Hey Martha:). I don’t know if you check back to see the comments here, probably not… but if you do, I’m up for talking sure. I can post my email in that case. Feel free to let me know. (I also write my comments on here under the alive1 nick now.)

“Your CEN client needs lots and lots of feedback. When you notice something about your client, feed it back to him, both positive and negative — with plenty of compassion and in the context of your relationship with them, of course. This might be, “I notice that you are a very loyal person,” “You are honest, almost to a fault,” or “I see that you are very quick to give up on things.” Your CEN client is hungry for this self-knowledge and you are in a unique position to provide it.”

This is true and I had no idea just how true this is before, but my problem is it all just seems like random compliments, not serious. So I don’t take it seriously myself either. The only thing that has ever really worked me so far was me tuning into what I am like from the outside, like how someone sees me when they are able to comment about me like that. And this is really hard to do tbh. I just recently got some short moments of it randomly but it’s pretty surprising when it happens. It’s usually positive stuff I notice. It is kind of always so disbelievable, that WOW this is actually positive, I actually have this positive thing about me!. But I do try to believe it hahah because it feels so good lol. It just happens really rarely still and only for a short moment. But I want to hope that it keeps building up an image of what I am really like and in a positive way too, not just negative. Because I spent years trying to see the negative, and the negative only. Because I was gaslighted in a relationship of mine so I kept thinking that I was at fault for everything and that thus I needed to fix these negatives.

You can imagine how damaging that would be.

Anyway yeah I have no idea why it just feels like random compliments from others, it was like this even before the toxic relationship stuff. So because it feels that way I’m not able to absorb the positive comments from others. I still am not really able to. I mean recently my mother’s new husband (they married a couple years ago) did make a positive comment and I actually was open to taking it in for the first time forever but I was also like, I was kind of not believing that he is making this positive comment when we never really talked like that before. And I did pay for it bad, because the next day or so, he made some bad comment too at me in an otherwise small conflict and it was really bad. It would not have felt so bad if I hadn’t been open to the positive comment before. I’d have been more neutral as my default is. But this way it really crashed me for a while, his negativity. And I can’t remember anymore exactly how it got fixed but I think it did involve me expressing anger eventually. I think I vented it a bit to my mother. She kind of made a funny expression about it all to me, I can’t remember exactly what it was or how it was funny but it felt good. Afterwards I think I was fine again. But I don’t think I was open to her husband again like that and he also did not make another positive comment or if he did I didn’t notice. He doesn’t mind me though, I know that. Just this emotional connection thing was too much for me in my state as it is now.

So how do you prepare your CEN clients for such challenges and obstacles on the road? Or is my experience not that common when trying to fix CEN?

I’m glad that I’m at least able to describe this, with enough emotion words, or more than I had before, anyway. I really lack in those for sure where they would be useful to describe situations with people, i.e. not my own emotions, but the emotions of the outside situation. That is also an extra challenge to me, would you say it’s typical of CEN?

Also I had a thought on the example where Dr. Simmons is supposed to ask how Abby felt in the situation. I would not expect a severely CEN person to just really know that, obviously, and so maybe what would help instead is asking them to recall other situations where they experienced the same thing. And try to find connections between the situations that are emotionally connected in such a way. And that can help with identifying the feeling, assuming the person with such severe CEN is able to see and experience the feeling enough in the first place. And it also assumes that the CEN person was able to tune into the (unidentified) feeling in the first place. Even able to notice it at all, that there IS something emotional, that there is something emotional that then has to be found. (Which is absolutely the very first step before you can try to tune in to get aware of it. Call it step zero.)

Dear Judith, you describe a classic CEN mother/daughter relationship. There are things you can do to heal this! I encourage you to read my second book, Running On Empty No More. It will walk you through the decision-making and steps to take. All my best to you and your daughter.

Yes, it does make sense. It’s good that you know this about yourself so that you can let others know, especially any therapist you may have now or in the future.

Let me add, Aish’s experience is familiar. It’s just a different brain compared to people who have a more emotional brain. I would say the methods do have to be adjusted for such people, even though CEN is still a valid concept for them, and yes emotional awareness is still a useful skill. This is what I was going on about in other posts (I used the Notaddingup nick for another comment thread on your website). I did suggest one change for methods in another post. Of course, it’s a suggestion based on my experiences only, but I hope it can be eventually helpful. Thanks for reading.

I would say, the recommended method would have to be adjusted for some people though. For me definitely it would have to be. If I am asked what I was feeling in a situation or what I am feeling now, I would “draw a blank”. I just can’t respond on the spot like that. I’ve found the only thing that works for this is talking with someone who keeps telling me about emotions related to every utterance of mine, telling me how I seem to be feeling and ofc validating all that constantly. They may get it wrong as to how I am feeling, but I would still have a chance of picking up about emotions more that way. And I can over time understand and see more emotions. This is what has worked for me the best so far. I would never get anywhere with the usual method of being asked how I am feeling. I have asked therapists repeatedly about what they think people would feel in the situation and I would always get the noncommittal and useless answer that everyone feels differently. … To put it another way, what seems to work is someone reading my emotions on the spot and conveying them to me. Then I have a chance to read them better myself, over time. Especially if the validation is also instantly added to whatever emotion they’ve read off of me. I agree that that does make them feel real to me “in a way that they never have before”. I liked that phrasing. With the 3rd tip, this is exactly what I mean, I need feedback on how I am feeling, I need to be actively being read emotionally by the other person and then mirrored/told about it.

Did this make sense?

Dear Nicole, I am so glad you are finding so much help and support in the Fuel Up For Life Program. Thanks for sharing your story and progress with us! Keep up the good work 🙂

What a wonderful description of your progress, Amy! Thanks for sharing!