Comments on: Why Understanding What Makes You Feel Emotionally Numb Is The First Step To Feeling Again

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sun, 13 Feb 2022 23:01:33 +0000

My abuse in childhood was severe. Physical, emotional, and sexual. At 11, we got away and mom went to work and trying to find her next husband. I began drugs and alcohol. Fast forward to my late 20s, I got clean/sober. Was getting my nursing degree. Also got married and we had our first child. A son. He died in a moses basket when he was 33 days old. A year after his funeral we had a daughter. 2 years after, twin daughters. Right after the twins 2nd birthday, my husband died from cancer. Whatever had not already shut down in me, shut down. That has been almost 25yrs ago. I am still trying to find my way out of this darkness. Since the girls all went to college(8-9yrs ago). I have continously sunk further into depression and isolation. But I am still trying to claw my way out and try to have some sort of life before I die. I will be 58 this year.
While not having hope for myself, your book gives me hope that my daughters will be able to heal from all I wasn’t able to say or do. I have 1 daughter picking it up from the library tomorrow. I’m hoping to reach the other 2 with this when they are ready.
Thank you !!!!!!
Thank you for your books.
Lisa

By: Jonice

Jonice — Mon, 27 Sep 2021 00:40:08 +0000

In reply to Sandy. I'm so sorry, Sandy. That is very wrong. I hope you'll be able to give your own feelings the attention and care that they deserve.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Sun, 26 Sep 2021 03:13:21 +0000

Not only were my feelings ignored, They were laughed at.

By: Jonice

Jonice — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 21:16:59 +0000

In reply to Jenni. Dear Jenni, please do find a CEN Therapist near you. See the Find a CEN Therapist List in the resources of this website.

By: Jenni

Jenni — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 11:39:54 +0000

I’ve been going to therapy for 2 years and I can’t seem to pinpoint what is wrong but I keep telling my therapist I feel like I have a wall. I am struggling terribly to feel love or feelings of goodness but I do have a lot of anger and negativity. I feel consumed by it. It is driving my husband and kids away but I can’t seem to stop. It’s like I’m on this path of destruction and I won’t be happy until I’ve destroyed everything.
I grew up pretty strict religiously and homeschooled. I remember when I was 16 and my dad took us on vacation and then told us that we would not be back at our church and he was starting his own church. We had no voice in the matter and this upset me so much, but I had to go along and be the good daughter. Also, happy emotions were squashed regularly in our home. Christians who were too happy were deemed fake. I’m 42 years old…I’m honestly married to an incredible man who puts up with a lot but I’m pushing him away at a high rate. Why am I still struggling with my crap.

By: Jennifer Bradshaw

Jennifer Bradshaw — Mon, 21 Jan 2019 06:01:22 +0000

I am undergoing therapy for CEN and the pain of not only my emotions but the relationship with my therapist is immense. I think I am frightened of both what he says and what he doesn’t say. I end up in panic about each session and long after them. Sometimes the panic is overwhelming. Relationships with others have improved tremendously and I feel less alone, but I could do with more close friends so am going to have to cope with more pain and terror of disclosure. I find it impossible to completely accept how limited my emotional up bring was. I can’t even tell when I am hungry or thirsty. Pain was another sensation that was opaque to me until recently

By: C.

C. — Mon, 21 Jan 2019 05:09:11 +0000

I knew something was off with me…and im noticing alot at work especially the past tow years. The people i work with notice…we work in preschool. They call me cold…..they ask me why im like this….

