Kristen

Welcome to this week's Close the Chapter Podcast. I just want to tell you, if no one's told you this week that you matter, you're important, you're loved, just for who you are. I just wanted to start the podcast out that way. Because I feel like we hear our worst inner critic telling us that we're an idiot, or stupid, we're ugly, we're fat, we're not good enough in some way. Nobody likes us, we don't belong. And we believe those things are true. When the reality is you have value and importance and worth, just for being a human being. And today's episode is an episode I recorded with Dr. Janice Webb, several years ago about emotional neglect. And so much of emotional neglect plays into our shame, it plays into that inner critic, and that voice in our head that says nobody cares about me. Nobody loves me, nobody wants me, I'm not worth anything. Because no one really witnessed empathically, our pain, our sadness, our hurt, our fears, our traumas, our different grief, and losses. And we were sitting there, we didn't probably realize this when we were little, but we didn't recognize that we didn't have perhaps the nurturing or the comfort on a consistent basis and someone saying, it's okay to let your feelings out. It's okay to cry. That makes sense that you feel sad, that makes sense that you feel the way you do. And that shame story of telling us how worthless we are takes over takes a hold of us. And so we try to get worth of value by people pleasing by looking a certain way by being a certain weight, or by dressing a certain way. And those are all ways in which work and a lot of times temporarily to gain that sense of feeling valuable, but long term, they don't really heal the inside. What heals the inside is nurturing a radical sense of empathy and compassion for yourself a tenderness, a re parenting of yourself and the way you hoped and wished and craved and desire to be parented. And I thought this episode was worth replaying, given the pain that so many people are enduring right now. And I mean, emotional, physical pain, it's like the scars that we want to heal so desperately. And this is an important conversation that I want to keep having. So if you've already heard it, least listen to it again, and see what else you get out of it. If you haven't heard it, let me know what you think you can tag me on social media at Kristen D Boice, reshare it, share it with a friend or loved one, or a co worker, or your therapist or anybody that you're trying to have a deeper conversation in with about your wills about who you are about your pain. And emotional neglect is a conversation that I would like more people to have, especially if you're in a marriage and a dating relationship, even with your own children, if they're grown, asking them Did you feel like I was, I held space for you emotionally, and I let you get your feelings out and process your feelings without trying to fix without trying to bypass without trying to tell you you are wrong. Or tell you what you could have done differently or should have done differently? Or maybe I just told you to kind of shove it down, shake it off, you're fine. Why are you upset? Don't worry about it. I know parents, we're all doing the best we can. And if you have a willingness to learn and grow, go back and say, Hey, I wanted to share this episode with you. And I didn't know this information, then I know it now. And tell me about how you felt about emotions and childhood? Did I hold the space and let them tell you the truth without getting defensive. And without saying I did the best I could or without saying why I didn't know this information right away. Just listen. Let them tell you what they need from you. Most people in relationships are craving, emotional connection, craving it because they didn't get it in childhood. Or maybe you did get it and you want it more in your romantic relationship or your friendships. Let's start educating ourselves about learning how to offer empathy, listen wholeheartedly, without trying to fix rescue or save or bypass someone else's experience without jumping in and telling them about yourself. Let's let the person share the pain and the hurt and the sorrow and the sadness and the anger and the disgust without trying to rescue them from those feelings. The greatest healing balm you can offer someone else is just an empathic space that's non judgmental, compassionate, open hearted space. Let's do that for each other. Let's do that for yourself. Let's take that shame that says I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not handsome enough. I'm not tall enough. I'm not it fill in the blank. And let's start saying, honey, you are enough just the way you are. And nobody's perfect. Whether it's filtered on Instagram, or Tiktok, or whatever you're watching or Facebook, just know that m ri buddy is walking around with wounds. Not one person is not walking around with out loads if they don't recognize and that's one thing. That's what makes us humans connectable. That's what makes us all relatable to each other, our wounds, and we don't have the same stories, and we don't have the same experiences. And yet pain is universal. So let's start being more emotionally available for ourselves by feeling our emotions by connecting to them processing where they are in the body. So we can hold space for our loved ones, our children, our grandchildren, our partners, our friends, the people we care about. So without further ado, here is my important conversation. With Dr. Webb. Thanks for listening, and be sure to share it if it touched you. I'd like to welcome Dr. Denise Webb to the show. On this week's episode, we're going to be talking about emotional childhood neglect, she has written two books that I recommend to all my clients running on empty and running on empty no more. So if you have an interest in this topic, I highly recommend the books, I like the first one to kind of help you identify your own possible wounding. And then the second book is really equipping you on how to have conversations and put it more in motion on how to heal it, you can jump in here at any time. And if I'm not capturing the books correctly, you've done a good job. Okay, so I thought what we'd start with is define emotional childhood neglect, because a lot of people come to therapy, and they're like, I had a great childhood. So I thought we'd start with that.

