Kathrin A. Stauffer

“Ignored children typically live with a sense of constantly letting themselves down and having no one but themselves to blame for their misfortunes. From the list of things that ignored children are ashamed of, it becomes clear that there are here several layers of shame on top of each other, and all of them consist of deeply toxic and indigestible shame.”
― Kathrin A. Stauffer, Emotional Neglect and the Adult in Therapy: Lifelong Consequences to a Lack of Early Attunement

“They may find the world a terrifying and hostile place that can only be survived with constant, very great effort. It is typical of a neglected person that, whatever is not right in their life, there is often no narrative to account for its origin, in the way that a person who has suffered abuse (or a marked loss or a similar event) will have a narrative of, “This happened and it affected me in a certain way, and that’s the reason that I am as I am now.” A person who has been neglected may not have such a narrative but instead may be left to feel that they are just odd. They may in the past have been blamed for being odd and not responding “like a normal person.” Usually they feel dreadfully ashamed of how they are.”
― Kathrin A. Stauffer, Emotional Neglect and the Adult in Therapy: Lifelong Consequences to a Lack of Early Attunement