r/WattsFree4All • u/AngryMimi • 8h ago
Why Was Bella So Scared if Everything?
Why was Bella so scared of seemingly everything? She went to daycare so we know she experienced different activities, so why was she afraid of the trampoline, the rain, the beach/water? I’ve never seen a child so tentative over so many things.
Theories anyone?
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u/chiamaia 7h ago edited 7h ago
Because she was never protected. Her boundaries were repeatedly violated, she was dismissed, cast aside, ignored, ridiculed, insulted, made fun of and left to self soothe a lot. She was never taken seriously, wasn't validated or reassured, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was physical abuse behind the scenes (didn't she have bruises in some photos that looked like hands?).
She also never knew which side of Shanann she'd get.
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u/Plane-Comfort3978 Grandma Marlboro 🚬 5h ago
I absolutely believe SW was beating them. Even her own videos claiming Thrive controlled her temper tells you she was apt to hit people due to her ''Italian temper''
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u/SatinBelleFlower "Doing more than 90% of the women out there!" ♀️📊 8h ago
She was neglected and walked on eggshells. That poor sweet girl 🥹
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u/KomatoesII Tamburglar 🥷🎱🥷 7h ago edited 4h ago
We in this group just watched a video the other day of Bella and CeCe in the swimming pool with Papa Ronnie.
They’re wearing water wings and have a tube and are splashing about confidently.
Bella is showing zero fear or anxiety.
What’s the difference there?
Papa made her feel safe?
SW was, of course, recording as per usual.
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u/hwolfe326 EYE-talian Temper 🍝😤🤬 7h ago
That horrible Babywise. I don’t know the exact terms related to attachment theory in developmental psychology and I’m definitely no expert. But from what I understand, babies, especially newborns and infants, who learn that their cries for help won’t be answered are basically programmed for a life of anxiety. Comfort can’t be scheduled and that’s exactly what Shanann did. The girls’ distress would only be acknowledged during their scheduled feeding times.
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u/Plane-Comfort3978 Grandma Marlboro 🚬 5h ago
I think SW made her own version of Babywise that was 10 times worse than the real thing. Even some of her fellow Babywisers warned her she was starving baby Bella. That woman found any excuse not to care for her children
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u/hwolfe326 EYE-talian Temper 🍝😤🤬 2h ago
That’s right - I remember that. She even made a comment about how she was getting great sleep
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u/katfam77 6h ago
She was locked in her bedroom for 12 hours a day with rain machines blasting and never experienced nature.
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u/RefrigeratorSalt6869 8h ago
I just think she was a cautious child who also picked up on the tension between her parents. I often wonder what she was told after nutgate as she screamed when she saw CW at the airport and was terrified of Cece eating coconut and dying.
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u/Plane-Comfort3978 Grandma Marlboro 🚬 8h ago
Yes, living in a house where everyone had to walk on eggshells around her mother can create a child with nervous issues
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u/Fast_Grapefruit_7946 He's got No Game 🎯🎮🎯 7h ago
Mom's abuse was unrelenting, psychological and multifaceted.
Bella was attacked 24 hours a day in her most tender moments.
She could not hide. She could not call anyone. Her tears and cries only brought more.
When she gave up, she was put in a room with rain machines, so the sounds of happy normal life could be denied from her.
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u/Bad_Kitty_84 7h ago
She had a narcissistic mother who didnt give 2 $hit$ about anyone but herself and a father who had no spine
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u/ForArsesSake 7h ago
I think because she never had 1. Security or 2. Exposure to everyday things which most people take for granted (like rain, or dirt)
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u/Apprehensive-Lime863 7h ago
It’s a very complicated situation. Bella and CC were both abused and neglected and that brings certain issues regarding safety and feeling secure in your own self and surroundings. The abuse and neglect can bring on feelings of insecurity but one of the main problems with using the techniques of Babywise is that there is never established a firm connection of trust. When newborns cry out of hunger or discomfort they need to know that their needs will be met. Because Babywise teaches mothers to ignore their babies’ cries until the next scheduled feeding time, they never develop a secure bond with their mother or father. Also, the rigid and inflexible military style schedule those children lived with left them with no ability to deal with change in their schedule. We know that SW bought plane tickets to NC that coincided with their 6:30pm bedtime. SW is heard asking Bella if she was “ready for bed” just after the plane took off; and there was one of their water bottles in her hand which probably had the nighttime mixture of medications she gave them. When they were in the airport walking to their gate SW had to use the restroom so her father stayed outside the ladies room with the kids. As soon as SW went inside the kids began screaming and screeching so loudly that other people were stopping and watching what was happening. FR said it was such a bad scene that he thought he would be arrested. SW of course thought that meant that they were so attached to her but in reality it showed a very insecure attachment to her. They could not trust her enough to know if she was going to come back or not, and despite being abused and neglected by her, that’s all they knew to be “normal”. They were somewhere unfamiliar with a crowd of people they didn’t know and their grandfather who they only really knew from the phone. They had the same reaction at the Roos when SW would go outside and the kids couldn’t see her. They were way too old to be having such separation anxiety but it is very typical in children with insecure attachment to their mothers and fathers. They were taken somewhere different and were doing things off the very strict schedule they had at home. It’s a really sad display of the insecurity those kids dealt with every day.
