Well. I stupidly thought someone might care and reach out to me. Once again my voice unheard.

And…….it’s NEVER TOO LATE….

Don,
What a beautiful story. I had tears running down my face reading your post. I find myself always in that helper role, It is so difficult to be the one who needs help. I have found the same relationship (as you and your neighbor) with only one person on this earth, one of my nieces. We both have CEN, and have this sixth sense of understanding about each other. It is the most wonderful thing there is! You sound like a great person, to your core. She is one lucky woman to have you for a neighbor, and now a friend. This world so desperately needs people like you! Any houses for sale on your street?
Sincerely, Kim

Dear Don, what a tragic but beautiful story. It is amazing how powerful our walls can be, and how incredible it can be once we break through them. I am so glad you and your neighbor have made something healthy out of a very hard situation. I hope you’ll now try to let others in as well. All my best wishes to you.

Dear Ann, now that you have this information, it’s not too late to reach out to your daughter. I hope you will try to connect with her and repair this problem. It’s not your fault that you didn’t know!

As a 64 year old male that has not realized what my problem was for sure until I read your book and started to receive your e-mails. My wall separating me from my emotions has been well built and re-enforced over my lifetime. I display all the signs of CEM and live? with the consequences all the time. I am seeing a great therapist who encourages me to come out of my shell and experience life a little at a time and find what works for me. I have found what I hope is the start of the process. My neighbor and her partner. yes she is gay, were involved in a bad car crash just before Christmas. Her partner was seriously injured and my neighbor blames herself for the accident. She stopped at my house to get some air in her tire and totally broke down and cried on my shoulder. I did the only thing I knew and just held her tight and let her cry herself out. She broke through my most unbreakable wall. It was such a rush of caring and empathy that I had never experienced before and never thought that I would never feel in my life. In short her partner recovered although she is still in a wheelchair but my neighbor and I have become very close. Every time we meet it involves a tight hug that keeps chipping away my wall. Even more I discovered through our conversations that she suffers the same issues I do. Having someone to talk to that feels the same way I do is a treasure worth more than anything money can buy. Am I fixed? Not by a long shot but when I feel the despair creeping in I just think of her and it makes it easier. I always thought my case was hopeless but out of the blue this happened. I wish the circumstances were better but it is what it is.Resulting from this I enjoyed one of the best Christmas’s that I have had in a lot of years. My life is a little brighter now. It’s a long way from perfect. I still suffer the effects of my childhood, but I am writing to hopefully give others encouragement that the cycle can be broken, we just need to break out if only a little bit and search for the someone you can depend on for support in you endeavor. You never know where it can come from, but I am proof it does exist.

Thank you for your comment Tyler! I second everything you said. I do think that more and more therapists are seeing the importance of engaging their clients’ emotions and using them, plus actively teaching the emotion skills. But none of that can be done until the client’s wall has been broken down enough to access their emotions in the first place, of course. Also, one note: the secure Rachel wouldn’t need to call Toby a name. She would speak her truth in an emotionally sincere, honest way that would be compassionate to him as well. That would maximize his ability to take in her message. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts with us!

The trouble is that childhood emotional neglect starts at a preverbal stage. A stage that does not understand the seemingly simple concept of time. What was true then is true now regardless of time passed.

For a victim of childhood emotional neglect the neglect you received as a five year old remains just as vivid and fresh now as the decades in which it happened. And this neglect is almost never singular but repeated over and over throughout your young life so by the time you reach your teens it is nearly impossible to believe that your loneliness and alienation and isolation could be any other way. it is part of you in the deepest most timeless sense.

As a victim of incompetent emotional parenting you become hypervigilant to never to be hurt again. Which. of course, precludes any of the vulnerability or spontaneity necessary for happy and secure relationships.

The challenge for therapists is that you have to be as comfortable and feel as safe to engage a client’s emotional awakening as you do for a patient’s cognitive awakening. Without the two together and as one your treatment is temporary and weak at best.