Dr. Jonice

That's a great place to start. That is part of how I came upon this topic in the first place is that I had so many clients who claimed they had a great childhood, and yet, they clearly were struggling in their adulthood. And in attempting to figure out what all of these people have in common. This is how I came to the conclusion that they had all grown up in households in which their feelings were overlooked or ignored, or even discouraged. And I discovered that among all of these people, they shared really similar adulthood effects, they had actually learned as children, that their emotions were useless or unwelcome, or burdensome to other people. And they had successfully blocked them off their own feelings off inside of themselves. So that they went through their lives, and aware what they were feeling, and unable to actually listen to or use their feelings in the way that we all of us human beings are meant to do. So they're basically going through life without this incredibly valuable resource from within. And it was affecting them dramatically, like a dark cloud hanging over them their whole lives. And most of them were blaming themselves angry at themselves for not being happier, and thinking my parents were great, I had a reasonably good childhood, this must be my fault. So it was just this whole cycle that I saw in person after person. That's what childhood emotional neglect is.

Kristen

That makes sense. And then when people come in, and they say, I'd my parents were good parents, how do you respond to that, in particular, when that is a piece of look, not to blame them, but to help self identify where the wounding might be? How do you address that?

Dr. Jonice

I explain to people that most childhood emotional neglect is no one's fault, because parents are not able to give what they don't have. And so if your parents grew up in households where their feelings were overlooked, they didn't learn how to name feelings, how to talk about feelings, or even topics that are important. There, they probably were missing all kinds of skills that they would have needed to have to give to you. So we're not looking to blame your parents. We're looking to understand what went wrong here. And you have this in common with legions of other people. I've seen it so many times and so many different people who also had good parents, and we need to just understand what you didn't get in childhood. And then we can that frees us up to fix it.

Kristen

Absolutely. What are the symptoms? Some When would come in with that you can pretty much off the docket tell, okay, they didn't get their emotional needs met.

Dr. Jonice

Most people come in saying they have either depression or anxiety, or relationship or marriage problems. Or, you know, it can be all kinds of reasons that they say they're coming in. But what I see that makes me suspect emotional neglect is when I can't feel the emotions of a client. A lot of CN people will be smiling while they talk about very difficult things. They will if I ask them, How did you feel about that? They'll respond with an action. I left the room, for example, or here's what I'm gonna do. This just happened to be in my last session, actually, I said, How do you feel about something really big? And my client said, Well, here's what I plan to do. I said, No, no, no, no, no backup. So there are all sorts of telltale signs that someone is removed from their own feelings. And I'm really good at spotting them at this point. I bet DC would expect Yes.

