8 Signs That You Have Empty Feelings

Hi Dr Webb
I have been in and out of therapy for years.
I have gone through a highly volatile divorce and bear lots of resentment for the manner in which things played out. Despite multiple attempts to get help and rewire these thought processes I and snappy, angry and empty. It has impacted the relationship I have with my two teenage daughters and I like I need to be on medication or suicidal at times.
I’m 44 and desperately wanting to not feel this hopelessness anymore

Regards

Having read both books, along with numerous articles by Dr. Webb, it seems clear that we each have a Neglect/Attention spectrum or axis.
The furstration and consequent situational resentfulness I had, made healing difficult in several ways:
The learned neglectfulness in others prevents success in attempting ot overcome and change from neglectful relationships.
The neglectfulness learned – absent from childhood modeling, – required years to even see where I was and am neglectful.

I often assert that culture is what is passed on during developmental periods, especially as these are powerful periods when attention is naturally occurring in the young. Just as other animals (you might see it mostly in domestic companion dogs. they are highly attentive and communicative, but when exposed to a familiar human, signal for only a short period, perhaps just once, and seeing no response, shut down attempts to communicate.

Babies are profoundly absorbent of behavioral cues, storing what is repeated or emotionally arousing/salient to form assessments of both what is of value to their intimates, and thus, what is of social value to themselves to imitate, remember, know.

There are too many factors occurring in siblings – my own sister, once emotinally attentive, predictive, compassionate, as she attempted to instruct and expand her children’s love, care, prosociality, formed resentments unrelated to reality, due top having experienced both extreme neglect and some significant verbal and behavioral abuse (our father scored pretty much Zero on parenting scales, while our mother shunted emotional interaction and attention to delusional religion, dissociating love from real individuals, misattributing it to judgmental illusions of autocratic deity, whose rules must be strictly adhered to).

Her emotional abilities deteriorated so much that she is unreachable. The fact that she is a Registered Nurse, exposed to so many individual in her work, in emergency rooms, seems to have made her exhausted, more callous.

One would think that we learn that babies, friends, intimates, can do no actual wrong, but instead communicate what they have learned and not learned, seeking more healthy intimacy.

Neglect implies lack of full attention, in the present moment. The problems appearing in marriage and like relationships, in my experience are due to reduced willingness to attend, to value the partner.

Coming into relationships perhaps too late – my first occurred at age 24 – I have found no one seemingly unscarred, no one not avoidant. I am slow to realize, having the combination neglected childhood – and experiencing abusive rejection from grandparent as well as parents.

Children are resilient; we learn to function in spite of neglect and abuse. But as we mature- age 25 or so is cognitive maturity, we reflect behaviors that appeared to work for others. I happen to resist the most egregious – for example, I do not separate the sexual act from the aroused emotions of love, attachment that arises, feelings like gratitude and attention.
While excuses ar made for urban hectic life, that is just stress, stress similar to that of danger war,.
There are limits to our ability, and constant “dating” and other immersion in unrelieved novelty, makes us want to skip the necessary time or steps to intimacy.

We blame – a rejective heuristic having no function other than ending relationship. I do not blame parents, etc. who were neglectful, as it became clear that they, too, had NO ability to comprehend the neglect they persist[ed] in, for their lifetimes.

Yet, I expect anyone else to act as a peer, not resisting simple attention, not blitzing their senses in the effort to avoid emotion. I think of therapists and clients as entering a contract of Openness. This presumptive contract is what we expect from anyone intimate. Yet it is vanishingly rare that any commit to just plain openness.

I keep looking at my own actions; otherwise, I would blame and resent those who reject. Our very family long disintegrated.

I see that the practitioners of therapeutic psychology have embraced the recognition of stultifying neglect, even though the US culture (indigenous aside) exists in a state of normalizing neglect.

Hi jonice, i havent read your book. Just want to say this i have been having this emptiness now for a very long time and i can’t seem to get any help for it. It not easy just to hear someone say i understand what you are going through.

