What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?
Is life good, but there just feels like something is missing?
This writer and her life-changing book ‘Running on Empty’ opened my eyes to a whole new way to consider what some clients have lived through and the reasons they now feel the way they do as adults.
It was a jaw dropping moment when I read this book. She described things I knew and had previously analysed in detail but the book brought it all together – a bit like looking at a jigsaw puzzle, after hours of building it and knowing what it would look like, but still were amazed once you had finished it! We all know now what happens to us in our childhood has an impact on us as adults. Well, Jonice and her book explore this world in detail, providing so many people worldwide with those lightbulb moments.
Jonice Webb is a recognised psychology expert with over 25 years of experience, and the author of the best-selling books Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect and Running On Empty No More: Transform Your Relationships With Your Partner, Your Parents & Your Children. Her goals are focused on giving back people a fulfilling and connected life and help people become aware of Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN).
Jonice describes it best as ‘Emotional Neglect is a parent’s failure to respond enough to a child’s emotional needs. Emotional Neglect is, in some ways, the opposite of mistreatment and abuse. Whereas mistreatment and abuse are parental acts, Emotional Neglect is a parent’s failure to act. It’s a failure to notice, attend to, or respond appropriately to a child’s feelings. Because it’s an act of omission, it’s not visible, noticeable or memorable.’
Emptiness
Lack of fulfilment
Feeling of disconnection
So many of my clients can relate to CEN and their initial puzzled look changes to a lightbulb moment when I mention and we explore those three feelings:
Often they cannot explain the reason for having these 3 feelings. What a weight off when a client realises all these feelings that have been lingering for most of adulthood and making no sense for soooooo long may not actually be their fault and most importantly can be changed! These moments can be revolutionary!
It’s not a type of abuse that people clearly relate to themselves, its like that silent abuse that sneaks in the night (over generations of families) and one day rears its ugly head if discovered. So it’s hard to realise or relate it to you, unless someone in your life carefully shows you these feelings may be yours but they are not your fault and here’s why……..
CEN can be present in a childhood that had a nice house, in a nice neighbourhood. A childhood that looked fine from the outside and parents were genuinely doing their best. However, one crucial ingredient in their childhood was missing and that was that their emotions were neglected. Here’s a hint. Was there laughter in your household? Was there sadness? Was there anger? Were you allowed to say how you felt and talk about how you felt? Did you parents tell you how they were feeling? If the answer was no to all those questions, maybe you may have experienced CEN.
Now this is not another blog blaming parents, I know many a parent is out there doing their very best and bringing up their kids just like they were brought up. They cannot give their children something they never had themselves. They were never given those skills from their parents and so the cycle carries on down the generations missing that emotional skill set. That is why Jonice decides to clearly call it WMBNT – well-meaning-but-neglected-themselves-parents.
They too likely had their emotions ignored and find it hard to show real emotions or even tolerate them. Jonice also places these parents into categories in her ‘Running on Empty’ book and most interestingly then provides some inspirational case studies of what the child in that category may experience/struggle with as an adult. I can also testify that some clients who have strongly seen themselves in these case studies have said things like ‘it was like someone was in my head and then explained what was going on and saying it out loud in a way I never could’. However, in more brief articles from Jonice Webb she categorises these parents into ‘Struggling, Physically present/emotionally absent and achievement orientated parents’. I won’t go into detail of the three categories as I’m sure you can figure out or relate to one of these already. But importantly each of these parents in each of these categories all felt they were doing their best and were coming from a place of love. They are all human and they were all doing what they were innately programmed to do, be the parent they knew how to be.
Good news alert!! The good news is if you are thinking ‘I can relate to all this, but now what do I do?’ Well firstly I would consider doing some research into CEN – this website may help to get you started - https://drjonicewebb.com. And once content with this, and you are aware this is what happened to you in your childhood, then you can begin to change your interactions with your family and the people you care about in your life. This can be done with a little help from the book ‘Running on Empty’ and her other books. Or if open to counselling, you can explore your CEN with a counsellor in a really safe and non-judgemental environment and together work on how to move forward with changes. Again, I can help you with this by offering offer my services – www.aberdeenbesspokecounselling.co.uk. I hope you have learned something about CEN and if you feel you want to take that step into your CEN world then I can be there with you while you do it.