Healing Childhood Neglect: Coming Back to the Self

Rosie Padilla
Sep 12
3 min read

Childhood neglect is one of the most invisible forms of trauma — and one of the most impactful.

When we are little, we don’t yet have the skills to keep ourselves safe, fed, connected, or soothed. We depend completely on our caregivers to meet those basic needs: food, shelter, emotional containment, presence, and safety.

When that care is inconsistent, absent, or inadequate — whether through distraction, disconnection, or circumstance — we are left with an impossible task: to find ways to get our needs met without the resources or power to do so.

The Emotional Adaptations of Childhood Neglect

As children, we adapt in extraordinary ways. We mold ourselves to our caregivers, negotiate for attention in any way we can, and try to secure a bond — even if it means silencing our own needs, becoming overly helpful, hiding our emotions, or never asking for too much.

This is not a conscious choice. This is survival.

We adjust not only our behavior, but our inner world:

We learn to scan for danger or disapproval.
We might believe our needs are “too much.”
We might convince ourselves we are safer alone.

These mental maps kept us safe — but as we grow into adulthood, they can trap us in old patterns that no longer serve us.

The Body Remembers

Neglect doesn’t just shape the mind — it shapes the body.

Our bodies carry the record of those early years:

The tightening in the chest before asking for help.
The freeze in the throat when we try to say what we need.
The numbness we use to avoid feeling too much.

The child had no way to defend or provide for themselves, so the body learned to cope by conserving energy, shutting down, or staying alert.

But as adults, we do have the power to protect and provide for ourselves. The challenge is that our nervous systems often don’t know the difference — they keep reacting as if we’re still that small, powerless child.

Discovering Our Survival Mechanics

One of the most liberating steps in healing neglect is “hacking” into our socialization process — tracing back the ways we adapted to survive.

Did we become the caretaker?
The overachiever?
The quiet, invisible child?
The clown who kept everyone laughing so they wouldn’t notice our pain?

Understanding these survival mechanisms is not about blaming ourselves or our parents — it’s about reclaiming our power. When we discover why we are the way we are, we can stop living on autopilot.

Honoring What Kept Us Alive

Before we can change these patterns, we must honor them.

These strategies — perfectionism, withdrawal, people-pleasing, numbing — kept us alive. They were brilliant solutions for a child with limited options.

Somatic work gives us a way to thank these parts of ourselves — to feel them in the body, acknowledge their effort, and slowly teach the nervous system that it is safe now.

When we meet those old patterns with compassion, they begin to loosen. What was once tight can expand. What was once numb can come alive.

Complexity: There Is No “Right” Way

Childhood neglect lives at the root of our complexity. No two people will respond to it in the same way. There is no right or wrong way to feel about what you didn’t get.

What matters is that now — as an adult — you have the power to turn toward those unmet needs with love. You can learn to hold yourself, care for your inner child, and cultivate relationships that nourish the self you are today.

Healing doesn’t mean erasing the past. It means creating a different future — one where you are free to show up fully, ask for what you need, and live from a place of agency rather than survival.