long as they can remember, there is the chance that it is a consequence of what took place during their early years. This would then have been a stage of their life that didn’t build them up; it would have just about destroyed them.

They may have often been neglected and thus, deprived of the love and attention that they needed to be able to grow and develop in the right way. This would have caused them to experience a lot of pain, with them feeling rejected, abandoned, helpless, hopeless and worthless, among other feelings.

A Brutal Time

By not being developed enough to handle their feelings and regulate themselves, they would have felt overwhelmed and automatically repressed how they felt. This would have allowed them to survive but it would have also caused them to disconnect from themselves and to go into a shut-down, collapsed and frozen state.

As they were powerless and totally dependent, this was their only option; they couldn’t change their parent/s behaviour or find another family. The outcome of this is that they would have lost touch with their body, so their true self and ended up living in their head.

Self-Protection

Losing the will to live and not fighting, so not having much motivation, being depressed and having very little energy won’t be serving them now but it will have served them as a child. Giving up and shutting down would have stopped them from experiencing a lot of pain.

The emotional part of them would have split off and gone into hiding, leaving them without the emotional energy that they need to embrace life. There is the chance that it didn’t start here, though, and that they were neglected before they were a child.

Way Back

From the moment they were born, they may have also been neglected. What took place when they were a child would then have been a continuation of what they had already experienced.

This would have been a stage when their being would have learned that giving up was the only way for them to survive. Thus, from the beginning, their parasympathetic nervous system would have primarily been activated and been conditioned to stay active.

It’s over

Many, many years will have passed since they were an infant, toddler and then a child but their brain and body will still be carrying the pain and arousal that they experienced. Working through the pain and arousal that is inside them will be essential for them to reconnect to their body and connect to their true self in the process, and find the will to live.

The pain will have to be worked through in bits as if all this pain was to enter their conscious awareness in one go; they would probably be wiped out. This process will take courage and patience and persistence.

Awareness

If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for exte
al support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.