Kristen

So what are the common defense mechanisms that you find when seeing childhood emotional neglect,

Dr. Jonice

focusing on facts, instead of facts, events, logistics, a lot of city and families are great at talking about the weather, or the traffic or even politics, but terrible at talking about anything real that's going on in anyone's life, or anything personal or anything vulnerable. So just basic avoidance, I would say is the number one defense mechanism of the emotionally neglected, you know, and I mentioned the smile, see, and people can just smile through anything. And I just wrote my last blog on this topic, in fact that the smile can it's physiologically it removes you from your own feelings and actually lifts your mood, which is great. Research shows this however, CN, people overuse that, and they use it to block people out, block their feelings out. And it's just a way to say to people, I'm fine. I'm telling this horrible story, but it's all good. Haha. Joking is another defense. Avoiding avoiding avoiding a

Kristen

lot of avoidance. Yeah, in so when you look at a family system that is notorious for not connecting to emotions, what are you going to notice in that family system,

Dr. Jonice

you'll notice a lot of small talk. And oftentimes, people who are in a family system like this will look forward to seeing their family and expect to have the normal feelings that one would have. When you're see you're, you know, your family of origin, you expect to feel loved and feel back in the, you know, back in the nest again, it's kind of even people from highly dysfunctional families have that I'm sure you've noticed that in your work. It's sort of built into the human brain. It's an expectation and a walk, to need to feel that with our family of origin. But see, and people will often see the trappings of a loving family, but not feel there's just something missing there. And it really is the emotional bond and the emotional awareness. Know if you think about you can't really know someone well, unless you see what they feel, and you're able to feel their feelings. So if people in the family aren't good at that, it leaves everyone feeling just kind of empty and bereft. And so a lot of people will leave their family function feeling like Oh, gross, they feel yucky, but they don't know why. And usually they blame themselves a lot of self

Kristen

blame. So that is a theme that you'll see is a lot of self blame. There's something wrong with me. I must not be good enough. There's I'm defective somehow. Does that seem you see in terms of cognitive beliefs about themselves?

Dr. Jonice

Yes, I actually, so often, I gave it a name for fatal flaw, which basically is not a real flaw. It's just a feeling of being something's wrong with me. I'm not like other people. And if I let anyone get too close, they'll see that something is just not right with me. And it can take different personality, like some people feel like, I'm not as smart as everyone else. I'm not as good looking as everyone else. I don't really have anything useful to say, I'm boring. Those are really common ones, but it could be anything and it keeps this so the CNN people person is likely to keep everyone kind of at bay. The really the only reason they feel that way is because they're missing this really important part of themselves, which is their emotions. And when you when that's missing, you feel it, it feels like something's wrong. So what

Kristen

do you say to those people that say I'm just gonna get stuck in them? I'm so passionate about connecting to emotions, especially when we then this can be as we know, it lives in the body through it can get trapped in the body. What do you say when someone says I just I don't want to get stuck in them. I don't want to get stuck in on all the feelings, I won't be able to function.

Dr. Jonice

Oh, yeah. Oh boy, do I hear that a lot. And what I say is, look, those feelings are in you. And if you're not overwhelmed by them, now, you're not going to be overwhelmed by them or you no debilitated by them, you're walking around with them all the time, and you're not taking any control over them. So imagine what can happen if we just take them out, you start to feel them, and deal with them and work through them, you're going to feel it's going to loosen you up and lighten you up and connect you to yourself, and you're gonna feel so much better. And also, I'd like to add, I've never seen a single person break down because of this process of getting in touch with your emotions. It's just not what happens.

Kristen

I agree wholeheartedly, I see a free people. It's like a untethering. I'm binding so to speak, when you work with someone in your office? And how do you begin to unpack the feelings? Especially when people don't know what they feel they've never named them can feel so overwhelming just to kind of identify the feeling? Where do you begin with the clients you work with?

Dr. Jonice

Well, as a therapist, I will often I usually try to use emotion words in the session. So instead of getting caught up in their relating of stories of what happened that week, I'll interrupt and say, How did you feel about that, or I'll say you look sad as you're telling this story. And a lot of times they'll say what what I'm not sad, but then it gives us something to talk about, right. So just sort of making them aware when they're having a feeling, giving them the language, once you name emotional neglect for someone, I don't know, if you've discovered this in your office or experienced that I mean, is that it frees them up to start thinking about themselves differently, and thinking about their emotions differently. And then it sort of sets you on a path to be able to start getting them to use emotion words. And in the back of running on empty, there's a long, long list of emotion words, like hundreds. And I often ask people to use that list in between sessions, just first of all, read through it, and highlight words that just feel like you felt them before. Because that starts to get people sort of connecting more and thinking more and increases their emotion vocabulary. And then of course, once they start to feel more than it is amazing how that helps people feel more, then you can start teaching them how to use their feelings and what to do with them. Which is a whole nother set of skills. It

Kristen

is when you How did you come up with the book title? Because it resonates with so many clients like Yes, that's me. I'm running on empty. How did that evolve for you that title? I'm curious.

