Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect

Emotionally neglected people tend to be good listeners. But they are not good at talking, especially about themselves.

the single most reliable indicator that you’re dealing with a sociopath is when a person appears to purposely hurt you and then proceeds normally as if they did nothing wrong, and as if you should not be hurt.

A primary rule of assertiveness is that anyone has the right to ask you for anything; and you have the equal right to say no, without giving a reason.

It refers to the drive to need no one, or more specifically, the fear of being dependent. Counter-dependent people go to great lengths to avoid asking for help, to not appear, or feel, needy. They will make every effort not to rely on another person, even at their own great expense.

It’s hard to see that what’s NOT THERE can be more important than what IS there.

Narcissistic parents don’t really recognize their children as people separate from them. Instead, they see their children as little extensions of themselves. The needs of the child are defined by the needs of the parent, and the child who tries to express his needs is often accused of being selfish or inconsiderate.

It is entirely possible for a parent who loves and wants the best for his child to emotionally neglect her. The truth is, to love your child is a very different thing from being in tune with your child. For healthy development, loving a child just isn’t enough. For a parent to be in tune with his child, he must be a person who is aware of and understands emotions in general. He must be observant so that he can see what his child can and can’t do as he develops. And he must be willing and able to put in the effort and energy required to truly know his child. A well-meaning parent who lacks in any one of these areas is at risk of emotionally failing his child.

Although many of us may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically we are feeling creatures that think.” —Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Neuroscientist

Do unto your child as you wish your parents had done unto you.

The magic of feeling better and coping better lies in putting words to your feelings and sharing them.

Emotions that are not acknowledged or expressed tend to jumble together and emerge as anger. Eventually, suppressed feelings refuse to stay down. When they do, they erupt as small spurts of irritability that hurt others.

You may have a general sense that you’re missing something that everybody else has, or that you’re on the outside looking in. Something just isn’t right, but it’s hard to name. It makes you feel somehow set apart, disconnected, as if you’re not enjoying life as you should.

When a child’s emotions are not acknowledged or validated by her parents, she can grow up to be unable to do so for herself. As an adult, she may have little tolerance for intense feelings or for any feelings at all. She might bury them, and tend to blame herself for being angry, sad, nervous, frustrated, or even happy. The natural human experience of simply having feelings becomes a source of secret shame. “What is wrong with me?” is a question she may often ask herself.

The fuel of life is feeling. If we’re not filled up in childhood, we must fill ourselves as adults. Otherwise, we will find ourselves running on empty.

But if there is an absence of such validation of a child’s importance to the parent, if a child is made to feel shame for wanting or needing attention from one parent or the other often enough, she will grow up being blind to many of her own emotional needs.

We have a tendency to assume that smart people aren’t emotional people, and emotional people aren’t smart. The reality is that the smartest people are those who use their emotions to help them think and who use their thoughts to manage their emotions. The key is to use emotion in a healthy balanced way. Listen to what your feeling is telling you, and then figure out a way to act upon it to better your situation, your life, or the world around you.

What the narcissistic parent lacks is the ability to imagine or care about what her children feel. A parent without empathy is like a surgeon operating with dull tools in poor lighting. The results are likely to produce scarring.

Children of addicted parents experience the lack of predictability as highly anxiety-provoking. As adults, they are therefore at significantly higher risk to have anxiety disorders and to become addicts themselves than are people who were raised by non-addicted parents. Being a good parent most of the time and a horrible parent once in awhile creates insecure, anxious adults who are just waiting for things to go wrong.

Another pitfall of having permissive parents: the child doesn’t get enough feedback from her parents. She is left to figure out for herself what she can expect from herself: what she’s good at, what her weaknesses are, what she should strive for.

Because depressed parents appear put-upon, beleaguered or overwhelmed by the ordinary demands of parenting, their children don’t always learn that they are worthwhile and so are at risk to become depressed themselves in adulthood.

Americans, in particular, are used to high stress and immediate gratification, both of which feed addictions.

There is a good explanation for why Emotional Neglect has been so overlooked. It hides. It dwells in the sins of omission, rather than commission; it’s the white space in the family picture rather than the picture itself. It’s often what was NOT said or observed or remembered from childhood, rather than what WAS said.

Other people live in a different world from me. They see colors, feel things, love each other and get excited. I have none of that. To me, the world is gray. I'm on the outside, looking in.

Whatever the level of parental failure, emotionally neglected people see themselves as the problem, rather than seeing their parents as having failed them.

There is a minimal amount of parental emotional connection, empathy and ongoing attention which is necessary to fuel a child’s growth and development so that he or she will grow into an emotionally healthy and emotionally connected adult. Less than that minimal amount and the child becomes an adult who struggles emotionally–outwardly successful, perhaps, but empty, missing something within, which the world can’t see.

running on a half-empty tank of low-octane fuel that had been diluted by a pool of unshed tears.

Simon wanted to die not because he felt too much, but because he felt nothing.

I haven’t been happy since I was eight years old,” she said.

After a childhood chock full of unpredictable parenting, the adult child of the addict is anxious, worried, and secretly insecure.

The important thing to keep in mind is that while adolescents crave freedom, it is not healthy for them to get too much of it. Adolescents need a strong parent against whom they can rebel. They learn how to make good decisions and manage their impulses by bumping up against a parent’s rules and consequences.