There are three main types of wounds or traumas or causes for pain that are mentioned in relationships: rejection, abandonment, and neglect.
Rejection and abandonment are often the “two loud siblings” in this trio of poisons: they are usually the ones that are easier to see, easier to detect; they can literally be loud and/or violent, vocal, clear, blatant. They can feel like a slap in the face, or a push away. Very painful, but also easy to detect and therefore easier to name.
When I was younger, I experienced plenty of the first two, probably rejection being the most recurring and blatant to me. Fortunately, I’m experiencing much less rejection and abandonment in my life now, partly thanks to finding people who accept me and like me and even love me just as I am.
Neglect is more of a “quiet killer”. But it’s by no means less painful, or less fatal, than rejection or abandonment.
I have often been able to point to and/or name and/or call out situations in which I’ve felt rejected or abandoned. But it wasn’t until this morning, after a painful night of rumination, that I was actually able to name the neglect that has been pervasive throughout my life and that still causes so much pain for me even in many of my current, closest relationships now. It was hard for me to say it out loud to myself, hard for me even to write here, now: “This is neglect”. Mixed in with the actual pain of being neglected, I’m also feeling the additional “arrows” of guilt and/or shame in naming this. I feel guilty about saying that my friends neglect me, almost as if I were blaming them and shouldn’t do it; and I feel ashamed because if I’m being neglected, then it means I’m not worthy, not lovable.
But it is the truth. Even once the second or third arrows of pain coming from guilt and/or shame are removed, the painful truth remains: this is neglect. I am still experiencing neglect in my life and I am experiencing it very often. I’ve learned to numb myself to it and/or to put up with it, but the pain is there and it’s a constant trickle and this trickle is devastatingly erosive — “gutta cavat lapidem”.
When friends disappear from my life for a while or always wait for me to reach out to them, and then apologize for it, my response is usually: “Don’t worry, I understand”. And I mean it: I do understand. I also go incommunicado sometimes (although I am learning to let friends know beforehand); I also get super busy and/or overwhelmed by life and need radio silence or just time off. So I really do understand. And if a friend comes to me after a period of radio silence due to pains/struggles of their own, of course I’m going to offer support to them and not burden them even more with my own pain from not having heard from them for a long time. But that pain of mine is real and it is valid. And this thing has a name: it is neglect. And I hurt because I am, effectively, being neglected.
Most of us have layers, or circles, of relationships, from closer to less close. When we’re doing well, it’s easier for us to keep them all up. In difficult moments, in periods of reduced bandwidth, our attention shrinks to those closer to us. For most people, the closest persons are romantic/sexual/nesting partners and/or biological family. Even in the hardest moments, most people still keep up some communication and/or connection with romantic/sexual/nesting partners and/or biological family. And I know for a fact that my closest friends do that, even in their periods of busyness and/or stress and/or overwhelm when they’re unable to keep in touch with me. I know that they keep up their regular dates and/or weekends with romantic/sexual/nesting partners or connections to biological family. I.e. I’m the ball they let fall; I’m the one who’s taken off the plate when the plate is too full; I am the one they don’t call, don’t hang out with. I am the one who gets neglected.
This is neglect.
I need to say it. It’s maybe one of the most painful things I’ve ever written, to name it so explicitly, but it has to be done. Because this is the truth. This is real.
There is a handful of people in my life who for me have the importance that usually is given to romantic/sexual/nesting partners and/or biological family. As an aro ace person, I don’t experience romantic feelings or sexual attraction; but I still do feel deeply committed to people and I love intensely. Call them “friends”, call them “buddies”, call them “queerplatonic partners”: the love and commitment I feel for this handful of people is of the same level or depth (although probably not of the same type) as they feel for their romantic/sexual/nesting partners and/or or biological family. But I don’t think it’s mutual. These important people in my life know I’m aro & ace so they know, theoretically, how I feel and/or function in relationships. But I don’t think they really get how I feel, I don’t think they really understand how devastatingly painful the neglect is for me. Part of their lack of understanding is due to the fact that they aren’t aro or ace: so the way I cannot really understand the romantic or sexual feelings they experience, they cannot understand my way of feeling. Part of it is due to the way we’re all socialized to function, conditioned into amatonormativity. But part of it is probably also due to my own lack of saying to this handful of people more clearly, more directly: “For me, my relationship with you has the same level of depth or importance as your relationship with your romantic/sexual/nesting partners and/or biological family. So if we’re out of touch for long periods of time, or if you cannot make time to do things with me, or if I always have to be the one reaching out to you, for me it hurts as much as it would for you if your romantic/sexual/nesting partner(s) behaved that way with you.”
That’s a hard and possibly awkward conversation to have. But this recurrent trickle of neglect is erosive and devastating for me. I’m tired of being the one who is put on hold. I’m tired of being the one who has to reach out first and ask to be included. I’m tired of not having partners with whom to do fun things (e.g. trips, concerts, adventures) on a more regular, shared, mutual, and almost expected basis.
I’m tired of being neglected.
The Little Prince and the Fox 