Childhood Emotional Neglect Discussion Page

Hi everyone,
I’m 37, and when it comes to therapy, I feel like a lifer.
I’ve been in and out of therapy since I left home in 2006 to go away to college. Before that, my dad wanted me to get a job and stay close to home, and I was doing everything I could to get out as fast as possible. I grew up fed, clothed, and with a warm bed every night, so from the outside things looked “fine,” but there was a lot happening underneath the surface that I didn’t have words for at the time.
My mom is intellectually challenged and reads/comprehends at an elementary school level. My dad is a workaholic and has always been the type to keep moving, keep working, and not really slow down. My younger sister (2 years younger) is also intellectually challenged, but she is higher functioning than my mom, she can work, manage medical appointments, and handle a lot on her own. She has two beautiful girls, and I would do absolutely anything for them.
Over the past several years, I isolated again, stopped taking my depression meds, and found myself right back in that familiar place of, “Okay, here we go again… let’s find a therapist I can stomach and not feel like I want to jump out of my skin with.” This time, I also reached out to a psychiatrist because I’ve been on depression meds since I was 18, and very few seem to help the way they used to. It’s exhausting when something that used to keep you afloat stops working.
My story is long, and I’m sure parts of it will be relatable to some people here. But even after 15 years of on-and-off group therapy, I still feel alone and not good enough at my core. “Complex” doesn’t even begin to explain what it feels like to live inside the tangled mess of my own thoughts. Some days it feels like I’m trying to sort through years of emotions with my hands tied behind my back.
I left college in 2009 to move back home when my younger sister got pregnant with my oldest niece. I was a junior, barely passing, and coming off academic probation. I drank a lot in college… maybe to numb things, maybe to feel happy, maybe both. I was always a happy drunk, which made it easier to ignore how much I was actually struggling.
When I moved home, I helped raise my niece because my sister needed me. Her father wasn’t around much in the beginning, and for a while friends, coworkers, and even strangers thought my niece was my daughter because she was with me so often. I was the one showing up, helping, carrying the weight, and doing what needed to be done. Over time, her father came back into the picture. He also has intellectual disabilities.
I stayed close to home and worked one meaningless job after another. I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way, some of those jobs taught me a lot, and I genuinely enjoyed parts of them, but for a long time I felt like I was just surviving, clocking in, clocking out, and trying not to think too hard about my life. Still, those jobs were stepping stones to where I am now. In my last three jobs, I’ve been in upper and senior leadership roles, which is something I’m proud of even if I don’t always let myself fully feel that.
My first relationship was physically and mentally abusive. After 6 years, I finally got the courage to leave, and that took more out of me than I can even explain. My second relationship was with an alcoholic, and I married her after a year. It wasn’t physically abusive, but it was emotionally exhausting and draining in a totally different way. I thought I could fix her, save her, love her enough to make things better, and of course I fell right back into my role as the people-pleaser/caregiver. After she got sober and I worked through my own program, we grew apart and divorced.
After that, I bounced from person to person and could never really commit. I think part of me was chasing connection, and another part of me was terrified of it. Then I lived alone for 5 years and honestly loved the solitude, peace, and quiet. For the first time in a long time, my space felt calm. No chaos. No constant emotional pull. Just silence, and room to breathe.
When COVID hit, my group therapy went virtual. I hated it through a screen. It felt disconnected, flat, and nothing like being in the room with people. Eventually I stepped away from it, and since then I’ve been slowly crawling my way back. “Crawling” is the best word for it, because it has not felt graceful or easy.
Shortly before COVID restrictions ended, I met a wonderful woman on TikTok. We talked for hours on the phone, met in person, dated a few months, and now 4.5 years later we’re engaged. She’s a mental health professional, and she’s the first person who has really been able to peek over my walls and stay there. She’s always, actively, lovingly trying to get past them, even when I shut down or pull back.
After some hard conversations, and a few weeks of really sitting in my own thoughts, I decided it was time for change again. Not just talking about change, not just thinking about it but actually doing something.
I think I’ve come to the realization in the last 48 hours that I may have CPTSD and CEN (childhood emotional neglect). I’m not 100% sure what exactly led me there, maybe a mental health article, maybe someone sharing their story on social media, but something clicked in a way I can’t really explain. It felt like pieces I’ve been carrying for years suddenly started lining up. I listened to Running on Empty in one sitting, and I’m actively listening to the second book now.
My story is long, and I’m still processing a lot of it. But I’m here, I’m trying, and for the first time in a while, I feel like I might finally be looking at the right things.
I don’t know if there are support groups or chat rooms for CEN but if anyone knows of any, that be great information!