By: Karen Malone

Karen Malone — Mon, 21 Jan 2019 02:11:09 +0000

I am a babyboomer born to a mother born in 1924
who was emotionally im-mature rejected by her own mother and grew up with much neglect herself.
Expecting her own child to
fill her emptiness and everything she missed from her own family. She had no clue how to parent
than the man in the moon! She always said to me that i never responded
to her. I was the first grandchild on her side and didnt know a stranger. I feel she was jealous of the attention i
Received from the family
and strangers! I no doubt
Sensed early on her neediness and unconsciously was driven
To fill it somehow. It must have caused anger in me .
I also had a hard birth with an older female doc
Who must have been a ‘b’.
There was alot of drama before during and after my birth. Time goes on
and i developed anger
Personality clahes with her from as early as i can
remember. I began not coming home for lun h from the playground. Home was a moble home with a walkthru bedroom. It was lonely and soooo boring. My dad began traveling in his work. This evoked anger he was leaving me with her. This started when i was 4! School was horrid for me.
Couldn’t understand concepts!! By the time i was in 9-12th grades my personality got me thru. I was well liked and popular. Was voted best dressed of the senior class. Ever since 8 yrs old
I told my mom i didnt feel
like i was really here. Of course that continued and the haunting question always was whats wrong with me?? Why do i feelike
Im different from everyone else?? The questions ive read on this site! AT 17 I Met my husband. We married 3 yrs later. He was from another state. Ironically we were raised very similarly. He also being an emotionally immature person. We came thru many ups and downs crisises, deaths, devastating house fire, caretaking of his parents and my mom after my father dropped dead of a massive heart attack. We had to do yhe very worst thing for me was to move in with my mom because she couldnt function without my dad. She had no income and had a house to pay for. As a young couple with a 13mo old little girl we had his parents whose fTher had parkinsons and a very emotionally immature demanding mother a d my mother who was dependant on me as well.
The only way i got thru this mess was because i was numb. But depression
would soon take its toll and i had had a split in my personality yrs prior. The repressed anger would explode at times!!! Yrs and yrs later had to bring my mom into live w us after having had cardiac arrest.
While i was growing up and after she would say youve had a charmed life.
You dont know how hard i had i growing up! Of course having CEN that fed my guilt and whatever
multitude of other things.
I failed to mention we were only children. After our daughter married brought mom into live w us. That evoked jealousy and resentment from my mother in law!! Always drama from her! I finally had a breakdown with major deep depression that lasted 8 yrs. Refused
treatment and medication. I learned later
i didnt feel worthy of treatment. At the end of the 8 yrs i landed in the hospital for a month. Came home to find out my husband had a girlfriend! This behavior continued for the next 10 yrs on and off. During 17-18 He was running around
With a woman from work
lying his way thru the whole time! This past April
he left me a letter confessing. He was 70 and she is 55. He never tried to win back my trust from yrs prior. He just didnt want to! We have lived as housemates w him living a double life in front of me, our children, grandchildren, close friends, work associates.
Because of his history the kids were shocked but not
Surprised. In reality i know
that im better off w/o him.
We were married for 48 yrs. CEN interwoven through all my life. When I first read about CEN it was so profound!! Still is.
Looking forward to learning more. Thank you!!

By: Jonice

Jonice — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 14:28:13 +0000

In reply to Ellen. Dear Ellen, people with CEN often assume everyone feels as they do. I think CEN is very common but there are many people who answer NO to most of those questions. My goal is to make it far more. Take care!

By: Ellen

Ellen — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 13:06:41 +0000

I’m a woman in my 50s and have just come out of a long period of complicated grief, after having lost my elder brother and my spouse within a year of each other. It’s been 3 years now, but I seem unable to shake a lingering serious depression, sense of isolation, and feelings of emptiness about my my life now and my potential for the future.

Researching and finding the CEN connection seemed to open my eyes to what lies behind my lifelong dysthymia, substance abuse (now recovered from) and perpetual avoidance of others. I scored nearly 100% on the CEN “quiz”.

And so I shared it with my younger brother, also in his 50s and his response was that he thinks almost everybody would score high on this survey. I think maybe it’s because our “everybody” includes a circle of friends who share a similar psychology and thus is why we’re attracted to them. (I know that almost all my relationships with men over the years, including a 17 year marriage, have been with narcissists, my husband being one of the most severe, so I know that the attraction factor is an important one.)

But is my brother correct? How common is CEN?

I’m so sad that I didn’t make this connection earlier in my life before I likely damaged my own beautiful children.)