I've learned a lot about abuse over the course of my life, but it seems like information about neglect and its effects is significantly harder to find. Lots of people don't even know the forms neglect can take, they think if they could get food/water/shelter from home they weren't neglected. Googling "how to move on from abuse" yields a whole lot more useful results than "how to move on from neglect."

I was severely neglected from age 4 onward, couldn't even eat if I didn't climb the pantry shelves to scavenge cereal and crackers, and didn't learn essentially any life skills.  Not even how to groom myself consistently. No chores, no guidance, no learning how to be a functional human. Cooking and cleaning? You mean microwaving frozen meals and just trying not to make messes in the first place, right? The few skills I *have* managed to pick up have been from friends and their families. Now I'm 20 years old without so many of the life skills that other people get to learn without a second thought, and I have no idea how I'm going to make it on my own. I need adulting classes. I need to be taught how to cook things other than fried eggs. I need the guidance I never got, but I'm an adult now so where in the world would I get that? It's not like I can just hire someone to come live with me and keep me accountable to the various things a functional human should do each day. And even if I could, this skill gap is making it crazy hard and scary to find a job, so I couldn't afford it.

I wish there were like... adult boarding schools or something, for neglected people who never got to practice being functional before it was entirely their responsibility. A place I could go to be given direction and guidance and knowledge and skills. A place to practice these important habits without the endless crushing stress of every day life. But I don't have that, and I don't know how I'm going to get better while just struggling to survive.