Dr. Jonice

Yeah, that's a good question. I think I just thought of it one day because of the main symptom of emotional neglect, which is emptiness. And it really is because of that, that hole that's left in you, when your emotions are blocked off too much. It really feels a lot of people, my clients were expressing just feeling a sort of the numbness or an emptiness or like something was missing. And the word empty really, I think resonates perfectly with what it feels like to be emotionally neglected, and not know it.

Kristen

I really think you nailed it, because I think that is the feeling they feel empty. And oftentimes people will look outside of themselves to fill that emptiness. What do you have to say about that either think I'll just be successful, I'll get the family, I'll get married, I'll have a kid I mean, I'll have the perfect relationship. The list goes on, tell me your thoughts on that.

Dr. Jonice

There are so many different ways to try to fill one's emptiness. And it can go all the way from what you just described, to have, you know, having the perfect marriage, the perfect kid and family to you know, using drugs, or marrying the absolute wrong person. Because of just needing someone or getting addicted to, you know, insert word here, you can drink too much eat too much. All kinds of things can start becoming a person's way to fill themselves. But it really none of them will actually work of course, because what's missing is already inside. And that's the good news. Once you start looking inside, you can reclaim it and bring it out and then it's amazing how that works.

Kristen

It's once you identify I think identifying childhood emotional neglect in and of itself can go Oh, like the light bulb can turn on and they can start discovering why they feel the way they do not again to blame but to create insight and understanding when you have so people will come in and say yeah, my I'll say, you know emotional childhood neglect. I'll give him the high level definition that go no, my mom, my dad did that and I'll say Oh, so you are allowed when you cry. They would say it's okay to have your feelings. It's okay to let it out. That makes sense that you're sad and like, Oh no, they didn't do that. I don't know if you have that experience with Oh, yes, yes. Like, no, they No, no, they didn't do any of that. So how do you explain it with two clients? You gave us a nice definition at the beginning. But how do you explain it? Because they think they got it? Sometimes they think they really got that from mom and dad. How do you dive deeper into that?

Dr. Jonice

It's because you can't know what you've never known. Right? So you're caught in the same trap that your parents were, and it's not your fault. It makes perfect sense. The example that I give a lot is when people say, but they weren't all my my dad came to all my little league games, right? Well, that's nice. But that has nothing to do with emotional neglect. Because the thing I try to explain to people is that a question that helps people a lot is to ask them, Do you feel like your parents truly know You, the real you. And a lot of times that makes people stop and think, and they'll realize, kind of not really. And then you can explain to them that if your parents weren't aware of your emotions and aren't now they're too removed from the world of feelings, they don't have the ability to really get to know the real you because they're really you lies in your emotional self. And to take that even further, if you're removed from your emotions, it's hard for you yourself to know your real view. And that resonates with people a lot too. Because the and people are very much, it's really common for them to not know what they want, and not know what they enjoy, and not know what they should ask for what they need. It's just hard to know any of that if you're disconnected from your feelings.

Kristen

I love you post that yes, that was so beautiful. Because I think in order to belong in a family, we don't even know that word just splitting off from parts of ourselves. It's our normal, like you said, there. We don't have any other reference point to understand the difference. So yeah. Coping Yes, you don't even know that you've pretzel yourself and behaving or showing up in a certain way. Because that's just how you did it to get your needs met.

Dr. Jonice

Yep. And as far as you know, every family is like, that's just how it is.

