The most healing book I’ve read so far has been “Healing Your Attachment Wounds” by Dr. Diane Poole Heller. Importantly, it stays primarily in the roots of what proper nurturance is and how developing secure attachment (starting in infancy) looks, and what happens/doesn’t happen inside of us when we don’t get that.
I was primarily physically neglected; not fed regularly, bathed/clothed/hygiene stuff, looked after, or nurtured even in rather early childhood.
The several other books I’ve read about attachment styles, and emotionally immature (and therefore emotionally neglectful) parents tend to focus more on trauma and psychology that is also connected to types of abuse that parents inflict when actually present/involved with their kids, such as inflicting shame, oppressing their individuality, invading their privacy, otherwise not treating children like humans, etc. They have so much that doesn’t apply to me, because they’re targeted at the more prevalent scenario of parents who mostly physically care for their children and try to be good parents, but pass down generational trauma and emotional immaturity and are therefore emotionally neglectful and/or abusive (emotional and physical). And they have nothing specific about how more all-around neglect affects us, or how to heal from physical neglect.
TLDR; I can’t find any books that are about neglect that aren’t primarily about emotional neglect and abuse. I am dying for something that is tailored to people who were basically on their own in childhood, not just raised by emotionally inadequate parents.
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P.S. For anyone who feels similarly:
the book I recommended is the closest I’ve gotten to not having to leave behind 60% of the book, because it gets/stays down to the emotional and psychological root, and feels it can apply to every person who was not properly cared for. It felt like it was actually for me, rather than being more tailored or biased toward more prevalent scenarios, as many forms of emotional neglect and abuse are socially encouraged in predominant parenting culture, which results in \*most\* people having to heal from their childhood, or pass down the generational trauma, even if their parents were “relatively” good.
by bacterialhost
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Neglect is the most difficult of traumas to overcome. I really like the book Why has nobody told me this before by Julie Smith. It isn’t target specific but it has excellent skills for raising your baseline and being more positive.