The 5 Uncommon Strengths of the Emotionally Neglected

Thank you for the positive praise ,it’s a reminder that I do possess those qualities still. Your knowledge and service are blessings. Stay well.

After 27 years living with a pretty severe case I urge both sufferers and those who live with them to find the upsides. Ours has been a tough journey. I’ve spent 20 years trying to research this topic in conjunction with the idea that perhaps genetic diseases are sometimes triggered off because of physical manifestation of supressed emotions. This after my husbands father passed away with mitochondrial disease at 54 and my own fathers battle with coeliac. ( And fears for our childrens futures)
Finally my husband has read your books and acknowledged that everything is not his fault and that he absolutely has so much to offer. I have constantly told him for many years that we do not want him to change, as he is an incredible man.. we just want him to be able to share with us. Not having the key to your own box of emotions is absolutely debilitating and has affected every part of our lives. We are now working together to offload this burden that he has carried so long that doesnt actually belong to him, in order to get the keys. Our young adult children are excited that one day he may even give them a spare key. There are so many positives. As a family we have learnt how to connect in so many ways. As my oldest son says “its all there mum … just look in his eyes” My dear husband has spent every spare moment of 20 years working in the shed with our boys passing on skills. He’s a DOING man not a talking one. He is a contented very sorted ,stable ,empathetic man. He can only connect through practical means. He only lives for today. In the moment. Which actually is very liberating.
I’ve spent years thinking I lived with a 2 dimensional cardboard cutout. Ive actually discovered that we live with a great big cardboard box. Chock full of awesome things. Theres more empathy kindness wisdom, humour and depth in there than I’ve seen almost anywhere. It’s Stuffed full of future adventures. I have just have to learn how to gently open the wrappings. How to kindly remove the bindings that hold that lonely little boy all tied up in order for us all to share without exposing the rawness that still exists. There is hope. It’s been hard work but my, am I grateful that I never walked away.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I am a poster CEN adult but have only learned this term in the past 6 months. I am trying to feel, trying to understand, and an constantly asking myself “what could anyone find lovable about me?”

I will be bookmarking this article and working on believing it.

wow, describes me to a T, now at 57 I remain alone, fiercely independent, and oh so broken with a recent and devastating loss in my life. I have no support, the support I was depending on betrayed me, and am floundering in this sea of grief without seeing a way out.

Many of us were unable to love and respect ourselves.

Thanks for your warm and loving insight.

Over and over, I heard: “I wish you were never born.”

Older, “I don’t give a damn how you feel.”

I only match up with half of these things…. And I feel like I was emotionally neglected. Not necessarily that my feelings didn’t matter as a child to a parent we just never talked about it. Now 40 yrs later I am now noticing what was missing. Meaningful conversationsor conversations that talked about feelings. . So this explains why it’s hard for me to give love or have love for myself. I don’t know what it really feels like unless it’s a man validating me which isn’t love.
I’m independent to a certain point. I just started to become a giver and become more compassionate. The biggest difference is that I feel my own feelings strongly and also others.

Dear Jonice, Great article as always. I feel shame when I want to agree that I have some of the traits that you describe and I also resent having some of them now as I am used and tossed aside so many times. My therapist asked me “what do you need” and I feel overwhelming panic and fear. Not sure why. I just don’t know how to answer that question but it’s more than just not having the answer. Having read all the responses above, and responded to 2 or 3 of them, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe we need a Peer Support website where we can all help one another as many have made some kind suggestions and have shared their story which has been helpful (mostly!). Please keep up the good work.

I started my new life about 3 years ago,left a relationship and discovered myself. I don’t remember many specific day to day details about my childhood,but it was neglectful and abusive and I’ve come to find out that it’s not necessary to remember in order to reconstitute what had been a lonely depressed and miserable existence into one that’s peaceful and content. I made a decision to sit with my own discomfort over the prospect of remaining single for the rest of my life until the prospect of remaining single wasn’t uncomfortable anymore. I used to stress about being alone and yearned for belonging and close friends but even that’s gone. The desperation and fear that routinely resulted in suicidal thoughts and the foregone conclusion that life had no purpose have been replaced by knowing that I’ll be ok no matter what. I’m finally getting comfortable in my own skin. I just have to be willing to put the work in and face what scares me.

Dy’a know, whatever, I’d like to pass this on to the many shy and severely bitten of us on here. I have noticed since my contributions, I hope they have been helpful, that I feel better for sharing. They say confession is good for the soul, but as a Catholic,raised as a Protestant, never did talk to a strange fellow hiding in a wooden box, so my life has been a road less travelled. Yes did read that book, totally missing the message first time, until I found it again after I discovered my constant state of anxiety was as a result of nurture rather than nature. Prognosis for me after a 60 year habit of portraying a child of a lesser god, mostly zilch, but such was my anger state, did not take a blind bit of notice. Hell hath no fury like an inner child scorned I guess, and the only direction from ground zero is up. So rather than stew in angry “Oh poor me” and get very very depressed, had enough of that and allopathic solutions .I climbed outa the pit fuelled by that energy…One of my best traits is a work ethic, another is often being too stupid to know something is impossible. But as I’ve said before the Greater Spirit knew me better than I knew myself, and it became a matter of me listening to the quiet inner voice of the “nous” which often threw up left field signposts, not all of which I believed in. It was, as I lost my Spock-avian reliance on the critique of pure reason ,that intuition started to pick up the right resources with which to create my own Brave New World…
As I’ve been writing this on a bright frosty morning in the UK, I’ve been watching the antics of a Jenny Wren feeding as it darts in and out of the plant on my balcony. Now that amazing ball of feathers really is a miracle of Being…Happy days to Y’all