Kristen

Exactly. And I also hear well, my mom was a stay at home mom, you know, those kinds of things, like you said about the dad going to all the games. And I have one in particular case that comes to mind. And just in terms of like you said, at the very beginning, there was no emotional connection at all with the parent don't have any memory of physical touch, no memory of kind of words of affirmation. Mom made all the meals mom cooked mom cleaned, but that was the extent of the there was no relationship there. So it does leave the person feeling disconnected, unseen. MD at work and unimportant.

Dr. Jonice

So invalid is a really common feeling of cm.

Kristen

Yes. So when you see someone feeling unimportant, or you sniffing out or you kind of going oh, let me see if there's some childhood emotional neglect there.

Dr. Jonice

Yeah, yeah, I would say that's a good sign. When people don't take up enough space in their relationships, a lot of sit young people in their friendships, they'll let the other person do most of the talking. And see, and people can be notoriously uncomfortable when the spotlight is on them. Or when someone asked them a question about themselves personally, they'll give a quick answer and then turn it back to the other person. Because they just, it's all about the other person for a CNN individual. So when you see someone doing that, or just kind of naturally putting themselves in one down kind of situations, not speaking up for what they need, or, like if someone says, Where do you want to go for dinner? Oh, I don't care, where do you want to go? Those kinds of things are signs that someone feels invalid. And so many people have no idea that they are in that place. They just don't see it until you pointed out to them. And then they're like, oh, yeah, and they're like,

Kristen

oh, man, and the curtain kind of gets pulled, so to speak. How do you work through the fear that people have of changing that? Because they feel safe, when they shift the conversation when they go, Oh, I don't know. I don't care wherever you want to eat all of a sudden now there's more vulnerability in it. When we shift that and we actually say how we feel and what we need. So how do you help people work through that fear?

Dr. Jonice

The fear of the reaction they'll get from other people? Yes. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because when you start changing that and yourself and you start speaking up for yourself more it does affect the people around you. And there is no way around that so sometimes, you know, like a guy will start speaking up for himself with his wife and she'll be kind of upset at first like what you what you want to do what you want to do. I'm not used to this and what I encourage people to do is not assume that means that their the other person is a narcissist, which is a quick assumption or self centered, it doesn't mean Not necessarily at all, it's just an adjustment. And it's natural. When one person changes it affects everyone around them, doesn't mean that it's not important to do it and really healthy and someone who is really in your in the relationship for you, whether it's a friendship, a spouse, or whatever it is, someone who's really in it for you is going to stick it out and actually start to, even if they're thrown off at first start to appreciate that they're actually feeling you more and knowing you better, which is like relationship gold, right? And you can only have so much of that when someone's holding back all the time and not putting their true selves out. I think it's just an adjustment process. And if someone can't adjust, maybe you should think about whether this person is really in this relationship for you or not,

Kristen

yes, you're gonna say something else.

Dr. Jonice

Yeah, the other thing people can do is explain to the other person. And you know, you want to be careful who you do this with, it's not everybody, but someone close to you, you can say I'm working on speaking out more. So you might notice this, if I'm doing a good job, maybe it will annoy you, and that'll be good. That'll be fine. Because that prepares them and helps them, you know, not be so thrown off by it.

Kristen

Because I think one of the things I hear a lot is I'm afraid I'm going to hurt the other person, I'm afraid the other person's going to be mad at me, I'm afraid that it's going to ruin our relationship. And they're not being their authentic self now. So this will manifest at some point some time. So how do you give the person the courage to actually just really say how they feel like how do you help people get that courage,

Dr. Jonice

I think it's just a matter of baby step, just taking small like, I encourage people to choose one person to practice with, like a practice person, or maybe two and start taking baby steps, it's, first of all, explain, here's what I'm doing, here's what I hope you're going to be seeing as I work on this, please, you know, help me out here, and then just start taking small steps. And if you can't tell the person in advance, that's okay, just starting to take small steps and see what happens. But the key is to just keep taking the steps. Even if you get that initial kind of ruffled feedback, just keep keep taking steps, because the more you do it, the more feedback you get, that tells you that you've always been wrong, that this idea you grew up with that people don't want to hear from you and don't want to know you is false, just patently false, then the more feedback you get, you can start turning that wheel the other direction, you start getting

Kristen

that acknowledgement that this is effective. I am feeling more connected now to these relationships than I was before, potentially. I mean, that is a potential outcome of that.

