Learn much more about the importance of speaking your truth and how to communicate emotions in relationships in my FREE CEN Breakthrough Series: bit.ly/cenbreakthrough20 To find out if you have CEN, take the free Emotional Neglect Test: bit.ly/entest To learn more about Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) and how to heal it to improve your relationships, check out my bestselling book, Running on Empty, for just $10: bit.ly/runningonemptybook Find out more about Emotional Neglect at: www.emotionalneglect.com.

I’ve started turning my phone off and going out to nature with my dog for the day, cutting off people’s access from triggering me by wishing happy holidays knowing I don’t celebrate. They can’t ignore and push past me this way. I live 1500 miles away which also helps.

One thing I have found to help is to accept being seen by people who aren't your parents. I had put a cap on all my relationships to not be more connected or deeper than the relationships I had with my parents and it greatly limited ALL my relationships. Now I know my parents have their limitations and I try not to expect more and on the flip side I try to accept more from other people and get the depth of connection I want other places and to not feel bad about that.

When you are middle-aged and you have accomplished a lot, and yet the childhood toxic dynamics are still in full force. You are still either invisible to all of them, or you are treated with contempt - or both. Once a toxic family, always a toxic family.

Thank you for your video. After reading your book Running on Empty, I learned what CEN is. I now have a name to what I have been struggling with all my life. I'm 59yrs old, my mother left me when I was 2 and my alcoholic father raised me. My feeling where never important. And unfortunately, I have passed this on to my children. All three of my girls suffer from CEN. It explains why 2 of my daughters don't speak to me. My husband doesn't provide emotional support maybe he suffers from CEN as well. Drinking alcohol has always been my go to, to numbing everything. Gives me the curtain I need to block out what I really feel. However, I've decided several months ago to make serious changes. I stopped drinking, started exercising regularly, and eating healthier ( Mediterranean style meals). I can't help my husband only give him advice and be the example. I've realized, thanks to you, that it's ok to think about my needs. I'm human and deserve all the good life has to offer. One day maybe my daughters will come back and I can help them. Thank you for your dedication to helping people with CEN. God Bless !

Thanks for the video. It most definitely describes what I’m dealing with now and why I’ve always been jealous of bears. They hibernate for long periods and unless I’m mistaken it’s during the winter when we are facing the nightmare of the holidays. Oh I wish I could be like the bear in that regard.

Wow. Was hoping, after 10 years without a "happy family holiday" (due to death and expected 'desertion') to find a warm "family" holiday with my new family. Seems CEN hit his family, as well. Still, it's nice to know the "why" of it. With your insight and coaching, I have faith it will improve! I hope all of your holiday celebrations have been 'warm and fuzzy'! 🙂

Thank you Dr. Webb for everything you do!!! Your writing and videos always strike a cord with me and have helped me immensely.

Growing up, long holidays were horrible for me. My friends would be with their families, and i had to be with mine. At home, my parents kept to themselves and stayed in their room. I have a brother, but we arent really close. We live in the same house but we were raised apart. My parents didnt want him getting close to me when we were kids. He and I are so different, the only thing we had in common was that we were both drug addicts. We'd spend an hour or two every day getting high. That was our only way of "bonding" or "connecting". For some reason, we only knew how to talk to each other when we were high. After that, we'd go back to our own rooms and do our own thing for the rest of the day. We did have family dinners during christmas eve and new years eve. We'd all eat together at the table but that was basically it. We didnt talk and we'd just go back to our rooms as soon as we were done. Our neighbors were usually very loud. Theyd have parties and were laughing all the time. Being sad while the rest of the world was happy felt like hell. The pain turned to anger as the years went by. Now I feel like i turn into the Grinch during the holidays.

Listening to you is also healing. Thank you!

Thank you for creating and sharing this video. Great reminder to do self-care by doing something nurturing for yourself daily.❤

Wow! Thank you for sharing. I wrote out a long history of how your works have helped me and the struggles it has helped me through, but then I erased it. The focus now is that this video helped me open up and cry out pain that I haven't been able to get rid of before. This is my first Thanksgiving without wanting to have anything to do with my messed up family that doesn't want to face anything and work through any of it. I think I must have been hiding the pain behind the anger, but this video helped me go ahead and just accept things for what they are and accept my pain and let it out. Thankfully I have no contact with them so they can't damage me or my work anymore. Thankfully, I've learned that I'm not a quitter, (even though they had me believing I was), add I plan to continue growing. Again, thank you for sharing and Happy Thanksgiving to you! I hope you and your whole family are filled with blessings throughout all of the holidays! God Bless you🙏💖

These videos are brilliant. Do you have plans for more?