Great article, first I found that described me to a T.
Have always worked in career and volunteer activities geared toward helping others. That is who I am. Or was for decades. Now I am on the other side of the fence where I am the one who needs the care/compassion/help me. Was dx with MS in 1986, recovered enough to change career and work for next 21 yrs. Hard to retire permanently at 52. Eight years later, still hard for me to ask for help, don’t want to be seen as weak or unable to care for myself. Hard, but not impossible and necessary for me to maintain some sort of quality of life and keep me relatively healthy.

Shall try Lonewolf …Firstly I’m no pyschobabble expert, but you learn the math as you go along.It all came to me as a matter of survival.When I got wind of the fact that my Ok English childhood was in fact the opposite, I went to see the therapist who had helped me through redundancy. 5 years earlier she ha spotted the “well pissed off little boy attitude” I was projecting, and had given me really good advice, like” Get yourself held as a child would be held”. When I achieved this by visiting a spiritual healing centre where two nice women laid hands on me. I cried like a baby…With Joy….Kinda different almost ECT effect I guess…I was allowed to feel and express feelings…Anyways the team roped me into the healing system as I got better, and I passed the cup of healing onto others for around 3 or 4 years. No idea how it worked, other than perhaps its easy for me to “channel” ? Not into psychic, witchy woo stuff. I came from the electricity industry, so I saw my “gift” as a kind of quantum effect…However, when I presented, the story of an abused and neglected child to Ali my therapist in 1998,this finally coming from my 83 year old mother, then we had some facts to which we could apply TA and get me to reparent the temporary foundling status I’d achieved at the age of three. As for the stoopid horseplay thing which came with it, that went on hold. First things first.
However, this was a mistake, mea culpa. I had not realised my memory blank, was unnatural and as a result of an NDE until 2008, and so I had been a PTSD person since around 1948. Holee poo!..However, by 2008 I’ve acquired a Buddhist philosophy. which in effect says I am not separate from the Divine Process but complementary… So trusting that the Whole knows me better than I know myself, I can “ask ” for happiness…Note the tense. Its a “now” process, and I put no conditionality on happiness..ie including a million dollars, and a Keira Knightley lookalike companion…I sense the System is laughing and saying like you could handle either of those? …
Hope springs eternal? ..lol…
So in effect I’m saying find your rightful place in the sun via faith. Its not a filter, its a channel, and by saying this I’m implying avoid too many dogmatic ideas, they can be divisive. After all we are the One and we are perfect in It’s eyes…. This possibly lines up with Kierkegaard …?
Anys hope this helps….Love n Light to Y’all..

Mac, would you please share how you turned things around? I agree about the ‘subconscious projection’ and constant anxiety about being found out to be an ‘easy picking’.

Catherine, would you recommend ‘coming out’ about one’s CEN to everyone (people who are close, that is) or just partners?

Thank you

God bless everyone

One thing to add. The very early life processes some of us have been through can infer that we are children of a lesser god, and we can subconsciously project that. Cue the arrival of bullying control freaks looking for easy pickings. In making a change towards positive self worth expression, expect a lot of resistance from these people, often family and spouses. Ermm, mine threw me out. This wee timorous cowering beastie answered back…lol…But 6 years down the line, well such a better life. No property and relatively little income, I have lots of other riches to offer, new friends, and the chance of a really happy relationship in my 70s…None of this could have been predicted, but the moment I manifested an inner change for the better, so too did my environment and my hopes. Course the main bugaboo is fear. Thats stronger than steel bars in terms of making us a prisoner.But, what I can tell you from personal experience,is that the moment you claim your rightful place in the sun is the moment your fears evaporate and you really feel better. Now isn’t that a good platform for living? Just passing the cup of Love and Light…Its what everything is made of ,if you look at it in the right way…and for sure not Higgs Bosuns…lol

Omg I finally know why I’ve never been truly happy ever. Not even when my kids where born was I happy, I put on that brave happy face everyday of my life while inside I’m dying, frustrated,angry, hurt, drained and burnt-out. Doctors have always said yup it’s depression here’s a script you will feel better in a few weeks but never looked into the cause. And I know who to thank as well!!! Not that I exist to her anyway. Ty also jonice you may very well have saved me from this vicious cycle.

Unfortunately ive only experienced these traits as having negative direct influence:
Being flexible has been misunderstood as being bland or a pushover;
Being independent misunderstood as snobbish, aloof, perfect, involnerable;
Compassion is not reciprocated;
Giving is taken for granted and taken advantage of, etc.

