We all assume that parental love is a given, but that’s a myth. Parents who don’t love their children are more common than we think.

If you grew up with one of those parents, you went through unimaginable pain.

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Every child has a vital need for a genuine, loving connection with the parents (especially the mother).

When a child catches her parent’s loving gaze on her, she knows she is loved — deeply, passionately, unconditionally.

This is the foundation of her self-esteem, her self-image, and all her future relationships.

Deprived of such a connection, that foundation is shaky.

When the child doesn’t receive unconditional affection from her parents but instead receives disapproval, anger, impossible demands, and empty gestures, she learns that she is unloveable.

If you can relate, you might have had an unloving parent. This article describes 6 types of unloving parents. So…do you have a parent who

• is incapable of love (disturbed)?
• is too sick to love you (depressed)?
• only loves you when you reflect positively on them (narcissistic)?
• is too mad to love you (angry)
• only loves you when you do what they want (controlling)?
• only loves their “favorite child” (preferential)?

See if you recognize them in the descriptions below.

Then read on to find out the 5 essential things that will help you heal from this painful experience.

When I was a child, I was obsessed with dogs. It seemed like I could tame even the wildest, meanest pup with a gentle word and a kind touch.

Until I got bitten. That’s when I learned that some dogs are just too damaged and unpredictable to be around.

Just like a damaged dog, a screwed-up parent is too f***ed up to love, period.

I’m talking about sociopaths, psychopaths, people suffering from chronic alcoholism, drug abuse, or some other severe psychiatric or neurological disorder that renders them emotionally unavailable and destructive.

These people were never meant to be parents, and yet, in our crazy world, they are given that opportunity.

You may hear about these parents on the news — those who kidnap, kill, or commit horrific acts of violence against their children. But most abuse their children in total anonymity.

This happens more often than you think.

Each year, there are over 700,000 confirmed cases of abuse or neglect in the United States.

In over 80% of these cases, parents are the perpetrators (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016).

And keep in mind that these statistics are underestimated because many cases go unreported, and abuse is almost never a singular incident.

Typically, it’s chronic and involves more than one form of abuse.

The parents who commit terrible crimes against their children are afflicted by an extreme pathology that most likely stems from their own deep-seated trauma.

“Hurt people hurt people.”

They might be sadists, pedophiles, wife-beaters, repeat offenders, drug addicts, etc.

They do not love their children because they don’t know what love is.

While the screwed-up parent is incapable of love, the depressed parent is too sick to love.

It’s possible that they were once a happy, well-adjusted person, and a loving parent.

But something happened — a personal tragedy, perhaps, or an insurmountable challenge that proved too much to cope with, and they became a hollow vessel, an empty bodysuit that was once a person.

The depressed parent’s emotional range is extremely limited. They don’t feel love, hate, sadness, or anger. They don’t feel anything.

And that’s the scary thing about depression. It isn’t about feeling unhappy.

When you are unhappy, you can see yourself being happy again. You know what you want to happen in order for you to stop feeling unhappy.

But a truly depressed person is unable to even imagine a future where they feel happy. Their world is so bleak that they see no hope.

They might’ve had a habit of staring into a distance for hours or staying in bed all day, simply because they saw no point in getting up, eating, talking…

If you grew up with a depressed parent, you grew up with a ghost. You probably remember your parent being quiet, detached, and unmoved by anything that’s going on around them.

Sometimes they could barely register your existence.

In other words, they were emotionally shut down, which felt like they didn’t care about you. But unlike some other types of parents on this list, it wasn’t their fault.

Depression is a devastating illness. It can be a serious lifelong condition or a passing phase. Either way, it’s very treatable when addressed professionally.

If you or someone you know suffers from depression, don’t ignore it or hope it’ll get better on its own. Seek help.

Growing up with an angry father, I could just tell when his anger was about to explode.

He would get quiet, and the air around him would get punctured with dread. His eyes would get dark and very still, and the next moment he’d either scream with the rage of a mental patient or slap me in the face.

I remember how terrifying it was, to experience the wrath of this 6 ft. tall man, and how small and ashamed I felt afterward. There are no words to describe this terror and the self-hatred that followed.

If you grew up with an angry mom or dad, you know what I’m talking about.

Unlike a depressed parent who feels too worthless and like they have nothing to offer their children, an angry parent believes they are an exceptional parent with so much to give.