Thank you! ❤

Another good video. I have felt so.e of these feelings.

Thank you

Insightful & spot on!

Every Boxing Day my father would take off to compete in the yachting championships on the other side of the Australia. It was a miserable time being left with the neglectful hyper mother for weeks until my father returned by which time school had restarted. This happened year after year. Thankyou for acknowledging the reality of holiday abandonment as opposed to false manic cheer.

Your books have been amazingly eye opening and helpful to me. My issue falls where one parent basically chose to act like they've only got x amount of children to care for while ignoring that you are their child as well. I'm sure it's not easy for my other siblings, but when you're the one constantly forgotten, it seems to be worse.

😮 resonance 🤟🏽 thank you

Wow! I related to this big time. 😢

Can you make a video about how to come to terms with and heal from your feelings of hurt and sadness toward your parents for the neglect that happened in childhood?

Loved this video. Really resonate with the highs of expectations and then reality coming to crash those expectations down painfully. Also the pressure to be joyous. It hurts!

I'm just seeing this video I had a very rough Christmas. Christmas Eve I thought oh, I can handle this, I'm doing okay. then Christmas day was meltdowm. Lonliness and emotional pain. I've been estranged from my family for several years had experienced homelessness and couldn't turn to them for support. Alot if trauma such a sad fill in the blank. I sick if sadness, hurting, emotional pain, guilt/shame bullshit, jeolsy. Tough!! I'm on Medicare Medicaid social security and I'm wondering how to get support for this. Thank you.

+drjonicewebbphd *I'm **_not_** your stereotypical case o' childhood emotional neglect: As an autist whom the school systems o' the 1970's, '80's and '90's failed due to immature resources, rather than external neglect, I'd unconscious emotional blocks pathognomonic o' Kanner's that prevented my socio-emotional learning.* Never developed senses either of/for emotional safety or of/for emotional threat: In fact, rarely feel in the first place, except when triggered (in which case, my limbs vibrate). 05:24 *1. People-Pleasing Above and Beyond Normal:* Mitigated by Legalistic Perfectionism - I _go bloodhound_ for the metadata for any Song; I treat _no_ work as public domain. 06:00 *2. Aloneness Above and Beyond Normal:* Minimal factor. 06:40 *3. Exaggerated Fear of Missing Out:* Reversed - in my case, exaggerated _joy_ of missing out. 07:20 *4. Sets-up for Disappointment:* Not a factor. 08:28 *5. Family Life as Continuation of CEN:* Not a factor due to said unconscious emotional blocks. 09:00 *6. Awareness of CEN -> Different Views of Family:* Again, not a factor due to said unconscious emotional blocks. 09:28 *7. Pressure for Joy -> Lack:* Again, not a factor due to said unconscious emotional blocks. 09:56 *8. Tendency towards Anger and Blame at Self:* In my case, a symptom of Legalistic Perfectionism. 10:18 *9. Heightened Flight Triggers:* In my case, I've heightened _freeze_ triggers for autistic shutdown, incl. involuntary mutism. Practically, having discovered recently that I learn like a cat, I require detailed textbooks on the most ELEMENTARY aspects o' social and emotional development; I've _yet_ to experience a Guiding Relationship as defined by Steven E. Gutstein Ph.D. (who made it his mission to follow up the late Chaskel Leib "Leo" Kanner M.D. in identifying and cataloguing neurodivergent adversities) - and the Vertical Relationship between a Believer and the Sovereign Lᴏʀᴅ of Gods _must_ be a Guiding Relationship. Already shortlisted, among other said textbooks, Steven E. Gutstein Ph.D. and Rachelle K. Sheely Ph.D., _Relationship Development Intervention With Young Children: Social and Emotional Development Activities for Asperger Syndrome, Autism, PDD and NLD_ (London, GBR: Jessica Kingsley, 2002). Ideally, once I'm sufficiently recovered from 'üpothümía, I'd connect with a therapist cross-trained in your Reversing CEN syllabus and Gutstein and Sheely's design-patented Relationship Development Intervention Program: But such a cross-trained therapist is _exceptionally_ difficult to even locate, let alone engage.