I dont tell anyone that i dont need them, it just seldom occurs to me asking could be an option

This was useful. I see myself in all of the points, but I’m not that likeable and have certainly never been popular. I’m not dislikeable either, I would be genuinely surprised if anyone had any strong negative feelings towards me, but I am not particularly sociable and tend to be a bit of a loner, so I would not say I’m the character you describe.

Rather than likeable I would probably go for trustworthy. One thing I get told – by strangers, often – is that they know they can trust me. I don’t know what gives them that impression, in particular, or if they can just read compassion, but sometimes people tell me things they have been worried about and tell me they haven’t told anyone else. They’re looking for reassurance that they are still ‘ok’ despite whatever fetish/quirk/unusual thing they are experiencing. They’re right that I won’t judge them. It’s none of my business and I don’t understand why people put so much energy into caring so much about what another person feels/does with their own lives, so I try to help them see that they are always good enough and that everybody is ‘weird’ in one way or another and everything about them is acceptable.

That trait is one people point out, but likeable is really not something people would describe me as. I tend to find myself outside of groups because I do not really participate and I get very drained in company.

Interesting. There’s a reason for everything I suppose. I am both independent and defective. My parents were from a different era where they struggled every day to remain sane. Back then there wasn’t enough to go around and great loss was a given. They did the best they could. Sure they did it wrong by today’s standards, but they did what they had to do. My dad was a coal miner. Pick and shovel, not machine like today. He used to bury himself deep underground. You do that and you don’t come out with fluffy feelings that need to be aired. He saw some devastating things during his youth as well, involving death and mangled bodies. My mom’s mother died when she was eight and she also had to deal with the crippling effects of polio. She lost her first child when he was six years old. My dad coped by drinking alcohol and my mom by putting emotions on the back burner. They both had a hard life yet they managed to raise two children with good values. I am over 60 years old and I miss my parents every day. I can’t blame them for my problems now, because today is so far removed from what they dealt with back then, there is no comparison in my life. I’m sorry, but today we have a somewhat stable society where there is time to sit back and think about our mental health. I wonder if, as society becomes less and less accommodating, the strengths listed in the article won’t come in handy. It hasn’t been that long since life for most people on the planet was an endure or die reality.

Mom had undiagnosed (that I know of, she did see therapists) Narcissistic personality disorder. Married and divorced three times before I was 16 when I was hit with a great big depression and a faithful low self-esteem. I remember saying as a kid, like 10, that I am raising myself. When my mother tried to discipline me, only in front of others to make her seem like a mother, I hated it because you can’t suddenly after years of being “on my own” and figuring it all out by myself.

Oh yes, I am CEN all over. But I was fiercely independent, hate selfish people, and hated my mother for years because she denies it all and says I had a great childhood!!

Anyone is welcome to comment or discuss the above with me.

Peter Guess

Great article thanks Jonice.
My client referred this to me. She has a schizoaffective disorder and comes from a home of bullying by an older sibling and school peers.

The key issue we have explored in more recent months (as she refused to go into her past, saying “all was well” – is that when she repeatedly told her mother about the abuse at school and “asked for help”, the mother nor father intervened. They said you must change and be nice and be strong – you are probably doing something to antagonise them.

The same bullying happened with her sister (from age 6). And the parents didn’t take action and still don’t intervene when her sister verbally puts her down, ignores her and denies her condition and needs.

She told me that your article really helped her!

Regards,
Peter Guess
Life Coach & Qualified Social Worker

Ok, this is me to a T…so what’s the problem? I like these attributes, I don’t want to change, they have served me well. I have to confess that at times it takes a lot out of me, with so many who rely on me, without me having anyone to rely on in return, and I, at one stage, developed anxiety, but my attributes allowed me to research and experiment with techniques to over come the anxiety, which I can now utilise to help myself as needed.

I find that there are rarely any real truths in the world, but I remember one that my father shared with me…each of us is born alone, and each of us will die alone, and if I have no one to share the burdens of life in between, in the end it will make no difference. I will know that I have lived my life well and contributed to the lives of those who mattered to me.

Wow, a surprisingly intelligent realization from psychology. Less wires, more thought can’t be bad. And given in a pleasantly a morale boosting manner for those of us who tick all the tags; the unseen claws of parental cruelty.

My parents weren’t very bright but with what they had they did their best is my final conclusion and that of my wife’s even our children. They clung doggedly to what they understood, meaning no real malice; fingers fixed on the edge of sanity like most people.

I tried many times to explain what they’d done to me but to no avail. Of course later they broke their own lives and suffered miserably and yep, there was nothing I could do. Too many heartbreaks. And I have an ever expanding happy family, so life is good, and memories stab reminding me to keep it that way.

Congratz on your book.

These concepts of CEN does apply to me, I don’t know about being a ‘strong person’ though, as I cannot judge that for myself.
I do come from a complicated family where others have a mental illness, but they inadvertently showed me emotional neglect, so I have found ways to cope with that, even as an adult now.
That was a nicely written article, it caught my attention.

