New here - does neglect or abandonment fall in the abuse bucket?

Started by wasabi, May 18, 2018, 12:41:22 AM

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wasabi

Before I go into details I wanted to make sure I'm pointed in the right direction. I'm trying to understand the absence of support from my partner through a cluster of crises. There's some chance that there was an affair, but it was unlikely to be a really big deal. Mostly it was just being alone together while I was stuck alone in a trying to get out of a loop.

If it helps, there are connected and relevant issues from my childhood too. It's a bouquet of fun  :dramaqueen:

Rainagain

Hi,

Post away, neglect can be very damaging, you are in the right place.

A partner should ideally stand up and support you, that lack sounds like a betrayal to me, and I think a sense of betrayal is core to cptsd.

Glad you are here wasabi.

ah

Hi Wasabi,
I agree, neglect can be very damaging. In my experience it can be soul crushing.
I'm glad you're here too. You're more than welcome here.  :heythere:

Kizzie

HI Wasabi and welcome to OOTS! Neglect and abandonment can be a cause of CPTSD in adulthood.  However, if you endured these in childhood and your CPTSD developed then, your post would be better off in the "Development of CPTSD in Childhood" forum.  It helps to look back to see how and why certain things in the present exacerbate our CPTSD in the present.

woodsgnome

??***Possible Trigger Warning for paragraph 2*****??

I think abandonment/neglect in cptsd is found across the board, whether one considers the original abuse(s) to have been purely physical or sexual or whatever.
Even the act of doing any of those things me carries the weight of abandonment; if it's not the person themselves being abandoned, it's the person's essential dignity and spirit that acts as the crossing line.

Sometimes it seems these supposedly distinct categories get combined. My m, for instance, abused me physically/sexually, then I was emotionally cast away (which  could feel okay for a short while after what she did otherwise); and this could all be within the space of hours. So there were active as well as 'absent' qualities to the whole mess.

In the end, either of these constitute trauma as they mess with one's personal dignity, which in effect can be just as abandoned by 'active' parts of the abuse as with what's called 'abandonment'. To me it's trauma, period--all of it. And can have similar repercussions to one's tortured mind/soul for their lifetime. As in other areas, the tragedy of cptsd is how it blurs the lines of 'normal' reality.