Dear Jonice, your book was a huge help for me to discover emotional neglect in my childhood. I would like to ask how often does lead emotional neglect to develop narcissistic personality disorder in the adulthood and under what circumstances could this happen? Are there any studies on this?Thanks.

Dear Doctor: This emptiness has plagued me for a very long time. I was treated poorly as a child and am still as an adult.
Debra

Ed

Thank you for your insightful work. My recent diagnosis as an Asperger and HSP tells me I grew up in the family bubble for a life, not understanding society, others, nor myself obviously. I got yeses to 22 of 22 questions on your CEN test and so may add this third diagnosis. My hope is that you continue to write articles and point this out to others who do not know they need help.
*hearts*

As comforting as it is to finally figure out why I’ve always felt like I’m walking around with a hole in my core, as Gregg mentioned, identifying the issue (s) is a tiny drop in an ocean on the road to thriving And such a frustrating & confusing road it’s been for me having also been in & out of therapy since I was 7 years old when my mom would save the last 15 minutes of her session for me with her counselor.
At 50 years old & STILL struggling to find a therapist worth regurgitating my story to yet one more time is not easy. I don’t know what the problem is with the mental health community but finding a therapist to help me do the work on my specific issues shouldn’t be this hard when I’ve put as much time, effort & money into all aspects of the process as I have. It doesn’t seem right that I’ve learned more through my own research efforts than I have during years of sessions with mental health professionals.
It is a heartbreak for me to know that if only I could have found the right help sooner, I could have given my daughter more of what she needed & perhaps my relationship with her might not have fallen vulnerable prey to the alienation tactics. And as Deidre mentioned, the fear that I likely didn’t validate or show up for my daughter emotionally the way she needed & made her feel like my mom did at times is brutally painful.
It’s almost too much to comprehend that I

Thanks so much for sending these emails. They have helped me so much. I see a therapist and list like this help me to explain things to her. Many times I just don’t know how I feel so it is very hard to explain it to someone else.

I was adopted when I was three months old. My mother was emotionally unavailable and never showed affection. I craved love and approval but never got it. When I was 15 I was put back into children’s aid and made ward of the court. Rejected twice in the first 15 years of my life. As I read this it is very relatable.

Dear Jonice – I have to say a very big thank you – I always wondered what it was that was missing in my life and I tick all of the boxes for CEN. I can’t remember my mother spending time with me and my father became my refuge – however he did not like talking about feelings either although he was always there for a hug and support. My mother was a bully who loved the phrase ‘how could you do this to me?” when I was hurting I was made to feel guilty and my feelings were dismissed as ‘silly’, ‘stupid’ or ‘get over it’, but whatever it was I was hurting about it was always my fault. Everything was always geared towards what she wanted.
So thank you – I am now 63 and always wondered why I feel so numb and invisible to others and I feel still that no-one cares about my feelings. I am married to someone who had a mother similar to mine so we struggle in our relationship but we are solid in our love for each other so we weather the storms.
I will look for a therapist as I really need to get past this – I am sick of feeling this way, but knowing what the problem is has already helped!
Warm regards
Donna

Dear Dr Webb just when I think I’m on top of this CEN thing along comes another one of your enlightening articles! All 8 apply to me but #5 in particular stands out. Whenever I have this thought I suppress it. It pops into my head from time to time seemingly out of the blue. I’m not suicidal so it feels quite alien to my usually positive frame of mind. I don’t want to stay there for fear I’ll actually go down a black hole and do something. However now I understand it is part of CEN, I’ll just sit with the feeling, explore it and come to terms with it. That process has worked well for me since coming into contact with your work to accept my anger, shame etc, so I figure it will work with this too. Thanks once again for an incredibly insightful article.

I’ve had this emptiness as long as I can remember. I tell people that I’m missing something everyone else has, like a secret everyone knows but no one is willing to tell me.

Hello Jonice

I am definitely suffering from CEN. I have recently leaned that I am also an HSP
I feel deeply about others and how they feel and sad events. But feel numb and have never been able to talk about things that happened to me as a child.
I don’t understand why events are surfacing in my brain now.

