- Hey everybody, today
we're going to talk about how to overcome childhood
emotional neglect, which from now on I'll
just call CEN because that's a little bit easier, but before I jump into the topic, if you're new to my channel, welcome. I talk about all things
mental health here, and I put out videos on
Mondays and Thursdays. So make sure you're
subscribed and have those notifications turned on. But let's jump into this topic. First I want to define what
I mean when I talk about childhood emotional neglect, or CEN. Now CEN really means that
our parents weren't there for us emotionally in
the way that we needed. Anytime we needed them to
rub our back or to hold us or to comfort us, they just weren't there. It could mean they were there physically, but not emotionally, or
they weren't there at all. This could also mean
that we were raised in an environment where everything
was given to us that we quote-unquote needed,
like clothing, food, transportation, maybe
going to a great school, but the emotional side was
just completely left off. Now that I've defined
what CEN really means, let's talk about how to
know if we suffer from it. When we grow up in an emotionally
neglectful environment, it can cause us to
believe that our thoughts, feelings and desires just don't matter. And this can, in turn, cause
us to question anything we've experienced and
struggle to trust how we actually feel. We can even find it difficult
to let people in and constantly, constantly worry
what others think about us. Not having our emotional needs
met while we're growing up leaves us without a secure
foundation to grow from. We can even struggle to know
who we are or what we want, and that we're valued. Those who have suffered
from emotional neglect, often don't even know
that it is happening. That's because this type
of neglect isn't overt, or intentional, and therefore
can go unnoticed for years. Many parents who were
emotionally neglectful, gave their children every
material thing that they needed and therefore from
the outside they can look like amazing parents,
but if their child needs comforting or to talk something out, they just aren't there at all. And for this reason because
our needs are really never truly met, people who
struggle with CEN can find themselves in abusive or
unhealthy relationships. While many others struggle
to get into any relationships at all for fear that it
will be just like that relationship they had
when they were growing up. And since I know that
childhood emotional neglect can feel different to everyone, here's some other signs
that you may suffer from it. Number one, are you a people pleaser? Think about it. Do you make sure that
you're doing everything just right for them? Number two, are you easily
upset and concerned by what others think of you? Or number three, do you
struggle to know how you feel until the feeling is just
so overwhelming that you can't even manage it? Those are all other signs
and symptoms that may mean that we struggle or suffer from CEN. Now obviously if any of
those signs and symptoms are true to you in things that
you notice in your life now, let's talk a little bit about
how we can recover from it. Now my first word of
advice is to start noticing and tracking your feelings. I know many of my old
time viewers are like, oh stop talking about this, but it can be so life changing. Print out some of those
feelings charts I'm always talking about. You can just Google feelings
charts or you can hop over to my website under
resources and print them out from there. And start tracking your
feelings each and every day. And I know it can be really hard at first. A lot of my clients report
that the feelings that they think they're feeling
are just too overwhelming and too scary. So maybe start with the easier ones. I find tired, sad and
worried are often easier to begin with, so find some
feelings that maybe aren't so charged for you and let's start there. Because the truth is if
we've been raised in a really emotionally neglectful environment, our feelings have been
ignored for so long that it's normal to not even know
how you really feel. So give yourself a
chance to figure it out, and get to know who you truly are. Because once that part gets
easier, the next step is to go on and start describing
the feeling word you selected without using that exact word. For example, I'm feeling
energized, excited, and bubbly. That would be how I describe
happy without actually using the term happy. Do you kind of get where
I'm going with this? So that's the second step. The third step is to
begin noticing your needs. When any needs or desires we
have are constantly ignored, we can begin to believe that
our needs are just too much. Or that something is really
wrong with us for actually needing such things. By taking the time to
acknowledge the needs that we truly have, and by the way
this is easiest if it's done on our own. Often it can leave us
feeling extremely vulnerable if we try to do it with a therapist, unless we have that close
connection, which is wonderful. But I'm just throwing that
out there to make sure that we protect ourselves
and do it at our own pace. So once we acknowledge the needs we have, then we can go on to try to
imagine that someone else in our life may have that very same need. Do you see what I'm doing? I'm putting another perspective
