A neglected person has nowhere to draw empathy from.

A person who has never felt important to anybody, especially when growing up, will have nowhere to draw empathy (love) from for another person. This might happen even with those who might seem like good parents: when a child is being raised for other people only, they can feel they, themselves, have no value at all. Imagine a future king being raised to take responsibility of everyone in the country, putting himself last every time… Or, a little closer to home, a boy being raised for no other purpose but to provide for a wife and his children, perhaps in addition to be a police officer or a politician to boot: “You have no inherent worth; you only exist to give.”

A child who has never been made to have inherent value and worth will grow up without any source to draw empathy for other people, the very people he or she was supposed to serve. The reaction? Selfishness, brutality, and cruelty.

The love doesn’t have to come from his or her parents, and the need for love can be fulfilled later, BUT for as long as his or her situation is that of a worthless servant of important people, they will not be able to BE that person to anybody at all.

In a more abusive state, a person can grow up feeling unimportant simply because there is nobody in his or her life making sure they feel they are valuable just for being who they are. They too, will grow up to have nowhere to draw empathy from, as to give love and empathy you have had to have been loved by SOMEBODY.

Too often, people approach things as “I will give you love only after you learn to love others,” but people do not learn to love others until they, themselves, are loved. This is why the task of loving mostly lands on the parents of the child, but LUCKILY, that is not the only way for a person to be loved enough, nor is there an age limit between late and too late. Still, who would love a serial killer or a brutalizer back to health, when, truly, this love also needs to be REAL, as if someone is doing nothing but lip sync and pretending to love a person; that can make matters worse when that dawns on this person.

Side note: You cannot get love by loving, but you also cannot love without having been loved. People love others BECAUSE  of their personality, not because they’re loved, but the assumption that you can get love by loving is about as nonsensical as buying money with money (in the same currency even). (You cannot be paid by paying another person, but you also cannot pay someone without having been paid yourself by somebody.)

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