The Shadow Child: Growing Up Without Feeling Loved

Friends, the most important thing we can give our kids is love. We probably all agree on that. But what happens to a person's life when that's exactly what's missing? How do you pass love on when you never experienced it as a child yourself? Sandy reached out to us. She calls herself a "shadow child," meaning she always felt unseen and unimportant growing up. We talked with her about it.

Sandy, you responded to our call for shadow children, kids who feel overlooked and unloved. What kind of family did you grow up in?

I grew up in a mid-sized city. My parents weren't happily married. They never split up, but it was obvious the marriage wasn't a happy one. My mom didn't work outside the home, and my dad was the deputy chief of the professional fire department in our hometown. I also have a younger sister.

How would you describe your childhood?

I don't have many lasting memories from my childhood. I got through school with mediocre success and without much support from my parents. My mom never studied with me or showed any interest in my grades. I was lucky that my dad's job made him very well known in our town, so he was able to get me an apprenticeship spot that I definitely wouldn't have gotten with my report cards.

What really defines my childhood and teen years is that there was no emotional support at all in our family. When I had problems, I dealt with them on my own. We didn't talk about feelings. Probably because of that, I'm not close with my sister.

Tell us about times you didn't feel loved. 

I can't remember my mom ever hugging me or telling me she loved me, or even liked me, or anything like that. I remember standing next to my parents' bed in the middle of the night, crying, because I'd had a bad dream. My mom didn't comfort me or calm me down. She just sent me back to bed. It was the same when I got hurt. There was never a comforting, loving gesture. There was no emotion at all.

What did that do to you as a child?

You might think I withdrew more and more. But that's not what happened. I fought hard for my parents' attention. I longed so much for my mother's love.

Was there anyone around you who made you feel understood and accepted?

I got a little affection from my grandma, my dad's mother. She lived in our house, and I was over at her place a lot when I was little. I know now that my mom didn't get along with my grandma and that she suffered, too, from living under the same roof with her.

What was it like when you were a teenager and then a young adult?

As a teenager, I fought with my mom constantly. It got worse during those years because my mom had cancer and a failed breast reduction. After that, she hid behind her illness completely and slipped into the role of the victim. When I moved in with my now-husband in my mid-20s, things didn't get any better between us.
It wasn't until my mid-30s that I started to realize something was wrong with me, and I got professional psychological help.

Have you ever told your parents that you don't feel loved?

I've never talked to my parents about it. After a family constellation session (a type of therapy where people act out family relationships), I felt motivated to get to the bottom of why my mother behaved the way she did. I asked her a few questions about her past, but I hardly got any answers. When I got pregnant, I felt like things between us were getting better.

The big disappointment came after my daughter was born. When she was 5 weeks old, I developed an abscess and had to have emergency surgery. I couldn't reach my husband, so I called my parents from the hospital and asked them to take care of my daughter. The nurses told me later that my mother wasn't able to calm my crying daughter, and my dad ended up arranging for her to stay with me at the hospital after all. To this day, my parents have no interest in my daughter.

How does your loveless childhood affect you today?

My relationship almost fell apart because I find it so hard to show feelings. Talking about feelings was just never modeled for me. When my husband wanted to leave me for another woman, I started working on myself. Through the family constellation work, I was able to set down most of the huge backpack my mother strapped onto me the day I was born, and that cleared the way for my daughter. I can feel that through my child, I'm able to heal some of the old wounds a little.

What is your relationship with your parents like today?

It's very distant. I rarely reach out. Sometimes my dad calls and puts my mom on speakerphone. So I hardly talk to my mom anymore. When I wish her a happy birthday (out of politeness), we exchange only a few words.

What do you do completely differently with your own child than what you experienced?

Honestly, I do everything differently. I give my daughter everything I missed in my childhood, and then some. I want her to feel loved and seen. I want her to know that I'm here and that we can talk about anything.

Photo: Pixabay