I learned about CEN about 3 years ago and everything in my childhood started making sense. It also has helped me to understand all the fears I have: of abandonment, rejection, and conflict/confrontation.

I am part of the CEN group that is a product of a generational neglect. I also am a highly sensitive person who gets easily overwhelmed and never felt seen or understood by my mom. Logically I know that my mom couldn’t be a parent who provided emotional understanding and guidance because its hard to do what you’ve never seen or felt.

One of my biggest struggles for me is having self-compassion and developing self-worth. One of my survival strategies as a child was to become an obsessive people-pleaser. It is very hard to stop when your whole life you learned that the only way to feel worthy, valued, accepted was to forget about what you liked, wanted, or needed.

My therapist and I are using Internal Family System therapy (IFS), and I find that it make the most sense to me. There are “parts” inside my life that are wounded/exiled, or try to manage/protect, or rush in to protect often in unhealthy ways such as addiction. For me this has been binge eating. It is not easy and takes a long time but I do think it will be the best way for me to be better.
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Where can I find your change sheets?

Have never been very confident and I don’t have a very good solid sense of who I am, hence feeling lost. I do have trust issues too. My parents were both narcissist. My mom also was depressed. In addition she had addiction issues, and at times a manipulator My mom projected much of her anger on me. All the way to the end of her life. She would talk about me behind my back to some of the aids that helped her where she lived. Some believed her others didn’t, but it still bothered me. I did the best I could for them. My brother had died several years back so it was only me. My husband helped some too.

Hello Dr. Webb
I have been struggling with CEN all my life. I read both your books and they have helped me tremendously. One thing I am having a hard time with is feeling love for others. I have been married for 32 years and my husband often tells me he loves me. When he says that I don’t know what to say. I do say I love him back, but I don’t feel it.
I feel the same for my friends. I feel numb with feelings and expressing emotions.

A few years ago, I just happened to discover your CEN website. Thanks for this information.
I grew up with a dad who has a reserved personality and who traveled alot. My mom favored my younger brother, partly because he had medical issues. A few years ago, my mom admitted that I did not get the attention that I needed as I was growing up. WOW! I was feeling under valued all of my life and to have my mom admit that I lacked genuine caring was such a revelation! I now knew that my feelings were validated! No apology was given but at least she verbalized her lack of parenting skills. Now at age 70, I struggle with feeling alone, not knowing what to do with the years I have left. I have weekly counseling.
Thanks for your website.

I finally, at 36, drew the line with my parents. Their response was abandonment. Again. Do you have resources to mourn the idea of forming a healing relationship ?

Where are your Change Sheets? Your audio book refers me to this website, but I don’t see them on here.

Hello Dr. Webb,

Good morning! My name is George, and I’m reaching out from Chicago. I’ve been learning about your work on Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN), and I believe your insights and approach could be incredibly helpful for my personal healing and growth.

I understand your private practice is based in Massachusetts. Do you currently accept new clients for remote telehealth sessions from Illinois? If so, could you please share your availability, session structure, and fees?

Additionally, if you are not currently taking new clients, or if you know of any therapists here in the Chicago area who are trained in your CEN framework and offer in-person sessions, I would greatly appreciate a referral.

Thank you for your time and for the meaningful work you do. I look forward to hearing from you.

