Childhood emotional neglect is both simple in definition and powerful. It happens when your parents fail to meet your emotional needs while they are raising you.
Emotional neglect is an invisible and unforgettable childhood experience. Unbeknownst to you, however, it can hang over you like a cloud and adorn your entire adult life.
What makes Child Emotional Neglect (CEN) invisible and unforgettable? Some important factors. First, it can happen in loving and caring families who lack nothing materially. Second, your parents' unresponsiveness is not something that happened to you as a child. Instead, it's something that didn't happen to you as a child. Our eyes don't see things that don't happen. And so our brains can't register them.
Decades later, as an adult, you feel something is wrong, but you don't know what it is. You can look back to your childhood for answers, but you cannot see the invisible. So you can assume that something is wrong with you.
Everything that goes wrong is my fault, you secretly believe it. I am different from others. Missing something. I'm not perfect.
However, it is not your fault. There is an answer. And once you understand the problem, you can heal.
Empty feeling.
Emptiness looks different to different people. For some people, it's an empty feeling in the stomach, chest, or throat that comes and goes. For others, it's paralysis.
Fear of dependence. Being an independent person is one thing. But feeling extremely uncomfortable depending on anyone is another thing entirely. If you are very careful not to need help, support, or care from others, you may develop this phobia.
Self-assessment is not realistic.
Do you have trouble knowing what you are capable of? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What do you like? What do you want? What is important to you? Struggling to answer these questions is a sign that you don't know yourself well enough. No compassion for oneself, much for others.
Are you harder on yourself than ever with a friend? Do other people talk to you about their problems, but you have a hard time sharing your problems?
Guilt, shame, anger, and self-blame.
Guilt, shame, anger, and blame; The Fabulous Four, it's all about you. Some people tend to fall straight into guilt and shame every time something negative happens in their life. Are you ashamed of things that most people would never be ashamed of? Like need, error, or affection?
To feel fatally flawed.
That is the profound meaning that I mentioned above. You know something is wrong in your life, but you can't pinpoint what it is. It's me, you tell yourself, and you feel it's true. I'm not lovable, I'm different from everyone else. What is wrong with me.
Difficulty feeling, identifying, managing, and/or expressing emotions. Do you get tongue-tied when you're upset? Have a limited vocabulary of emotional words? Do you often feel confused about why people (including you) feel or act the way they do?
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Psychology Today