Finding this article was an interesting coincidence since lately (in my old age of 70) I have been thinking about the value of writing a guide for the emotionally neglected/abused children who are now young adults—to help them understand themselves and avoid the mistakes and pitfalls that will plague them through out their lives if they don’t understand why they are the way they are.
I agree with most of the trait list, especially the independent trait.
My independence is so extreme that at one point as a single working girl just out of college and under paid of course I lived on nothing but banana sandwiches for 3 weeks and actually picked up bottles out of trash bins to turn in for a few dollars even though I came from a very wealthy family that could afford to help me. While all my friends had mothers helping them furnish their first apartments I had nothing, no second hand furniture from home even–I bought a bed with my second pay check and that was it. I was too embarrassed to invite friend over because how would I explain my rich family not helping me with my first apartment as their mothers were so enjoying helping their daughters and sons with their first living on their own. Finally I couldnt avoid my uncle and aunt visiting me and they were so appalled at having nothing to sit on after I had been living there for 9 months with nothing but a bed and two lawn chairs they took me out and bought me some furniture. Yes being embarrassed is big part of being unloved.

Some years ago I also went thru very serious cancer treatment,a sarcoma in my left arm –3% chance of survival I was told—and surgery at Duke and a months of rehab– I drove myself to all my pre surgery radiation and drove myself to the hospital the night before surgery and checked in a hotel and reported for surgery the next morning all alone. I didn’t ask for help or support from anyone because I knew or felt that I wouldnt get it–that I would be brushed off with some excuse or the ‘oh you can handle that yourself”.

The emotionally starved child does do everything themselves because it is less painful to do it alone no matter how hard or what it takes than suffer the rejection they feel or know they would get from people who are suppose to care about them but don’t.
That is the crux of their independence…the avoidance of more rejection.

My story is simple,sort of…my mother died when I was 7, my father remarried –his secretary. A bit of the gold digger was at work there on her part–and she wanted no left over children from his previous marriage. My brother and I became similar to the children in the ‘Flowers in the Attic’ story literally after she and my father had their own children. We were gradually ‘disappeared” from the family unit. Even as 14 and 15 years olds still living at ‘home’ places at meals gradually were not set for us, we weren’t called to dinner and would get food from the kitchen and eat upstairs in our den or took our allowance and went to a local restaurant.
We were told that it wasn’t ‘necessary’ for us to come downstairs on Christmas morning –translated it meant stay out of sight we want to pretend you dont exist. I as the girl was the scapegoat for what was in reality a very unhappy marriage but in those days and among my father’s kind divorce was not an option. I suffered some physical abuse also—I didn’t understand I was the scapegoat as a child but as an adult I could see the dynamics and understand why I was singled out more than my brother as the problem child–two scapegoats would have been one too many, been less believable that we both problems and it also had the advantage of separating me from my brother so he keep more favorable treatment and his neglect was more benign and he was no protector of me in order to keep his better place, as pitiful and minor as it was. He also did not suffer the physical abuse from our stepmother and father that I did. Hardly a day or week passed that my stepmother did not ‘set my father on me’ for some infraction I had committed–it could be anything–I was playing in the garage and stepped on some screens and bent them or I had used ‘her’ tea cups to serve tea to some guest. The worst of the worst was she killed my pets, she would not allow our Chinese pugs to sleep even in the garage where they could curl up next the furnace in the winter. One morning when I went to feed them before I went to school I found them frozen to death. A that moment I developed a burning hatred of this woman and how I escaped being one of those teenagers who takes a shot gun and blows her stepmothers brains out I don’t know. But it also created a burning desire for justice that has given me several ‘justice causes for others thru out my life.
I fought it however and in fighting it I became hard and excelled—best student, best camper, best this and that, was welcomed in my childhood friends families as one of them and that acceptance was a major saving grace for me—but for children even that never compensates for the lack of love from those who are really suppose to love you and don’t.

Two things I want to tell young adults who were unloved or abused LET THEM GO –let the People who abused and didn’t love you go. Just let them go–divorce them, don’t cling to the possibility that you can make them care–ever. You don’t have to be hostile–just be absent…live your life without them. Most them know what they did and as you become an adult they become afraid of what you can tell about your childhood and them and also of what your childhood friends
who as adults now recognize what was going on with you was actually abuse.
They will avoid avoid avoid any mention of the past – now their cover ups and scapegoatng of you has become too fragile—its not
standing the test of time as you and those childhood friend mature, have their own children and remember/see how it really was with you.

Trust me most of them know what they did—my father actually called me in Hilton Head the first night of my honeymoon and asked me if I was telling my husband what a bad father he was—that says it all. If I had done that right off the bat—explained it all re my family or non family and been honest I would likely never have lost my marriage

That is the second thing I want to tell and warn young adults about–especially as it can affect their marriage—is many of us try to cover our childhood horrors up–we don’t want to admit that we weren’t loved or we were abused, particularly those of us from so called very respectable families, pillars of the community.
Even though we may rationally “know” the fault was theirs not ours it is somehow embarrassing –we don’t want other people or a spouse , who we want to ‘value us” to know that we weren’t valued —or they may not value us either. So even in an intimate relationship or with a hoped for life partner we mostly don’t tell.
The result of that not telling, along with the independence trait is that other person never ever really ‘knows’ you. They will never know where some of your emotional fault lines that the deprived child has as an adult comes from. In my case I am sure the failure of my marriage stemmed from wanting my husband to supply or ‘make up for’ all the love and attention I hadn’t gotten. When your loved one doesn’t understand your often whip lashing between expecting too much and then going into coolness or silent or in a huff and then being too independent they cant possibly figure it out. You are expecting them to love you thru the ‘Iron Wall’ you have erected around yourself to avoid rejection and possible humiliation if they knew your secret scars and wounds.

