Hi Torii, I just checked it and it’s working. Perhaps it’s a technical issue on your end?

Dear Jonathan, there is a lot of help and info throughout this site. Also, check the Find A CEN Therapist List under the Help Tab. There’s probably one near you!

Dear Jonathan, there’s help throughout this website. Also, you can contact a therapist near you who’s trained in treating Childhood Emotional Neglect. See the Find A CEN Therapist List on the HELP tab of this website.

“Never been held in anyone’s arms,
When you’ve never been moved it’s really hard to move on”

-Eyedea and Abilities “Smile”

Amazing song about trauma and life and a path forward.

Well written Richard, sorry for your hardships. I have lived a different story but noticed similar patterns with CEN. Both of my parents had neglectful and abusive childhoods and they, and their siblings, have chosen mostly solitary lives as well and had multiple divorces and battles with addictions. I would witness my parents’ personalities change at social gatherings to ‘put on a show’, and then the second they get in the car to leave, ‘drop the act’ and complain about the whole event, and complain about how the other acted, and my dad would criticize my sister and I for either being too expressive or not interesting enough… so needless to say I had no idea WTF was going on and was very self conscious. I learned my Mom was sexually abused when I was a child and she was basically a self described “man-hater” (don’t like the term) and has no interest in relationships.

I have felt on the outside a majority of my life and often look at relationships as burdens. I took the Myers Briggs personality test in high school and scored the highest in introversion at 100% preference. But I have been slowly changing my thinking. I recently looked at my middle and high school year books and had remembered the comments more fondly than what was actually said. Most of the comments were along the lines of “I don’t know you that well but you seem nice” or “have a good summer”, etc… not a lot of personal things to be said and by the end of senior year I had gone to school with a lot of the kids for 7 years! I sadly realize, now in my early 30s how disconnected I really was. I learned to live on the outside and now I’m not sure if I actually want to be alone or learned it as a coping mechanism. I wonder if there is a correlation between Avoidant or Anxious attachment and CEN? I am definitely Avoidant and wonder why people want relationships, especially romantic ones. I am becoming more open with my friends though, and guess what, they are still my friends! And we have gotten closer. I had a few betrayals in my youth by friends and parents so I became guarded, but the walls do more damage over time. I think my Dad may have sped up the cognitive decline by barely having any social life for the last 30 years. We aren’t the little defenseless kids anymore! I am 6′ 3″, 200 lbs but I still feel like a puny, scared kid. My Dad would scream and point his finger in my face for the littlest thing, literally zero patience and 0-100 anger. Once he screamed at me that I was a “F***ing idiot!” Over and over because I spilled a little birdseed when he told me to feed his bird… I would never resort to physical intimidation but I just feel terrified of conflict when I shouldn’t be anymore. I think it just takes a long time to unlearn these fear responses, especially when they were so important to survival as a child. I had to walk on eggshells around my Dad for fear of setting him off and had I not been so good at tiptoeing, I would’ve gotten a lot more verbal abuse. Now I’m an expert chameleon and people-pleaser and people I despise want to be my friend. It can definitely be exhausting. Heck, I still jump at the sound of a car door because I think “Oh sh*t! Dad’s home to yell at us”. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over that, I still dread roommates and girlfriends coming home at the end of the day… so yes there is nothing more comforting than being alone and knowing no one is coming home; peace and quite and safety… and addictions… and decay…