Dr. Jonice

Oh, yes, definitely. I think it has the ability to make a lot of difference in all sorts of relationships,

Kristen

because we see this impact relationships the most with the self, and then it transcends to others. So if we're in a partnership, dating, relationship, marriage, it will manifest itself and then a parenting. We can continue generational patterns if we don't recognize childhood emotional neglect. And how does that look, if we don't break the cycle? What will that look like? As a parent? Someone who continues on childhood emotional neglect? What would that look like someone that doesn't wake up and do the work as a parent? Yeah,

Dr. Jonice

it just looks like focusing on your child's behavior. Instead of you know, like setting limits behaviorally, maybe, but addressing whatever feelings drive the behavior, and that is why we do things because we feel things. And so if an emotionally neglectful parent will respond to behavior, not talk to the child about failing not address it. And I just want to stress that being an emotionally attuned parent, which is the opposite does not mean giving into the child's every emotion, it just means being aware and being able to talk and engage with your child about what he or she is feeling, because that also teaches the child how to manage the feelings. So emotionally neglectful parent doesn't have those, that knowledge or those skills and so will just continue to pass their own blind spot down to their kids.

Kristen

So that looks like focusing, like you said, on the behavior, the doing the outcome based as rather than the processing of real time, feelings and emotions. Because if the parent can't connect to their own feelings and emotions and tolerate them, and self regulate, they're not going to be able to handle the child's emotions and tolerate those.

Dr. Jonice

Right or even know that there's anything to handle. It just seems like everything is what my child does is who my child is. Right? And that's the way that's not the way it works.

Kristen

Yes. And it seems like that is an epidemic, to some degree, who my child is, is what my child does, the grades, the sports, the performance, there does seem to be a high correlation. That's why I'm so passionate about your books and what you're doing and the work we're doing because we can disrupt that generational patterns because they didn't know. And now we know

Dr. Jonice

exactly, especially since emotional intelligence has been shown in research to be a bigger factor in the success and happiness of an adult than intellectual intelligence. So if parents really make the commitment to educate their children about emotions, and understand what they're feeling what other people are feeling, you know, all the skills of emotional intelligence, managing your own feelings, helping other people manage theirs, being aware of what people are feeling in social situations, if parents can teach their children that their children will have a far better chance, at success at work, and happiness than, you know, making sure that they get on the top soccer team, or on the debate team. Right?

Kristen

Exactly. This is the work I'm so passionate about doing what I know so passionately, 10 times because this is one of my favorite subjects great. Like I could talk hours about it, what propelled you to write the running on empty no more. So we have running on empty is your first book, what prompted you to say, Okay, there's more to be said about this, in your second book, tell me a little bit about that.

Dr. Jonice

Well, as my first book got more and more readers, and I was getting a lot of feedback about it, and I actually I started an online CNN recovery program, because there were so many people wanting help with it that are far away, or, you know, I couldn't see all of them. And so I created this program. And I'm seeing a lot of CNN, people in my office, writing blogs, and getting comments, comments all the time, and emails, and I realized that so many people were saying, Okay, I've made some progress here, I'm more connected with my emotions, making a big difference in my life, but my marriage is still I don't know what to do with my marriage now. Because my husband is still reacting to me, like, I'm the old me, or my wife, my parents are driving me crazy, because now I've realized what they didn't give me. And it's hard for me to be around them, because I see it clearly now, whereas before, you know, it was sort of like, not what you don't know, doesn't bother you as much. And also, I'm worried I'm passing it down to my kids. And so the book is broken up into three different parts, how to enrich your marriage, once you start healing your emotional neglect, or, or if your partner has emotional neglect, what how to handle your parents. And even some people can talk to their parents about this, although it's not necessary, but how to do that, whether it how to make the decision. And then the third part is about how to actually enrich emotionally enrich your relationship with your parent, your children, whether they are small, adolescent, or adults.