I have always felt empty and numb. Never had friends as I wasn’t given the ability to make any. This continues to plague me today. I grew up alone, an only child, and was not able to learn how to make and grow friendships. I was left alone everyday after school, not allowed to let anyone in, and I was not allowed to go out. Parents were busy opening a business and therefore always gone. I want to use the phrase “not allowed” but that doesn’t seem to fit, even though it is true. My mother wasn’t aware that she wasn’t providing the necessary emotional stability or any emotional groundwork for me. Nothing had any emotions attached to it, ever. Today, I still suffer and cannot find anyone to talk to about this. It is so obvious today that the lack of any emotional training, growing up, still affects me.

I was raised in a non emotional home. In looking back I feel that my mother was raised to be loving and caring but being married to my dad took everything she had to just keep going.
I can say that, because my marriage was pretty much the same, just different problems. My dad was narcissistic and since he was career military, they moved often and she was seldom around family support. My dad’s alcoholism became full blown when I was a toddler (I was the youngest of four children). That’s when my anxiety and teeth grinding started. My 3 older siblings seemed to think they had to tell me what to do and how terrible I was. Constant criticism and put-downs continued. That went on for years, we all knew emotions were a no-no. Then when I was 14 my mom lost both her parents in one month. And less than one month later my dad shot and killed my mom. I had no idea how to feel or cry, much less grieve. My family, siblings were no help, at a loss themselves. Saddest thing besides losing my mom is that, here I am 68 years old and my siblings will still not talk about our mother as a person, talk about memories or anything still and I so wanted to hear what they remembered about her.
I married at 18 to a man who turned out to be very narcissistic himself. So sweet and good until after the wedding. Then I didn’t exist except when he wanted something. Then he laid down the rules and I spent 35 years being emotionally, verbally, & psychologically abused.
We had 2 children, much to his hatred. The first was an “oops”. I learned from his mouth that he decided at that first pregnancy, he was going to make the rest of my life miserable. Didn’t know that till much later so lots of what he did I figured was just him being him.
Holding in the anger and pain from the losses at 14 plus all the unspoken feelings from growing up caused me to start having physical problems. One was TMJ from all the years of grinding. The pain was hell when I talked or chewed for well over a year and that included surgery on both sides. My back went when my youngest was 2. It all lead to major depression episodes where I was very suicidal and tried multiple times. My husband was no support to me or the children.
Finally I had ECT treatment and a month of a program, not just in the hospital. I was great for years. Till after the children were both grown and married. Then another bad episode and ECT plus a new med that was great. Then he started more threatening and became more dangerous. He had always had a temper but it often turned to blind rage. But it worsened. I had to get out. Turns out he had been telling lies about me for several years about how terrible I treated him, etc. When I filed for divorce, all the friends, acquaintances, my family even turned their back on me. Well I got the divorce and tried to be around those people I had known for 25-30 years. Nope. Turned their back, walked away, gossiped all of it. It went on and on. My youngest daughter decided I was so terrible that she said I was no longer allowed around my grandchild who I had developed such a bond. My daughter now has 3 children but it’s never been the same. Not even FaceTime and they live here in town. I have another grandchild with my other child. He’s wonderful. Well all 4 are but not seeing them has torn me apart. I can do nothing until or unless she gets her mind straight. She won’t talk.
I’m learning to feel my emotions and let them out w/o going unhinged with anger. I cry a lot, usually at home or at therapy. I’m also learning to be “mindful” bring my thoughts back to now and try to live in the now. I still carry the thoughts of I’m not good enough or I’m worthless. In therapy I’m learning to stop and change it to I’m thinking …..Or that’s not true it’s just a thought I am having. Or I’ll say to my dog Oh I’m just crazy today, then laugh because I know I’m not and I’m being silly.
Thank you for letting me share. Sometimes even now I wonder if life is still worth living but I just keep going on, one foot at a time, usually just tiny baby steps. And I remember the reasons I wrote down as my reason to stay. But most of all, I know the Lord is always with me and I wonder what’s up ahead in life. I am loved, worthy, and here for a reason as all of us are no matter how we feel!