These parents yell because they care. They hit because they care. They vandalize a child’s self-esteem because they care (and to teach a lesson).

Yet this type of parent cannot and does not love their child. How can they? They’re too busy flying off a handle at every real and imagined transgression.

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Pretty soon the relationship between a child and an angry parent becomes tense, fearful, and insincere.

The child reacts by shutting down, and any semblance of love between the two evaporates.

Related: 10 Signs Of an Angry Grandparent (And How to Talk to Your Kids About It)

Most people have children with an intention of loving them with all their hearts.

But to some, parenthood is just another way to boost their damaged egos.

A narcissistic mother or father sees their child not as an individual but as an extension of themselves.

Love never really enters the equation. Not in the way most people understand love, anyway.

A narcissistic parent can only love a child that’s a perfect mirror of their own self-image.

If a child mirrors his negative traits or doesn’t inspire pride in whatever way the narcissist imagines his child to make him proud, the parent perceives it as a failure and a betrayal.

For example, if a narcissistic father sees himself as a great athlete, he will “love” an athletically gifted child. Meaning, he will love seeing the reflection of his own athletic greatness in his son or daughter.

But if a child doesn’t show great promise on a football field, the narcissist will react with sharp criticism, disappointment, and rejection.

Related: 21 Gut-Wrenching Lies You Learned From Your Narcissistic Parent

Even if the child is gifted in other areas, it wouldn’t matter to a narcissistic father. In his eyes, the child failed and shamed him. And since failure and humiliation are unacceptable things that drive narcissists insane, the father will try to symbolically “erase” the offspring that let him down.

So the narcissist needs to live vicariously through the child who fulfills his desires.

As long as the child allows the parent to indulge in that fantasy, the narcissist will “love” their child. But when the fantasy is over, so is the love.

To learn about dealing with a narcissistic mother, read Coping With a Narcissistic Mother: 9 Tips to Heal the Damage

For more about the psychology of narcissism, check out 20 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Narcissism

A controlling or authoritarian parent needs to be in total control of their children.

Quite often a controlling parent feels out of control in one important area of their life (at work, for example).

So they will channel that feeling of impotence into their parenting style, trying to regain a sense of control by being a strict parent.

Like a narcissistic parent, this type of parent only loves their children when they’re the perfect version of what the parent wants them to be. In this case, obedient automatons.

A controlling parent will make all the choices for their children, including personal ones like choosing their profession, friends, and even a future mate.

And if the child makes different choices or challenges the parent in any way, the parent reacts with rage, and then rejects the insubordinate child.

They think that they’re acting in a child’s best interest; protecting them from the mistakes they’re sure to make. But it’s all ego-driven.

In their distorted view of a parent-child relationship, a parent is always a mentor, and a child is always a passive recipient of parental wisdom.

When the child disobeys, the mentor has to discipline the child to put him back on the right path.

There are many marks of a controlling parent. For example, he (or she) might insist that the child addresses them by “Sir” or “Ma’am,” or in some other redundantly formal way to further convey their superiority.

They may use threats or other intimidation tactics.

A controlling parent may even get physically abusive at some point.

And the more the child resists being controlled and manipulated like a marionette, the meaner the parent becomes.

Simply put, a controlling parent will go to any lengths to make sure their child is under their thumb, always.

The preferential parent is a parent who loves one child, the “golden child,” but doesn’t love the other (or others), a “scapegoat.”

This difficult parent-child dynamic is most typical of families where one or both parents are narcissistic, but it’s not exclusive to narcissists only.

A preferential parent will triangulate her children into a competition for their affection, encouraging ongoing conflict, envy, and jealousy.

Oftentimes, the choice of which sibling the parent bestows their love upon is completely arbitrary.

It can also switch over time: the sibling that was the “favored child” in childhood becomes a “scapegoat” as an adult, and vice versa.

The preferential parent seems to be capable of love (at least they’d like to think so) but they cannot love their children equally.

In other words, they cannot love one without abusing the other.

And while some difference in the level of love and connection is normal, the dichotomy of total adoration for one and rejection of the other amounts to a parent who can’t truly love either child.

Children aren’t real people to them. They are extreme projections of the parent’s own best and worst qualities.

For that reason, a preferential parent gets a spot on the list of parents who don’t love their children.

We’re used to thinking that parents love and care for their children no matter what. But some people are simply incapable of love.

So what do you do if you’ve got one of those people for a parent?

