The Emotional Gap: When You Were Given “Enough” But Still Needed More

I used to gaslight myself. By all outward accounts, I had a good enough childhood. The kind others might envy. My much older half-siblings certainly thought so.

They had their own story. Their own resentments. Their own reasons for never investigating things too deeply.

I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Because something in me knew.

I wasn’t abandoned. I wasn’t hurt. My parents showed love the way they knew how—mainly through buying me toys and clothes. And each purchase came with a silent, unspoken contract: See? We’re good to you.

But what I needed wasn’t something you could buy.

The Kind of Neglect No One Talks About

It wasn’t the kind of wound you could see. There were no raised voices, no slammed doors. No outright rejection.

Just… absence.

Not physical, but emotional.

They loved me. They just didn’t see me.

When I was overwhelmed, I wasn’t met with curiosity or comfort. I was given a fix. A distraction. A “cheer up” instead of a “tell me more.” A solution instead of a space to just be.

Those seeds were planted in early childhood and blossomed in adulthood.

I expected everyone to follow my script—the one where I downplayed my needs, made myself easy to love, and people just knew when I needed care.

But when they didn’t? When no one magically stepped in to hold the unspoken weight?

I withered.

And I assumed I was just broken.

The Search for Answers That Went Nowhere

In addition to years of therapy and coaching, I spent a small fortune on astrology readings, tarot readings, running my personality through every lens imaginable—Enneagram, Human Design, Myers-Briggs.

And at the end of the day?

They all said the same thing.

But for a long time, I didn’t want to believe it.

Because having someone tell you who you are won’t give you the answer of how to get there.

So I kept looking. Trying to think my way into healing.

Bridging the Gap (Without Apologizing for It)

I came to RTT, and I believed in RTT, because it went deeper.

It wasn’t about dissecting myself under a microscope. It wasn’t just slapping a label on my patterns and calling that progress.

It was taking the poison out of the judgment.

It didn’t just say, This is why you are the way you are.

It said, This is why it makes sense.

And healing didn’t happen when I justified the wound.

It happened when I stopped shaming it.

🌿 When I stopped justifying my feelings and started validating them instead.

🌿 When I let myself need without apologizing for it.

🌿 When I realized my emotions weren’t too much—they were just too big for the people who were supposed to hold them.

Because maybe the problem was never that I needed too much.

Maybe I was just given too little, emotionally.

I was starved without ever realizing it.

And now, for the first time, I’m learning how to feed myself.