Thank you
Regards
P

Why can’t other people understand, I don’t want people in my life!? Cause all people will do is hurt you, they want to make themselves feel better, off my misery. Screw them people. I have been empty so long, that there is no getting out of it. I wish I never existed! I won’t harm myself, or anyone else, I just hate life. I didn’t ask to be born, so why do I have to be here all alone, cause people are a$$e$? I’m sorry, I said to much.

My mother was proud of following the Truby King baby raising program. This had the baby being isolated from birth, picked up and fed every 4 hours, played with for a period of 10-20 minutes daily. It said to indulge a crying infant was to create a monster and that soon it would realise who was boss and be quiet. It was, it gave up expecting comfort. My mother was a cold woman who `disliked being touched’ and I was never game to ask for comfort no matter what happened. Even when I was sexually molested at age 13 I `knew’ that she would simply say `it was my own fault.’ I have never had a loving sexual relationship, fear I may have damaged my own children and at age 78 know it is too late now to do anything about it. So I write. Stories about adventures and loving relationships. I had no idea I had CEN until a psychologist had me do a questionnaire for `Life Traps’ and there it was `emotional neglect.’ I’m glad you have also identified this pervasive and destructive condition and that so many may fight their way to a better life. PS: The Truby King method ended in 1955 and even before that many mothers were unable to listen to there newborns cry for hours on end but if they told the mothercraft nurses that they were severely scolded. It was cruel for both mother and baby. It went on from 1915 – 1955 and damaged so many lives.

I too, vacillate between emptiness and too many feelings. I’ve been working my therapist to find the middle ground but it’s hard work. I still find myself getting especially frustrated with folks who have to get all in their feelings during business meetings, I was raised that you don’t bring emotion into the workplace, at all. I know everyone is different, but when folks get all feely, my walls still go up high and fast and no matter how hard I try to bring them down, it can take me days to see what really bothers me about the entire situation. I’m learning, tho.

If I ever meet you, you’ll get a huge hug! Finally Someone gets my childhood!

I was never allowed to get angry at my parents. They called me an ungrateful disrespectful brat. That even applied to the time my Mother went into a psychotic rage over GOD knows what and she started choking me to the point I couldn’t breathe so I pried her fingers from around my small neck and she actually ran into the house and told my Dad that I bent her finger back and hurt her????? I felt like I was in the twilight zone. Now as an adult I just want to sleep ALL the time and feel like a zombie when I’m awake. Thanks, Jonice, for another eye opening article.

At different times, I feel both: the emptiness that is described in the article, and the emotions that Cat mentioned. The emotions are very strong and very many and very complex and overwhelming, as though I feel much MORE than others, not less.

Thank you for your ongoing help and advice, Dr Jonice. I have read your books and found validation in them and your regular postings.

The empty feeling, for me, is also as if I’m so ‘full’ of stuff that I’m deliberately not wanting to feel, I cut off and choose to be empty, as it feels safer.

This is something I’m working on and trying to learn from. Thank you for your ongoing support, you are wonderful X

Hi Dr Webb,

I’ve been on antidepressants and in therapy on and off for three decades because of my alcoholic/Valium addicted mother who alternately ignored me or emotionally abused me. I’m in my 60s now and wonder if my attempts to heal will ever end.
Some of us have tougher journeys than others…
I have both of your books and re-read them annually. My therapists agree that CEN is one large component of my emotional problems.

So glad you listed numbers 4 and 5 as I identify with them and haven’t seen these particular descriptions of emotional neglect before. I am 79 years old and have worked with a terrific therapist for some time now who does not use the word, “CEN,” but who recognizes my problem of repressed emotions from childhood. Every year I feel better as I continue to pursue my healing. I’m not giving up because my dad and his mother both lived to be 101 years old, so I may have many years ahead of me!

I have had a hard time understanding this, because I would not describe this feeling as emptiness. i feel very full of feelings and needs. i experience having pain and overwhelming need for things that others don’t seem to need, and i flip from understanding that as a lack in myself and a lack in the world and other people, but never emptiness in myself.