So my advice to all young people out there is first –Divorce the people who wronged you and then tell it to who ever you love and/or marry—tell it all, every feeling and how it still haunts you. I never told and I should have–I didn’t want my love to think anyone had ever found me worthless and unlovable least he suspect I wasn’t either. No one can really love and cherish you unless they truly know you, know your fears and even embarrassments ,assuming you are good person to begin with. And you will never feel secure and overcome your childhood ghost unless you tell him/her and she/he accepts and understands the real you.

This is the most important things I could tell other un-loved as they become adults—if they don’t tell/share that part of their lives that still has so much influence on their attitudes and fears they risk their loved one and wind up living all their lives in the same loneliness they lived as a child.

Tell it and then forget it—walk toward the light as they say=–and away from the past.

Hi Sophie…I found the secret was to love myself..not in a narcissistic way, but actually to realise not one of us is a failure. We are all aspects of the Divine Principle and it never designed a failure…Unless you think thats a failing ..lol …If you can begin to love yourself,and value yourself, you project that into the environment and that and life begins to reflect it. Esho funi…Not here to sell Buddhism per se but a sound spiritual practice creates the opportunity to be a co creator with the Divine and create happiness in whatever form you need…This often comes in the form of letting go of old habits, like self criticism and the pain of those less than perfect days..Yes forgiveness is an aspect of the Divinity, and letting go of the pain body actually creates space into which a wealth of positive riches arrives to replace it. I do actually pray for both my mum and dad, silly….kas .
As for walking alone, it seems like that, but thats a tricky illusion created by our ego systems. Course we all gotta have one of those ,I gave mine the admin/ business manager job to keep it quiet, while me and the Buddha steer the ship…which occasionally lands on the rocks, but hey ho, I might get lucky and fall in love wi one of those pretty islanders…As for lonely sadness,we can get separated from the Great Loving Principle by not realising we are in it in the same way that we might say we can’t find the wood because there are too many trees in the way…Anys Love n Light n Warmiies to Y’all…Beauty sleep is a calling…

I came to this website looking for self help articles, and immediately this stood out. I am a very caring person, although I don’t seem to have friends I can talk to anymore, and my husband invalidates me as much as my Mother did. I went about life for years, as if my childhood didn’t matter. I was everything your article described. I pretended I was loved, even if I didn’t feel it. But now, for some reason, in my 50s memories of this emotional neglect are taking over. As much as I want to, I can’t forgive my Mother. She has never talked about her shortcomings, and I don’t think she would believe she did anything wrong. If she even has a hint that she was emotionally neglectful, I know she would blame me, and I know, It wasn’t my fault. So any healing there is, if there is hope will have to be done entirely on my own. Sad..as everything as been on my own my whole life.

My thoughts and heart go out to “y’all”…and keep up the good fight..I’m 70 plus and discovered the horrors of my early childhood by accident.That was blanked by memory loss as a result of what can euphemistically be described as a near death experience…When the tale unfolded, I did take some therapy, but my lifetime of covering up the inner foment kinda fooled everyone including me, so it took a real fall from grace in 2008 some ten years later to jolt me into another perspective, and then I had to reach back in time and also inwards to learn to love and understand the badly hurt child which was the father of this man. Well we made it, and its been a damn fine journey towards self actualisation..Oh big words I prefer Lenny Cohen’s..Going clear..My case could be described as victims PTSD followed by neglect, and the timing of it in the first three years of a child’s life meant, according to the books, no-way Jose..Cant find an acute “e” lol,.However my name is Ian and I refused to give in and got proper self worth back in 2015 …I’m of the PD Ouspensky mould, i.e. each person is their own psychologist, but with add ins like TA and NLP…or any other psychobabble brick to throw at the demons..lol..Good part of my attitude is Buddhism and a distinct tendency towards sanguinity except that is no longer a superficial layer…Its from my core…Love Light n Laughter..and Success on your journey…Cheers Ian

Hi Jonice

There is one effect of childhood emotional neglect. You may not know about. That is emotional deprivation disorder identified by Dr. Conrad Baars in the 1980s. It basically means the impossibility of being able to feel anything for anyone or anything which is what I suffer from. Very often, as in my case, it leads to depression and anxiety. The answer that was found by Dr. Baars was affirmation therapy. Basically giving the client. The love that he did not receive growing up. All of the symptoms of this disorder are listed on Dr. Baars website. I am now 72 and still dealing with the effects of this disorder. Among other things, it is found to delay cognitive development, something I experienced an increase in my late 60s, when depression and anxiety, had eased up a bit. You are sincerely Francis McKenna

I too am a product of CEN, which was horrible growing up. I so wanted my parents to listen and understand me, but they had their own ideas of how I should think, act, be. I was physically abused for not conforming to their standards. Now that I am a mom, I can see the effects CEN had on me and I think I am stronger for it. My daughter will always be heard, regardless of what I think. She will never be hit because she disagrees with me and I will always be here to guide her in her life. I do agree with the article that there are some positives that can come out of CEN. While it doesn’t happen for everyone, I believe it’s happened for me.