Kristen

So it's much app more application, how to have these conversations, how to make implement some of these changes. I like it, you give sample stories, and then you give dialogue on how to go about that. What do you see is the theme and all three of those, you know, we have the relationship, the marriage, then we had the parents, and then we have the kids? What do you see skill wise, that transcends all three of those categories? That really you're passionate about equipping people with

Dr. Jonice

really being emotionally aware is just like, I can't even say how big that is. Because you can definitely go through your life being unaware of the whole world of emotion. And once you start becoming aware of it, you see all this richness and yes, complexity, but enriching complexity. And so being aware of feelings is one tremendous skill. Another is feeling valid and acting as if you matter, which is kind of the culmination of recovering from cm, reclaiming your feelings, starting, listen to them and use them, accepting that what you feel and what you want. And what you need, is important enough to express our all ways of taking up more space in the world. And that can be helpful in your marriage. And it's really important for your kids to see it as you're raising them, or even afterwards, and with parents, I think, recognizing that they couldn't give you what they didn't have. But also realizing that that affects you on a very deep and personal level. And that you have to honor yourself and your feeling and not feel like you have to constantly act like everything's fine with your parents because that doesn't, that's selling yourself out again, and not acting as if you matter. So it's sort of that balance.

Kristen

That's beautiful. Have you ever had to recommend the client you're working with no longer have a relationship with the parents? I have?

Dr. Jonice

Yes, that is usually abusive parents. And sometimes emotional neglect can go to a point. You know, we're talking a lot today about people that grew up in families that were intact and fine, and yet this one piece was missing. But there's a whole world also of people who grew up with, you know, addicted parents or severely dysfunctional

Kristen

Have you had to recommend not recommend, but really worked on maybe grieving that I'm going to have to part ways with my parents is too toxic?

Dr. Jonice

Oh, yes, yes. But like I said, that's, that's usually the ones who had some form of abuse or mistreatment, also with like a severely narcissistic or sociopathic or addicted parent who is just so harmful, that they're bringing you down, or a parent who is so incredibly emotionally neglectful, that it becomes just sort of like a nullifying of your very sense of self and your sense of being valid, that could be a reason to cut parents out. And I usually encourage people to recognize cutting your parents out is a process, you don't just do it. And then it's over for a lifetime, necessarily, although it could be that way. But it's a decision you can make over and over in your life, because your parents are your parents.

Kristen

Absolutely. And they have such a tremendous impact on us. How much power is incredible. The last piece I wanted to ask you about is about grief. Because there seems to be when we finally recognize we have experienced this in our life, I find that grief goes hand in hand with the processing through this, tell me about grief in this process.

Dr. Jonice

Even people who don't have to completely cut ties with their parents, which is the huge majority of people don't, if you know with emotionally neglectful parents, if you feel like it's compromising you in your relationship with them, because they so often overlook you, or your feelings or your needs, that can become so deeply hurtful, that you really have to protect yourself. And not wanting to grieve the loss of what you can never get from your parents holds people back so much from setting those protective, healthy boundaries. So I think it's so important to give yourself the right to do what you need to do to protect yourself from your parents. And once you do that, then you have to grieve what they couldn't give you. And what will probably never be that. I'm sure you find this to in your practice, it's so hard to get people to a point where they're willing to face that grief, but it's essential. It's just part of, of letting go and protecting yourself. And it's part. You know, there's grief built into every transition in life even really good healthy ones. So it's a hard one. I wish I had like an easy answer for that. But I shared out

Kristen

absolutely, I think that is one of the most important pieces to the healing process. And then it comes in waves, you know, the grief bursts that we talked about, like one minute, I was fine. And I spent the day with my parents and I was right back where I was when I was five years old. I thought I worked through this. I go oh, yeah, that makes sense that you felt that way. All those feelings came back up. In real time. That makes so much sense. And it's okay to feel that way. I try to acknowledge Yeah, that was hard. And I'm sure that you're all those feelings did come up. And it doesn't mean anything's wrong with you. Because that narrative that shame wants to pop up and tell us, you know, something's wrong with me. Why do I feel like this? I should be over this by now.