1. Know that it’s not your fault.

You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t deserve it. There’s nothing wrong with you.

No, you weren’t some horrible unruly child who needed the belt.

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You didn’t “provoke” your parent’s anger; that anger was already inside of them.

You didn’t “fail” your parent because you didn’t subjugate your life to their desires.

And you didn’t cause them to be depressed.

If you were on the receiving end of abuse, know that there is NOTHING about you that invited this treatment or justified it.

And there’s NOTHING you could have done to prevent it.

2. Know that it’s not your job to fix your parent, or make them love you.

Some parents act as if you owed them for being born.

You don’t. And it’s not your job to fix them either.

You might have a childish fantasy of somehow making your parent better, and finally having that relationship you always dreamed of.

At the risk of sounding cynical, that’s never going to happen.

It might get better though once you accept your parent for who they are, with all their limitations, and stop expecting things they can’t give you.

3. Know that there are other mother or father figures in your life who love you.

Children need their parents’ love and care. From the moment the child is born, he reaches out to his mother, seeking not only nourishment and warmth, but also comfort and connection.

Before long, he will be mimicking her facial expressions and smiling, just because he sees the delight on her face every time he does.

This is a deep emotional need hardwired into our brain — the need for a meaningful connection with our parents, the need to be loved by them.

But sometimes a parent falls short of fulfilling that essential need.

If that’s how you feel about your parent, know that there are other people in your life who may give you the love that you seek.

It could be your aunts or uncles, siblings or grandparents perhaps. Or you might have someone at work who always treats you with the care of a mother or the protectiveness of a father.

Sometimes a partner can fill that role, although it shouldn’t be a primary mode of connection for a couple.

If you feel like you’ve missed out on that parental love, pay attention. You might find it all around you.

4. Know that there is a Divine Mother/Father within you

“Mother” and “father” are more than your biological parents or people in your life. Those are energies, or archetypes, present in all of us.

You have a mother and a father within you. Some people call it God, others — Goddess, or consciousness, or Spirit. They are always with you.

Look within and connect with the Divine Mother or Father. Talk to him/her. Ask to be relieved of the burden of anger, resentment, and pain, and to fill the emptiness you feel inside with love.

I promise you, you will be crying your eyes out with gratitude when it’s over!

Here is a powerful guided meditation to connect your Inner Child to the Divine Mother.

5. Know that you can still be whole, even if you have an unloving parent

Having an unloving parent can make you feel really screwed up.

It can leave you with devastating emotional scars. It can make you doubt your self-worth. And it can also cripple you in personal relationships because deep down you feel unlovable.

You may feel like: If my own parent doesn’t love me, who will?

Few things in this world are more painful than feeling like your parent doesn’t love you.

But it doesn’t mean that you’re broken because of it.

You don’t need your parent’s love to feel good about yourself. You don’t need it to be worthy of love. And you don’t need it to be a loving parent to your own children.

I am not trying to label or badmouth anyone.

Parenting is hard, and sometimes people are too quick to pass judgment on how other people raise their kids.

That’s why there’s such pressure to be a perfect parent (especially a perfect mommy) and always project happiness, love, and harmony.

But every parent has moments they aren’t proud of. Today I yelled at my toddler again, and let her watch too much TV. I felt like a bad parent, I’m not going to lie. As she gets older and parenting gets even more challenging, I’m sure I’ll do other things I’ll regret.

So I’m not condemning all parents for being human, or accusing everyone who’s ever made a mistake of not loving their children.

I do believe that most people love their kids with a fierce, deep, unconditional love. That’s how it should be.

But acknowledging the reality that it’s not always the case is equally as important as being understanding and forgiving of our parents’ flaws.

Some parents don’t love their kids. It’s a fact we have to accept.

Because if we don’t, we might be unable to see the bad behavioral patterns in our own families.

And if we don’t see them, we can’t challenge them, or stand up for ourselves.

We also won’t be able to recognize when someone needs help.

Parents can be abusing their kids as they’re professing to love them. But words aren’t love. Neglect isn’t love. Abuse isn’t love.

We have to be vigilant and aware when the most vulnerable among us — children — are being mistreated by an unloving parent.

NEXT

20 Heartbreaking Signs of a Manipulative Mother

How to Deal With a Difficult Parent: 6 Strategies to Keep Your Sanity

How to Forgive Your Parents for Abuse (When They’re Not Sorry)

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Category: WHY