To Lisa: Thanks for paying attention to my post. that “secret letter from a inner child to his therapist.” Do not try to find it on the web. You won’t find it. It is a real personal and intimate letter of mine, to a real therapist, mine therapist, showing what my inner child deeply feels meeting with him. And ,,I” am real, living in East Europe, living all my life thinking that I could live as being invisible, till now, when I found the crazy courage to share this feelings with you all making myself visible to you or whoever rezonate with the feeling in my text.
Dear Lisa, the same with you, I’m in therapy and working on healing the emotional neglect by my mother(and father) that I grew up with, and still struggle with my adult-adult relationship to her.
Good to you

Most of your articles comfort me, but this one frightened me! I’m not entirely clear about why I feel afraid when I read this!
Maybe some of it hit too close to home.

I completely agree with Warrior, above. That is who I have become. It’s often counterproductive. I really don’t like who I am, and my relationships have reflected that.

Jonice, you are amazingly tuned in to the effects of CEN. Although I lived in it, I still can’t articulate the experience’s general effects. I’m grateful that you can! Thank you for your weekly newsletter, which I adore! Love to all. ~~ suzanne

Thank you for your article. I was stabbed by my abusive mother at 12, and ran away and lived in a field for weeks. I ended up in a detention home despite the fact she stabbed me. This would probably not happen today.
To say the very least my childhood was not happy. However, I have learned to be a happy adult and I do focus on all the strengths you’ve mentioned. Life is unfair and life is a mystery but keeping hope in your heart and having compassion for others can make all the difference. I wish everyone here the best.

Numbers 1, 2 and 3 of this article are me. Nunbers 4 and 5 are not me. I think that is because I am an extreme introvert and don’t come across to people as loveable. I am easily manipulated to the point of having to finally escape. My three best friends of my life all took advantage of me, often with quite elaborate schemes. I am age 74 now and haven’t been able to make many adjustments, and I get angry when I am controlled now. I am attracted to narcissistic personalities, and it wasn’t until about five years ago I became aware of this. I feel like I have to watch out for this with every person I come into contact with. And even then I realize I was hoodwinked on occasion once I discovered yet another narcissist. It is easier staying away from people. I live in an RV in a beautiful coastal town so I enjoy the beaches and mild weather.

Dear Jonice,

I am a Scottish lady who grew up with a violent and sadistic alcoholic father and an envious, jealous and traumatized mother who stayed in the marriage for 24 years before leaving. By that time I was 18 years old. Dad was a very intelligent and knowledgable man who was consumed by the addiction/ illness of alcoholism. He always worked hard but spent his wages on the drink, smoking and gambling. Mum took over the role of bread winner and worked hard to put a roof over our heads to feed and cloth her two daughters… myself and my sister. My physical needs were met but I too was traumatized and emotionally neglected. Though I didn’t have any awareness of this until I was well into adulthood.

My sister was mum and dad’s beloved child. I was the unplanned pregnancy whom they both resented. My sister learned to treat me in the same cruel way as dad did and grew up to be a carbon copy of the worst parts of both parents. Both my dad and sister were very cruel to me. I was hit, kicked downstairs, punched in the head, beaten until my little body was black and blue and told that I was useless, worthless and that I would amount to nothing in life and that I was unlovable and no one in their right mind would love me. On the other had my sister was favored and she learned to manipulate both parents and twist them around her little finger. The good child and bad child scenario was set up from the day I was born. I became the families scapegoat…the dumping ground for mother’s guilt and shame and father’s wicked resentment toward me. My sister followed suit.

Today I am a 65 year old woman who is now in the final third age of my life. I have been divorced twice from men who have controlled me and were abusive… who said they loved me but at the same time had affairs and deceived me in the most despicable way. I went through the painful agony of betrayal and ended up feeling like a total failure as a human being which fed right into a false believe about myself. I believed that I was humanly flawed and accepted the blame for their wrong doings. I am three decades into my third marriage which has been a living hell at times Another controller who is a mix of the worst aspects of my family… a nasty bully who lies compulsively and is and adulterer too.

From the day I was born I was destined to play out the painful legacy given to me from a seriously abusive and dysfunctional family. I’ve suffered on all levels. However, I have come to learn so much both from experience, therapy and reading a multitude of books trying to find out what was so bad about ME as a person. Recent articles about childhood emotional abuse rang of the truths that I needed to hear decades ago. Truths that would have helped me enormously in gaining understanding about who I am as a person and putting to bed the brainwashed believe that it is “I” who is a horrible and flawed human being.

Your article today not only describes me to a T but, also shines a light on the truth. I am who I have become but I now know that I am a good person who has sacrificed myself for others needs and wants because I didn’t know that I too had needs, wants and rights. The right to be heard and not invalidated. The right to express my feelings and the right to be the person that I really am. Warts and all. I’m still on a journey of getting to know myself… I mean the real me!

Thank you Jonice for publishing your articles. They have shone a light on the truth and guide me along my journey.