Dr. Jonice

Yes, absolutely. Well, fed couldn't agree more.

Kristen

Yeah. So I think it's just an ebb and flow process. And when you can feel like I can tolerate the feelings now. I can nurture myself through it. I can be you know, have some self compassion. I can be kind of myself. And I can say I can handle this. I feel like that's the skill set we're trying to really work on. So they can now become what their parents weren't able to give them. They can do it for themselves. Yes, exactly. And I just think it's a beautiful process, because then I'm not dependent on anybody else. That's icing on the cake, of course. But I've learned how to do it for myself and normalize that there's going to be periods of grief throughout our lives. When it comes to our parents and other situations. Like you said, transitions positive are not so positive.

Dr. Jonice

Yeah, yeah. Life is full of grief, unfortunately. Absolutely.

Kristen

Is there anything else you want to share that we didn't cover in terms of childhood emotional neglect, that was important that we didn't touch on?

Dr. Jonice

I think the most important thing I want people to know is that it sounds so negative childhood emotional neglect, but it's actually a very hopeful thing. Because it not only names what's been missing all these years for you, it also offers a very clear path forward, and it's very healable. And so that is the great news. It's really just a series of abilities and awarenesses and skills that you didn't get as a kid, and adults can absolutely get all of that. It requires commitment. Yes. And effort and work, perseverance. But I've, I'm sure you have to walk so many people through that process. And it's so rewarding and amazing. So I just want people to know they can do it. That's what I want to say.

Kristen

You could do this, that's the greatest note to end on. If someone wants to find you, where can they find you?

Dr. Jonice

My website is emotional neglect.com. And on it there all kinds of free resources, lots of blogs. Also, there's an emotional neglect questionnaire, that if someone is listening, and they're not sure, if they, if this applies to them, because it really can be hard to know. They can go sign up for my questionnaire and take it and then they'll also get my weekly newsletter. And what else there's I also have a blog on psych Central. And I have a, I mentioned this before, online CNN recovery program called fuel up for life. And that's helpful to use in therapy or out of therapy. I think that's it,

Kristen

and that fuel up for life, do they go? Is it like a group in they get content there? Or they can share? How does that work?

Dr. Jonice

It's a series of modules. And it's videos where I walk people through the five stages of recovery. And they also get homework, a lot of guidance and structure. There's an online support forum for all of the people who are in the program. And there's a bi weekly q&a call where they can call in and ask me questions. And it's an ongoing program. Once you join, you're a member for the life of the program so that you can just keep using it and using it and using it on an ongoing basis.

Kristen

Excellent. Okay, well, that is very helpful information. And then they can get running on empty and running on empty no more on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, wherever books are sold everywhere. Okay, I highly recommend it. And I know those clients are listening, like I've already read it. I've read both. So that's exciting. So thank you so much for your time and sharing about childhood emotional neglect. That does, in my opinion, impact everybody on some, I think on a continuum, it does impact everybody in some form or fashion along the way.

Dr. Jonice

I completely feel the same way. I think it's continuing affects everyone somewhat.

Kristen

Yes. So thank you so much. And if anybody has any questions, feel free to email me at Kristen at Kristen D boice.com. And we will try to answer questions and post them online. So thank you so much. Thank you.

Kristen

Thank you so much for listening to the close the chapter podcast. My hope is that you took home some actionable steps, along with motivation, inspiration and hope for making sustainable change in your life. If you enjoyed this episode, click the subscribe button to be sure to get the updated episodes every week, and share with a friend or family member. For more information about how to get connected visit kristenboice.com. Thanks and have a great day.