I feel like I could have written this exact comment. I hate it when people ask me how I feel because I don’t know. I love my 8 siblings but I don’t think any of us really know eachother.

Dear Cathy, it is never too late to become more emotionally attuned to a child, no matter their age (or yours). In my second book, Running On Empty No More: Transform Your Relationships, there is a ton of helpful information about exactly this. You can find it free in your local library. all my best to you!

Only recently I have found I can talk a little with my youngest brother about CEN and what likely effects that has had on all of us, my parents included.

Communication with my other siblings stays very much on the surface; I have no idea about how they feel, what they want or what they need. I feel that they don’t care about knowing me at all. The only known/ accepted emotion in our family is frustrated and angry – we all feel misunderstood often; why does everybody seem to be out to get us?

To be honest, when a good friend or loved one asks me:
How do you feel?
What do you want?
What do you need?
Why are you angry, or sad, or hurt?

I don’t know how to answer, because I have absolutely no idea WHAT I actually feel, want, need etc. When asked, I often feel completely overwhelmed. I feel so many emotions at once in a big turmoil, that I am not able to speak out. I just shut down like an clam.

The bigger the stakes (more valued relationship), the more difficult it is to utter what I feel, want, need or what’s bugging me.

Also my opinions were ” wrong” (according to my mother) if my opinions differed from my mother’s opinions. I grew up second-guessing myself and not having any faith in myself or my choices. I got Lyme in my 20s that made me weak and really sick for a decade but my parents acted like I was a hypochondriac. I was sick and I felt horribly sick, but I could not get through to my family because the way I felt was “not real” . Therefore the support I had recovering was very limited. Same thing happened in the last few years when I contracted a tropical parasite which left me with bad neurological damage that I am disabled from.
I felt so invisable that I just stopped talking much to most of my family. This is first thing that I found that I could possibly share with my family to maybe get them to understand CEN that * might not* really offend them.

I am fairly certain my parents were raised a similar way. Like you say, our parents cannot give us something that they never got. My mother always acted like she hated her mother and acted very condescending and patronizing to her. Ever since I was little, I asked her why, but I do not even think she really understands why. She never explained it where it made sense. She held huge contempt for her mother (my grandmother). I am thinking maybe its because her mother neglected her emotions all her life. I don’t know.

I am going to share this with mother. I really hope it helps her understand herself and how she treats other people. Any other time I tried to get her to understand the toxic dynamics in the way she treats me, she ended up playing victim and just dissmissing everything I said . This was more hurtful to me because it was just more emotional neglect.

I am hoping this article might get through to my mother. Thanks for writing it. I also read your book (Running on Empty No More) and it was really helpful.

Only after reading this article I realised that it must have been because of their own parents. My mother’s father was very emotionally distant and her mother ignored the behaviour. My mum had to be the mother-role to her younger brother that she loved dearly but then lost in a sad accident.
My father doesn’t talk much about his family, but I assume it wasn’t amazing. I know he used to get into fights with his family and he ran away to join the military at 15. I can’t imagine it’s a dynamic that helps you develop that emotional need either.

Thank you for writing this. I have a lot to think about.

Dear W, I am sad to read this. You deserve better and you can have it. Do not give up or harm yourself. There is lots of help available for you! Please visit the Find A CEN Therapist page on this site and make some calls. There is good help for you!

I am 37, I’ve never had a relationship and I am going to kill myself once she dies.

The rest can keep throwing around their precioys genes as if it’s not akin to a fungal infestation but a blessing. But in terms of pro&activeness this article is nice. Kudos.