Lack of trust “Children who are not raised in safe, loving, respectful, and consistent environments tend to grow up feeling very unsafe and untrusting,” explains Manly. As a result, they tend to experience challenges trusting themselves and others throughout life.
When a child is a product of a lack of affection, they develop behaviors and expressions that manifest their pain and unease. The child doesn't understand what's happening to them, especially if they're very small. An unloved child sees the world as a threatening place, like they're all alone.
If your daughter feels unloved, she may suffer from several emotional problems. Symptoms can include depression, anxiety, self-harm, and more. These feelings are often the result of the way her parents treated her during her childhood.
Unloved sons struggle with toxic relationships in adulthood. You see, they subconsciously seek out unhealthy partnerships because they are familiar with the traits exhibited by the object of their affection. These traits resemble some of the same characteristics that they experienced from their caregivers in childhood.
Feeling Unhappy or Unmotivated
People lacking love therefore feel more depressed. This triggers a range of core beliefs such as worthlessness, or a negative outlook on life. Overtime, we become less motivated to complete tasks, set goals or prioritize our self-care.
Unfortunately, it is something children today experience too. If your children are not touched, they can get into a deficit state that can lead to negative mental health as well as show up as psychosomatic symptoms. These symptoms could include a headache, abdominal pain, anxiety, and sadness, to name a few.
Emotionally absent or cold mothers can be unresponsive to their children's needs. They may act distracted and uninterested during interactions, or they could actively reject any attempts of the child to get close. They may continue acting this way with adult children.
For children, affectional neglect may have devastating consequences, including failure to thrive, developmental delay, hyperactivity, aggression, depression, low self-esteem, running away from home, substance abuse, and a host of other emotional disorders. These children feel unloved and unwanted.
Being raised by an emotionally unavailable parent or guardian can lead to a life of unstable friendships, strings of failed relationships, emotional neediness, an inability to self-regulate, provide for yourself, and identity confusion.
There is increasing evidence from the fields of development psychology, neurobiology and animal epigenetic studies that neglect, parental inconsistency and a lack of love can lead to long-term mental health problems as well as to reduced overall potential and happiness.
Unhealthy relationships
Growing up without the emotional support of a mother can prevent a child from understanding their feelings. When entering intimate relationships, you may find yourself unable to communicate properly, respect your partner, or exhibit healthy intimate behaviors.
Research shows that chronic loneliness has the following effects: Increased levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. Less restful sleep. Negative impact on physical health (more than smoking or obesity)
Maltreatment can cause victims to feel isolation, fear, and distrust, which can translate into lifelong psychological consequences that can manifest as educational difficulties, low self-esteem, depression, and trouble forming and maintaining relationships.
Abandonment leads to anxiety and difficulty trusting people
Chronic childhood abandonment can create a generalized feeling of insecurity — a belief that the world isn't safe and people aren't dependable. This can cause us to anticipate and fear abandonment, rejection, and betrayal in our adult relationships.
Signs that your parent is emotionally unavailable
They respond to children's emotions with impatience or indifference. They avoid or prevent discussion of negative emotions. They're dismissive or overwhelmed when the child has an emotional need.
A toxic mother creates a negative home environment where unhealthy interactions and relationships damage a child's sense of self and their views of relationships with others. Over time, it increases the risk of poor development in the child's self-control, emotional regulation, social relations, etc1.
“Parental burnout is a state of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. It leaves parents feeling chronically fatigued, often experiencing sleep and concentration problems, and it can lead to depression, chronic anxiety, and illness.”
Touch is essential for human survival; babies who are deprived of touch can fail to thrive, lose weight and even die. Babies and young children who do not get touched also have lower levels of growth hormone, so a lack of touch can actually stunt a child's growth.
Many children who have not had ample physical and emotional attention are at higher risk for behavioral, emotional and social problems as they grow up. These trends point to the lasting effects of early infancy environments and the changes that the brain undergoes during that period.
Remember touch is essential and there is no substitution for a great big hug! As author and family therapist Virginia Satir once said, “We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth”.
“Love is a biological necessity. We cannot live without it,” she says. “And that's hard to say for someone who lost their best friend, their soul mate, and the love of their life.