38 Daily Affirmations For Healing Your Childhood Emotional Neglect

Dear Dr Webb,
I came from a family where my father loved me and was good to me but my mother was jealous and hated me intensely. She repeatedly abandoned me alone in a room for many hours and left the house when I was one year old. She was a trained PE teacher with an interest in psychology and calculated the most effective ways to make me suffer. Left me all day alone in a house at 4 after telling me not to touch razor blades, which she left out for me to find and you can guess what happened. Deliberately starved me at 13 so I had malnutrition, while my 8 years old brother had three times as much food as me. Grounded me for while I was 13 to 16, so I had no friends out of school. Blamed me for her not having a dazzling career. Told me that I had to earn her love and that was impossible because whatever I did it was never good enough. I did very well at school because I worked so hard but was never given any praise from her, only complaints. There are many other bad things she did but the worst was not telling the truth during a custody hearing so I lost custody of my first son who had to live with an abusive mother. Also she was very horrible to my father when he tried to help me during my marriage breakdown and that led to him dying shortly afterwards.

My problem is that I do not believe the affirmations even slightly. My question is would your book help in those cases where the harm was deliberate?

Hi Dr. Webb,

Thanks for writing your book. I always knew that I experienced this in my life but now it has a name! Long story short – grew up in Asian family, oldest, with a brother who was just a year younger. Asian families worship first born son. I was the referee in the family between my parents and brother. I remember hurting myself to get attention, thinking I needed to give people things so they would like me. When I got older, I realized that to survive, I just needed to hide my emotions. So I did that and ignored them. I was married to a wonderful man for the past 25 years, with both a high intellectual and emotional IQ, who would just deal with my infant like anger. I am a widow now. I just dated a man for the past 3 months when my CEN just blew up the relationship – my inability to handle anger in an adult way. Lesson learned. I am not mad at my parents, I understand they were doing their best and didn’t get what they needed in their lives. At least I now know what I need to do to fix this problem. Thank you for putting a name with this for all of us who experienced this in our lives and providing steps so we can heal and move on.

Hi Dr. Webb! I would like to make these affirmations into printable cards to use with my clients. With your permission, I would gladly send them your way in a printable PDF for sharing. What do you think?

Thanks for sharing these affirmations. They’ve got me thinking…..I’m not sure about thinking that my wants are always as important as others..I think it can depend on what they are.
I also found that I wasn’t agreeing on some other affirmations but will look at them again.

I am CEN I never knew this category existed it all makes sense Dad was a depressed voiceless soul, Mother was Narcissistic with five children from the 60’s and 70’s. Mother prided herself on her looks as she looked like a Mexican Elizabeth Taylor as I was the oldest I was just a fixture as her right hand to her babies and her; picking up on the baby duties washing diapers, bottles, rocking the babies putting them down for their naps the only thing missing was breast feeding. I
never got acknowledged I live with this dark cloud over my head as I am not deserving of opportunities, or I don’t allow myself to get close to others and do not seek making friendships, I get passed this rage and channel through my nursing and seek happiness in providing of myself to the underdogs: patient’s in nursing homes, individuals with mental health issues or drug addicted patients . It is a work in progress to try to find balance and to be neutral I’m used to being verbally bullied by this elder parent I guess I am desensitized but I can understand in the movie MOMMY DEAREST the scene where Joan Crawford tells Christina Crawford ” Why can’t you treat me like i would be treated like any stranger out on the
street?” and Christina Crawford responds ” Cause I’m not one of your fans”! I will continue to look for CEN affirmations and further self books.. Thank you mp

What are the 5 stages of CEN recovery?
I see the 4 areas are healing yourself, healing your marriage, parenting your children and coping with parents.
Anyone know what the 5 stages are?
Many thanks!

Thanks Dr Webb
The one that jumped off the page is “I’m worth getting to know “. That is, worth getting to know myself first then letting others get to know me. The real me, the one that’s been hidden away for so long.

Thank you. This is wonderful stuff..i will definitely using the affirmations and i will share them with a couple of friends and myfamily

Thank you Dr. Webb!

I realize now that the affirmation ‘I am likeable and loveable’ is about how I see myself – how I value myself; and not how others see me and value me.

So, am I ‘likeable and loveable’ to myself? Sure! I certainly have some positive traits. I’m not perfect by any means – have a long way to go in some areas, but I’m on the journey, and thats what counts.

Deep down, I would not have answered in such a positive way before my healing journey.

Thanks again for the ‘ah-ha’ moment!

I’m a little stumped. The affirmations that have to do with marriage are hard for me. My spouse is the one who has picked up the baton of emotional neglect from my parents. Any time I have tried to express feelings and wants I am negated and made to feel that I am unreasonable and worthless. I am at a point where I don’t really know what to do anymore. I keep blaming myself for the whole mess. It seems the more I try to practice things to heal from CEN, which for me was not invisible, but an integral part of the abuse I suffered as a child, the worse our relationship gets. Thank you for writing the book. It has really explained a lot of things about me.

Thank you. I’m struggling in life in so many areas. I’m a lifelong learner back in formal education, and as life goes there’s many bumps along the way. As I sit here writing a paper for a class, my mind drifts and I come upon this email in my inbox. Just the reminders I need. They come right after learning my friend from junior high father just passed. It reminds me of my own mother’s time on earth is almost gone at 88.5 and forgetting more than she’s remembering these days. I’m trying to stay focused on my goals, but so much is against me. One day at a time, new mercies I see. Thanks for the encouragement I need right now. Gratitude always~~

Thank you for these affirmations. Very helpful and empowering.

The only one I have an issue with is ‘I am a likeable and loveable person.’ I’m not sure that is true – certainly the feedback I get from everyone else is that the true me, my core, is not likeable and loveable.

When I was a child, this used to upset me very deeply, thus, for years, I lived a shadow of myself, doing whatever everyone else wanted, even alerting my thought patterns to match everyone else’s – trying to be ‘likeable and loveable.’ Honestly, it didnt really work that well. All I had were some superficial relationships, which did nothing to fulfill me internally. And morally, I felt like a hypocrite.

However, now, as I am healing from emotional neglect, it does not bother me nearly as much that I do not seem ‘likeable and loveable’ to others. I am who I am. Whether that is ‘likeable and loveable’ does not matter.

I am spending lots of time alone, exploring myself and my interests. And I find that so much more fulfilling than being around others.

I find modern society encourages ‘likeability and loveability’ as key, dominant traits one should have – and this is at the expense of traits that I see are far more important, like integrity, honesty, being virtuous, etc (people literally chase after facebook ‘likes’!!!)

Only Child comments: Age 70+
My one parent or both parents had absolutely no intention of giving anything they already had.
Reason:
Signed: “ A mistake by the lake” where I strangely worked for many years while going through both college & university; it is the continuing rhythm of the waves of the lake going to and fro being my continuous healing. It is always out my back door.
Other Info:
I was the only one left to bury them , both having long drawn out serious illnesses and with guidance and caring of the small town family funeral director who lifted my weight and allowed closure with equanimity to both parents .

And those within the community that supported my decision to do what is just and right. Those aging people remained friends knowing the true story have also now passed away and their children as well did what is just and right to get their closure.

And by attending their parents funerals it is a way to let the waves ebb and flow as life must move on in order and balance to keep one’s sense of direction & purpose.

Your affirmations on how to cope with emotionally neglectful parents is most helpful! Actually, both of my parents have died but the memories of them and the damage they did to both myself and my siblings still plague me as if they were still living!

I am working on forgiving my parents for making me responsible for their happiness.