Love the article, its so me as well. I would like to share an article that, of all people, my mother recently sent me and said it is totally me. I find it ironic because I feel that my CEN is why I am what Psychologist Elaine Aron writes about in her book, The Highly Sensitive Person, and my mother was the main source of my CEN. I have a friend that also suffers from CEN and when I shared the article with him, his jaw hit the floor. We both found the article very interesting so I thought I would share to see if others feel that they are a Highly Sensitive Person and that maybe their CEN contributed as well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roya-r-rad-ma-psyd/highly-sensitive-people_b_1286508.html.

This is soooo me! It’s actually a relief to see that this is really a “thing”. In the last few years I have attempted to start to turn this around…I have started to ask for certain things and to reach out to others for assistance because I have been told that others need to feel like you NEED them and they have done nothing but disappoint me. I was ridiculed as a kid by my father and brother if I showed any emotions, so I hid them. Now that I try to show some weakness and ask for help, people still step up, so I go back to the same old routine. At least I know I can count on myself and won’t be disappointed.

Wow…this is SO me. Thank you for such an insightful article and validation.

To WhoAmI?: Thanks for sharing that “secret letter from a inner child to his therapist.” Wow. I’m going to try to find it on the web.

To Jonice Webb PhD: Thanks for a beautifully written article. I’m in therapy and working on healing the emotional neglect by my mother that I grew up with, and still struggle with my adult-adult relationship to her. I was really touched by your words. Almost everything you wrote definitely applied to me. It’s nice that someone knows and sees our strengths.

CEN is what I’ve struggled with all my years and I’m now in my 60’s. When I was mid 40’s I was told by a psychologist I had Borderline Personality Disorder and I’m an introvert. I’ve known since I was a young child that something was not right. I am the oldest of 4. I recall begging my mother to talk to me …. just talk. I was nieve,bullied at school, tormented by my inner dialogue of not being of any worth, lonely – painfully lonely, isolated and just wanting to be like everyone else I knew in school. Today I live a semi reclusive life. I go out once a week to check the mail and go to convenience store. My only companion is a dog. I’ve been married twice, and divorced twice. I have 2 very successful adult children both live far away from me. At this late stage what can I do?????

I’m thrown by this in the most amazingly happy way. My brother and I grew up in a home where we tried to stay out of the fray of the unhappy marriage of our parents. Each point, I was “That is ME” and “THAT IS MY BROTHER!” We are good adults, from families where we have somehow read only that we should grow up beating our children (we never have) and have failed marriages (we don’t) and be horrible people. We are indeed both broken in many ways. For one thing, we fight depression. We feel we can never do well enough for our children, and so spoil them a bit. We always fight for the underdog and stand up for people. (We learned when big enough that our bully father would stand down when we threatened him back, not with hitting but with telling). We have anxiety, about being able to take care of ourselves and who would want to take care of us? We have the best spouses, but not social ones. Because, it’s our job to take care of others, and too many people in our lives causes us an overwhelming need to fix their lives. I THANK YOU SO MUCH, because it makes me feel good….we’re working on this problem of not thinking our voice deserves to be heard. But, it’s good to read this as part of our fear was that just lurking below the surface was this “bad person” we were supposed to grow up to be, as our family neglected us emotionally and at times physically. (Seriously, our parents never looked at our report cards, we had to sing them ourselves. They just weren’t interested. Parent teacher meeting, nope. THEIR endless battle slowly into divorce, they liked the drama, means today our parents comment on how DULL we are, and pathetic. Yes, dull is kind of nice. Because drams of any sort reminds us of hiding under the covers and shivering and wanting the shouting to JUST STOP. They are now happy seniors that wonder how they ever had such boring children, and why they “spoil” their own children so. (who are all now college graduates).

It was true until it wasn’t.

I used not to ask for things, but my career was stagnant. My got reaction is: if I ask for something, it shows that I care for that thing, so they’ll take the little I already have and use it as leverage to get even more from me. So not only was I not asking I would always look like I really couldn’t care less.

If something appeared to me like a necessity, then I would find another job, ask for what I wanted and leave if I couldn’t get it on the 1st try. Sometimes, the other job looked more interesting, so I would not even take the time to ask.

Now I ask. Most people are responsive. Not only do they not take away what I have, they tend to say yes to requests.

I’ve never been generous though. I had little and always managed. I figure once people go hungry a few times too, they’ll have to learn to manage money the way I learned. I’ll give time and advice to those eho care to learn from my experience. Nothing else.

Thank you

In order to survive we had to become whatever the other person needed; never a sense of self and no boundaries.

The strengths can also be liabilities: I seem to be attracted to the MOST needy women, women who, like me, have incredible strengths, but also an endless abyss of emotional hunger. Woman who don’t have that just don’t appeal to me (or rather, they don’t “click” with me, which is different than appealing). I guess it goes doubly for those suffering from CEN: all strengths are simultaneously weaknesses.

I remain without words…
Me, a manager women in my real adult life, wearing high heels, with a trusty and attractive appearance (not me saying this, of course).
Let me share selections from a very intimate secret letter from a inner child to his therapist, written some years ago. (as not being a native English speaker, pls read between words)
What you could be say after these? Who am I, and what supposed to do from now on?

