Childhood Emotional Neglect leaves invisible wounds. Many suffer from this without knowing why. Healing isn’t on their mind because they’re unaware this wound is theirs.
This was the truth in my case until my counselor revealed, and validated the wound, and I began to heal. Still, she wasn’t aware of the term Childhood Emotional Neglect (aka CEN).
I learned about Childhood Emotional Neglect from the book Running On Empty by Dr. Jonice Webb.
The term is new to me and I’m not alone. I polled a group of people asking if they knew what CEN or Childhood Emotional Neglect was and 2/3 of them didn’t know or had never heard of it. This is a problem.
The phenomenon called CEN is more prevalent than the world is aware of.
CEN is not caused by lack of perfection in parents. Share on X
WHAT CAUSES CEN?
Before we look at the cause of CEN, I want to make sure you understand that Dr. Webb goes to great lengths in her book to comfort you in your humanity. She constantly reminds the reader that no parent is perfect.
Are you a parent? Take a breath. You don’t have to be perfect.
CEN is not caused by lack of perfection in parents.
Also, it’s important to note that CEN can be overcome.
CEN and its effects are reversible.
As defined by Dr. Webb:
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. Emotional Neglect is the white space in the family picture; the background rather than the foreground. It is insidious and overlooked while it does its silent damage to people’s lives.*
CEN is invisibly wreaking havoc in countless people’s lives.
HOW DOES CEN TAKE PLACE?
- In the case of abuse, a person remembers what did happen—yelling, hitting, being violated.
- In the case of physical neglect, a person remembers what they did need and didn’t get—food, shelter, clothing.
- But in the case of emotional neglect, the main issue is a person doesn’t remember what didn’t happen.
Because of this, trauma silently occurs—because what was needed never took place.
There’s a void where an unknown need exists.
A prevalent side effect is feeling numb where there ought to be emotions, and the subsequent thought, “what’s wrong with me?”
I knew this feeling, and the subsequent thought, from my own experience. What about you?
CEN is not something we remember because it’s something that isn’t there.
Healing requires taking courage to see the hole the lack of nurture left behind. Share on X
HOW DO YOU HEAL THE INVISIBLE?
We cannot fight what we don’t know. We cannot see what isn’t there.
We cannot heal an invisible wound until we make it visible.
CEN is a type of trauma. It requires the same type of attention to heal as visible and remembered trauma.
Trauma is personal. It does not disappear if it is not validated. When it is ignored or invalidated the silent screams continue internally heard only by the one held captive. When someone enters the pain and hears the screams healing can begin.― Danielle Bernock, Emerging With Wings: A True Story of Lies, Pain, And The LOVE that Heals
CEN brought to the light can open a new way to build what went missing.
There is no shame in being a sufferer of CEN. What didn’t happen to you had nothing to do with you, but you can change your story going forward by entering your own pain.
Healing requires taking courage to see the hole the lack of nurture left behind.
HOW DO YOU IDENTIFY CEN?
How do you see what isn’t there?
I must start with, this article is not exhaustive and I am not a clinical psychologist. Seek professional help if you need it. I have had professional help and there is no shame in it.
How is a person supposed to know what is emotionally missing from their lives and if they suffer CEN?
The following “themes” (as Dr. Webb calls them) are just some of the identifying things you may see in your life if you’re suffering from CEN.
- Feelings of Emptiness
- Counter-dependence
- Unrealistic Self-Appraisal
- No Compassion for Self, Plenty for Others
- Guilt and Shame: What is Wrong with Me?
- Self-Directed Anger, Self-Blame
- The Fatal Flaw (If People Really Know Me They Won’t Like Me)
- Difficulty Nurturing Self and Others
- Poor Self-Discipline
- Alexithymia: Poor Awareness and Understanding of Emotions
How many of those can you relate to?
To be completely transparent, before I went through counseling for the trauma I knew I had (because I was unaware of CEN), I could relate to all ten of those.
It’s by recognizing the symptoms of CEN in your life you can take action to overcome.
Emotional nurture matters. Share on X
TWELVE WAYS IT HAPPENS
In Dr. Webb’s book, she identifies twelve different parent types that cause CEN. As Dr. Webb elaborated on the different parents, telling stories using detailed examples, I saw what wasn’t there.
There are some parents who are malicious, while others are not.
Out of the twelve types Dr. Webb elaborates on, she believes one category to be the largest. I see myself in that one and two others as well.
I’ve marveled as I’ve watched my children emotionally nurture my grandchildren and then internally sat like a dog tilting it’s head hearing a strange noise – wondering what was happening as I saw them do this.
I somehow knew what my children were doing was good, but I didn’t understand, it was so foreign to me.
Then I read Running on Empty.
How did they learn such emotional skills? By the grace of God alone nurtured them more than I understood.
I was never asked how I felt about things and I was never emotionally nurtured like I watch my children nurture my grandkids. My heart swells with gratitude.
My parents fell into two of the 12 categories Dr. Webb illustrated in her book. My mother fell into a third. The third one being The Bereaved Parent after my father died. Looking back I see, and I understand. But as a child I didn’t. I was simply wounded.
Dr. Webb is careful to say that not all bereaved parents emotionally neglect their children. Her examples illustrate the difference well.
The primary category I see my parents, and myself in, is what Dr. Webb calls The Well-Meaning-but-Neglected-Themselves Parent.
Well-meaning. I love that.
When I wrote my book Emerging With Wings I struggled so much with the issue of having suffered harm from my parents lack of emotional nurture, because I saw no malice.
- I felt so guilty owning the pain and its origin.
- I felt the CEN, but it had no name.
- I felt the gaping hole, but didn’t understand.
- I felt I was condemning my parents by owning the truth.
The harm was evident, but so was the lack of malice.
This is something CEN illuminates. No malice ≠ No harm in the well-meaning parents category.
Most parents want to do right by their child and what is enough is subjective.
EMOTIONAL NURTURE MATTERS
Our emotions are important. Somehow I’ve always known this.
- Even when mine were squashed under negative words of “too sensitive” and “too emotional”.
- Even when oppressive religion tried to teach me that emotions are dangerous like monsters or the devil.
By the grace of God, I emotionally survived and now I’m learning to emotionally thrive.
Our emotions are part of us and need to be processed in a healthy way.
Emotions are not the end-all. We are more than just them, but God gave them to us on purpose and we need to learn the skills to use them like He designed.
Emotions are a gift to cherish and enjoy.
TAKE ACTION
- Books to start you on your journey to heal:
- Take this Free assessment
- Go deeper with my 12 week course Heal Your Childhood S.E.L.F.