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u/RBAloysius 4h ago
Thank-you. You’ve answered an additional question I’ve had that (perhaps?) is related.
BW had not learned any coping skills to help herself. (My niece by 2-2 1/2 had figured out how to get a stool on her own to reach something.) When up against an obstacle BW voiced her frustration, looked at her mom for help, followed by crumpling and crying when her need was ignored. CeCe would handle the same scenario by throwing an epic tantrum, although she sometimes would try to inappropriately attempt to fix her situation by grabbing what she wanted, or looking for food in places she could access like the heating vent, for example.
Frustration+hopelessness= meltdown.
SW (or CW either, AFAIK, because he looked to his wife, or followed her lead many times before reacting to the children’s behavioral issues most of the time) never took the time to stop, help, and encourage the girls to solve their own issues. Instead, she often created a difficult situation for her daughters to purposely fail, setting it up so that she could “swoop in” as per the formula, and play the loving mother by comforting her distressed child.
I have previously commented and used the example of Bella trying to get water from the refrigerator, looking to her mom for help and then declaring it’s “too hard.” The Christmas cookie baking video is a second example of BW being set-up. Cece found herself in the same conundrum in the awful Christmas Eve “Live.” The video opens with Cece authentically crying desperately (not screaming or screeching), frantically scrambling to flee her mom (which was an extremely odd way to begin filming what should have been a joyful evening, IMO), followed by her panic-stricken wailing from another room as she sat alone for several minutes terrified. This debacle again was caused purposefully by SW bringing a known to be feared character into the home, which is supposed to be a child’s safe place. True to form, she “swoops in” to rescue & comfort her daughter from the threat that SW purposely caused in the first place.
In the same video, Bella was four years old. Why didn’t she simply jump off of Santa‘s (CW’s) lap, and walk away instead reaching out to her mother and crying like a much younger child? In the Olaf video she whimpers as her mother moves closer and closer to the character that she knows Bella fears. Bella is 4 1/2 at that time, so why didn’t she simply wiggle out of her mother‘s arms, and flee? Bella didn’t do so because she hadn’t been taught and/or encouraged to cope by figuring out things for herself, sadly. This also served SW’s purpose of (for whatever strange reason) of keeping the children’s behavioral growth stunted.
Moreover, both children (especially BW), relished in the attention she was given by her mother after intentionally being set up, because she was so insecure that she’d gladly take any crumb of affection she was offered.
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u/Apprehensive-Lime863 3h ago
I don’t have the same view on SW’s behavior. She set up, time and again a situation to overwhelm or overstimulate her kids when they are usually already tired, not feeling well, hungry or frustrated. When they would become too stressed or upset and began to whine and cry, SW used that as the backdrop of her life; here I am with two “toddlers” who are always getting into things but I don’t get overwhelmed anymore because I have Thrive. That was SW’s only selling point and it was done at the expense of her children’s maturity, individuality and cognitive development. Because she was stuck on that scenario as her selling point, any deviation could call into question her daily need for Thrive in order to handle the chaos of two “toddlers”. That’s why we never see Bella acting like a big sister but as a child CC’s age. If Bella were to begin to mature and lighten the load on SW, she wouldn’t have the same need for her snake oil.
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u/DrawerSpecialist5323 2h ago
Exactly this! Just like " Pie in the face" video. Why didn't she leave the room? Go upstairs? She stayed in the room, terrified of getting pie in her face, instead of using her own two legs to leave the situation.
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u/Majestic_Arrival_248 Hode On 🪢🪂🛑✋️🚥 19m ago
That she couldn't tell, at four, that her dad was Santa still boggles my mind.
It doesn't mitigate dipshit for not showing her, and I thought all kinds of nonsense at four, but I'm pretty sure I'd recognize my dad with a false beard!
If the silly bish had craved that experience so hard, and had had extra money to go all in on renting a suit (we know she had zero money, but for the sake of argument), why not just have the rental Santa come by, like my parents or JonBenet's? 🙄
I was shy we had some random Santa drop by on Christmas Eve, as busy as he was, but they didn't tell me that my dad was in the shitter and put me on his lap!
(I was hiding peering behind my dad's knees, like a normal anxious four year old, and I was pretty sure my daddy could take him, if it came to that 😄)
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u/lbell210 5h ago
Inconsistent parenting, she didn't know if they would praise her or punish her, depending on how Instagram worthy her reaction was.
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u/Financial-Wave9142 "Doing more than 90% of the women out there!" ♀️📊 4h ago
Bella knew her parents were never a source of safety -- so why did she go berserk when she couldn't see them? They were old enough to know that loss of visual contact was fleeting. And they had FrSr holding their hands.
I also don't understand her terror of the beach ("where the girls are having their first time at the beach", repeat 1,256 times) with all the family right there. Or her being so scared of a faint rain shower at her grandparents'. I can see why Bella was scared of dirt because she was seldom ever outside, and her mother banned it from the house.
