Healing from Childhood Emotional Neglect
Our early interactions with our parents, or primary caregivers, form the basis of how we see ourselves and others. Growing up, many of us heard messages like kids are meant “to be seen and not heard” or “don’t speak until you are spoken to.” These messages are not a problem when it is pulled out selectively, like to survive holiday dinners with as little stress as possible. However, when a child is consistently given the message that he/she doesn’t matter, it is difficult to grow into an adult capable of healthy relationships with self and others.
Children who suffer from Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN), were raised to believe that not only do their ideas not matter, but neither do their feelings or needs. This chronic neglect, this lack of being treated as a valuable person, gives the message “you don’t matter.”
These children grow up to become adults who still believe they don’t matter, and that they shouldn’t burden others with their needs or feelings. This cycle of worthlessness is painful and destructive, but it can be broken.
Here are 3 ways you can start to heal from childhood emotional neglect:
- Embrace Your Needs and Emotions
You most likely grew up believing your own needs and emotions were the enemy or would get you in trouble. You may have even been made to feel ashamed because of them.
In order to heal you must change your relationship with these aspects of yourself. Learning to recognize and to embrace your needs and emotions allows you to have a fuller life experience. You can start to do this by observing and validating your own emotions. When understood and managed, emotions can provide valuable information, propel us, and help facilitate positive change.
- Invite People into Your Life
Growing up, you might have felt like adults were dangerous. After all, it was the adults in your life that made you feel worthless. Now that you are grown, you may still have a natural instinct to keep people at a safe distance to protect yourself. In order to heal, you have to stop pushing people away, instead, invite them into your life. When we form relationships with genuine, caring and honest people, we feel good about ourselves while adding value to our lives.
- Get to Know Who You Really Are
Survivors of CEN all have one thing in common: they don’t really know themselves. That’s because the people in their lives who should know them the best and accept them unconditionally wouldn’t or couldn’t connect in this way.
Now is the time for you to fully recognize the truth, you are absolutely worth knowing! It is your responsibility to get to know yourself and show yourself the love and acceptance that you did not receive as a child. Knowing who you are, what you like, want, need, love, value, desire in this life will give you a firm foundation from which to propel yourself into an awesome future.
Recovering from any kind of emotional trauma is not easy. It is a personal journey that will contain many highs and lows. However, taking the journey, one step at a time, will lead you to a wonderful life, one that you deserve. If you or a loved one is suffering from CEN and would like to explore treatment options, please get in touch with me for a free consultation session.
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