,,I ve practice also, to accept that I was the one I called you to come. Even I should prefer NOT to do that.

I’m there, inside, inside down, hidden in a corner of myself, and I didn’t expect anyone. I’m impressed that you knew I was there, I’m impressed that you get there and found ,,me’’, knocking at the door, prudently.
I ve practice to accept your kindness, your warm.
I m here, inside, inside down, hidden in a corner, a piece of my own. An old one. I’ve remain here, the same as I was then, when my life seems to stopped, but it wasn’ t. I was too young, too unprepared, too sensitive, too scared, without any support, without knew something about real life, not frightened, but terrified to try it.

So, after all, you’ve found me. I was sitting down with my head on my knees, covered with my arms. I’m small, and young, and weak. I don’t want to see me like this.

I talked to you through the door. Trying to tell you why ,,I’’ am here. But more than anything, trying to tell you I’m OK in this way I organized my way to be, that I am able to sustain myself very well from now on in the same manner. That I am so confortable with it. I wanted you to know, as all the rest, that I am OK, there is nothing to worry about.
I don’t need help, don’t need compassion, don’t need sympathy. No I don’t want any of that!!!!!!! FROM NO ONE!!

But today the door was opened. You are standing. I am down. But I ve raised my head up, in a very courageous gest to face you, putting my shield down. I still keep it , not able to throw it away. But if you ‘ll be a little encouraging , I wiil be able to give you my hand, and ask you to pull ,,me’’ out of here.

Yes, that s way I ve called you. I have to face it. Called you to help me. Way It hurts me so much to tell this lauder?
How much courage should I have to walk with you in the way out? Feel this is crazy. I am crying. Im so, so afraid about what I ll find outside. I feel the ,light’ will blind me, and I feel the air will kill me. And I will die.
Feel I will die if I came out and you will leave me there alone.

There, where I left from, there was nothing could harm ,me’. Yes, I remain there, the child, on that point of childhood, so young and unprepared, but with some kind of very strong power.
With sharp attention I looked to the rest of them, to the adults, and not any of them, but the best ones. I wanted to be like them. They became my models to copy. The cleverer ones, the successful ones, the themselves trusted ones, the moral one, the good ones, and so far. I ve chosen best quality . I was blind for the rest of them, having ability to recognize the ones I want to be like.

After that, I push my body to be present in life, in that world ,,me’’ was afraid to be. I remain there , but handling my body like a puppeteer handles a doll. I didn’care at all about my body. I thought that it will has not any needs.

And so, lesson after lesson, for so many years, I succeed to live in that way. With ,,me’’ inside there, became more and more trusting, increasing more and more the my body handling , refining this ability , doing it such better as no one could realize that behind there is a little and unhelpful girl.”

Indeed… So true… ”With their heads held high but their spirits lower than should be, they walk among us. ”…

How do you know these ?!!

I’d just like to say that throughout my adult life, those who have known me forever, say that I am the most forgiving. I appreciate that. Teresa

This article could be all my own words! I was raised in a two parent home. I did not get to see my Dad much as he was a slave to the long hours of his retail job. That business stole my Dad from me during the most important years of my life. My Mom has the mind of a child. She loved babies, and had no idea what to do with us once we were out of diapers. She was a screamer; nothing we did was ever right. Mom was always saying we were driving her crazy, and she was always threatening to run away from home and never come back. Just what a child wants to hear (sarcasm here). I always felt like I didn’t matter with her, my needs and feelings weren’t heard, so I learned to be self reliant while very young. If I didn’t have to rely on anybody else in my life, I couldn’t possibly hurt anymore from feeling rejected. This article hit so very close to home with me, and explains a LOT about who I am today. For once in my life….I feel understood!

Another touching article by you! You catch it all, and at no 4 I froze – this is what have destroyed my last 11 years in my relationship. It´s my own fault, I just didn’t knew what I was doing. I still can’t, I had to divorce to be able to do things the way I want them. The scariest thing is I didn’t even knew how I wanted things to be. I still dont. What food do I like? Am I a morning person or not? What colors do I like? Every day I discover things and wonder, why didn’t I do this before? And the answer is the same every time: Because he didn’t like that. Not that he forbid me, he would never ever do anything to stop me from being me, but I did. I adapted totally. He is the nicest and most loving person one could ever meet, but I cannot stay since I am not strong enough to change my old patterns in that life.

The last part of your article I read through very fast and I even skipped some parts. It’s just to scary, I’m to frightened to read it. It cannot be true. I can’t do that. No, those words are way to scary to be read in a speed that allows the brain to understand them. Fast forward…

Well, I have a really patient therapist who I know won’t ever give up on me. I felt that she was my last chance in life, and as the months has become years I realize how correct I was. Lucky me that got a last chance to a real life, a life with feelings (although I still really hate them and cannot see any point of having them…) and most of all, without that endless, destructive dark hole inside of me. I had given up long ago, accepted that life would always be like that, and I still cannot really believe it is true – theres is light in life. Life can be easy, it is possible to walk with light and happy steps.

Thank you for spreading words that are so important to CENs to read! You really help and give hope (even when you write those scaring words like “love yourself”).