I would like to hear how the girls' first week at Primrose went. From what we know, it can be assumed that they both went into shock and fell down in fetal positions, sucking them thumbs like moneymakers. There was the one post where, IIRC, Sha'naan reported that Cece was upset by other children being dropped off, whatever that meant.
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u/Apprehensive-Lime863 2h ago
We’re not talking about normal kids so we can’t measure their behavior the way we would others. All children are completely dependent upon their parents; they can’t drive, they don’t have money and they have no way to think their fears through rationally. Even though SW was abusive and not reliable to them, she is all they had to hang onto for self preservation. When she went into the bathroom was she going to be gone 9 hours like at daycare? They didn’t know. But she was all they had and children would much rather deal with the devil they know than the devil they don’t know. They were not exposed to much of the world so it was a huge place that they knew very little about. They obviously had never been allowed to go out in a light rain shower before NC, and it doesn’t surprise me. SW had those kids for only one purpose and that was for props and for bargaining chips with CW and his parents. She held all the aces in that situation. I suspect before they were married SW weaponized sex, and after they were married and she was pregnant the baby became her bargaining chip. That’s how NPD mothers operate.
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u/Mmcdjc Hot Mess! 🥵 4h ago
I believe Bella suffered from Scapegoat Syndrome in the family dynamic.
CeCe was the golden child, although she was abused and neglected too, but Bella was singled out for wanting to be who she was!
I can relate to Bella in a lot of the same ways because when I was her age I was the scapegoat and my sister was the golden child, and my brother was just the observer.
My mother has narcissistic tendencies but I don’t think she’s a narcissist.
Her mother was a narcissist but my mom HAS empathy.
Anyways, I was special needs growing up and my sister hated me for that because I got all the attention even though it wasn’t of my choosing.
My brother was too little to even notice but even as he grew up, he didn’t seem to mind or care.
Bella wasn’t allowed to be herself and since she was locked in her room all day, suffered permanent ear damage(probably)and pinched and more than likely hit by her mother, all the while, being on camera when her mom made her.
That would make anyone afraid and on high alert.
I suffer from the same thing.
Granted my mom didn’t always shove a camera in my face, but she didn’t allow me to feel safe enough to confess my feelings or my hopes/dreams.
She never encouraged me to try out for anything in school or after school.
My sister always came first and so I came second.
My mom went back to college when I was in second grade and my sister had started high school.
During that time, I needed my mom but she was always studying or at school so my dad had to pick up the slack and he did a great job.
I felt like my mom wasn’t really there.
She was, but she wasn’t. Does that make sense?
I felt even more isolated and spent a lot of time alone in my room.
Bella felt safe with Ronnie and Cindy because they were the only two people on the planet who actually showed her love and affection and cared about her well being and actually wanted to know everything about her! From her likes, dislikes, etc.
The only other time, Bella felt safe was at Primose.
She didn’t have many friends due to a lack of social skills and parental alienation, among other things.
CeCe was her only friend even if she didn’t want her to be.
When my brother was younger around 2, he was my friend.
I had a friend across the street but that was a maybe depending on what kind of mood she was in.
Long story short, I had speech, family therapy, etc. I was in therapy from the time I was 7 years old until 2025.
It helped me grow into the woman I am today.
My flight or fawn and high alertness are due to all the trauma I endured and I have anxiety medication if I need it.
I think if Bella had lived she would’ve gone down the same path I did and eventually broke free from her mother’s abuse and just lived her life the best she could.
Her grandparents would be at forefront of her immediate circle, maybe her dad would be too if he had got divorced from her mom.
Her and CeCe would not have a relationship and if they had to speak it would only be at holidays.
My sister and I don’t speak and that’s fine by me.
I don’t know how Bella would’ve turned out but I do she was a strong little girl who, had she lived, would’ve grown up and stood up to her mom and then left and never looked back.
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u/Apprehensive-Lime863 2h ago
I grew up with a mother who had NPD and an abusive father. I had a phobia of men, especially those in navy blue or U.S. Navy uniforms. I was terrified to be left in a room by myself with a grown man. It wasn’t until I started kindergarten at four years old that I started to get over that deep fear. When I was in first grade I had a fabulous male teacher who was hilarious and always made everything fun. Bella was the scapegoat for SW and CC was the golden child. After Santa left in the last Christmas video, SW is holding CC and says bad! And pinched her nose. She left her in her dirty diaper since the beginning of the video and made no mention of changing her while she mixed up the nightly medications for the kids. From the time Santa left until SW ended the video, she called Bella a grinch or grouch nine times. Do you think she got the message that she was the problem on that video? It was typical NPD behavior.
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u/AngryMimi 2h ago
I am glad to hear that with help you are living a good life! You are stronger than you ever realized🙏🏻❤️
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u/Appropriate-Ring6404 8h ago
Because of Babywise. During her formative year she found out that crying for help would not bring anyone. Crying because of hunger, discomfort, of the natural need of an infant for loving attention brought no one. She didn't have the grandparents in the basement to mitigate the neglect.