because often when we grow up without emotional support, we are very caring and
aware of other people. So it kind of helps sometimes
to pull it away from ourselves and to put it
on to someone else that we care about, and consider these questions. If they have that need,
would we think that it's just too much? Would we be able to assist
and support them with it? Chances are, our answer to
all of that would be no, it's not too much, and yes,
I'm happy to help them. By slowly allowing ourselves
to accept our own needs, we can begin to change our
belief that they aren't important or that they're
just way too much for others to deal with. And my next tip is self care. And I know I talk about this
a lot, but when it comes to healing from childhood
emotional neglect, self care is our way of
telling our body and soul that we care about them,
and that they're important. Start by first recognizing
if there are ways you're neglecting your physical
or emotional well being, and consider some of the ways
that you might be willing to start working on. And I say that to mean that
what if we're not sleeping well or we're not making
sure that we eat regularly, or we're not venting to
people about what's going on. We're holding it all inside. And even if we don't
have someone in our life, this could mean that we
need to journal more. We need to find a therapist. There are a lot of ways that
we can insure we're taking care of our physical and
emotional well being. The next thing you need to
do is to make a list of the things that help you feel
nurtured and cared for. I know this can be really
hard and really painful to tap into, and maybe this is
something that you do with a therapist, but give
yourself the opportunity to think about it. What are the things that
help you feel soothed? Are there things that you
wished your parent had done for you? And let's make time to do
those things for ourselves. This can also help us feel better and more confident as we work
through the last two steps. The next step to overcoming
childhood emotional neglect is to accept help and support from others. I know it can be really
hard to let people in, especially when we were
shown from such a young age that we were too much,
or we weren't important. But allow people that you already know, people who've already earned your trust, let them get to know you, the real you, and no you don't have to
share everything or every secret that you've ever held sacred. But you can begin by
chatting about your day, how things are going. Keep it light and give
yourself the opportunity to let that person in just a little bit. Once we know that they're
respectful and deserving of our friendship, make sure that you text or
call them and let them know that you had a bad day
or ask about theirs. Lean on them just a little
bit and begin slowly creating your support system
so that those around you can help support you as
you work to disprove all of the lies that you were told as a child. And the final step is
setting healthy boundaries. This kind of rolls off of
the last step and is just as important because it's okay to say no. You don't have to do
anything that causes you more discomfort or pressure. Go back to that list of
needs that we created. What's important to you? And also check in with your self-care. If the thing that's
being asked of you isn't in line with either one of those things, maybe it takes away
time from your self care that you need so much, or it goes against a need that you have, then you can say no. Don't let people walk all over you. We're trying to teach
ourselves that we're important and that our feelings are valid. And if the person asking us for something doesn't respect that,
then we don't need them in our lives or want them
in our lives anyways. But in my experience, truthfully, when we finally say no to
somebody or we just say no because it's not in
line with how we feel or what we want, they usually
act like it's no big deal and just move on. It turns out that it was
only a big deal to us and not them. This video has been brought to you by the Kenyans on Patreon. If you would like to
support the creation of these mental health videos, click the link for
subscription and check it out. And I want recommend two books. If this is something you
think you're struggling with, there's a lot of help out there, a lot of help we can get
our hands on right away. If you have an Amazon
account it can come to your house in two days. And the first book is
"The Unavailable Father", and I know many of you are
wanting me to talk more about it and I haven't forgot, but I really want to get
through the whole book, but I'll link it in the
description so you can pick it up. And the second one, which
you've heard me talk a lot about before is "The
Emotionally Absent Mother." I'm covering kind of part of it, but I'll link that in
the description as well. And as always, leave any
tips and tricks and tools, or just helpful stories about recovery. If you've gone through this
or you're working through it and you have something
that you've learned, let us know in those comments. It's so helpful for me
to share what I know and then you to share your experience, because together we're
working towards a healthy mind and a healthy body. And I will see you next time, bye.
