Hi,
I'm Dr.
Denise Webb,
Clinical psychologist.
Welcome to my video series on emotional neglect.
Today I'm going to talk about nine traps of emotional neglect during the holidays.
In just a minute,
I'm going to describe nine ways that the holidays and emotional neglect from your childhood can interact to make this time of year extra challenging for many people who don't deserve to live with those challenges.
But first I want to start with describing what makes the holiday season difficult for everyone.
Plus a few of the everyday year-round struggles that are built into the experience of adults who grew up with childhood emotional neglect.
Growing up in a family with childhood emotional neglect,
Really a family that turns a blind eye to,
Or worse yet,
Discourages the emotions of its members.
Leaves its mark on your sense of self.
Your deepest perception of who you are as a person.
And there are some situations in your life that can make the challenges left by CEN even more present and perplexing.
One of those situations.
Is the holiday season.
Society puts a lot of pressure on all of us throughout the holiday season.
Commercials,
Ads,
And images pop up everywhere showcasing warm happy families of beautiful people smiling and surrounded by gifts or food.
Be joyous,
Be happy.
We're a loving,
Close family.
Those images call out to us day after day.
But because of my expertise in childhood emotional neglect,
I see how this affects many people.
There is no time of year when you are under this much pressure and even more challenging?
You're supposed to feel happy.
I have guided many emotionally neglected people through many holiday seasons.
And I have seen how they often experience them.
Under pressure to feel.
The holidays can seem vaguely disappointing and burdensome for those who grew up emotionally neglected.
Childhood emotional neglect,
Happens when your parents raise you in a way that does not pay enough attention to your emotions.
Childhood emotional neglect leaves you with a particular set of issues within yourself.
And also issues with your family.
Throughout your adult life.
In just a minute,
I'm going to describe the nine traps of CEN during the holidays.
But first,
Let's talk about the general effects of growing up with your emotions ignored.
In other words,
The year-round struggles of the CEN person.
First of all,
You feel deeply.
That something is not right with you.
But you have problems understanding what's wrong or why.
The second issue that you struggle with when you have CEN is that your emotions are walled off.
Because you had to wall them off in childhood.
To get by in your childhood home.
Even as adults,
They're still walled off.
Making it hard to experience the depth of feelings that other people have.
The third issue you struggle with.
Is being out of touch with your feelings.
This makes your relationships seem less rewarding,
Leaving you feeling on some level deeply alone.
In life.
The fourth.
Issue an internal struggle that CEN people have is that you naturally put other people's feelings and needs before your own.
It's just kind of your default setting.
It's just what you do.
And next is you are prone to getting angry at yourself and blaming yourself.
Now,
You might be able to imagine how that list of year-round issues might be affected by the holidays.
So now I'm going to share the nine traps of childhood emotional neglect during the holidays.
As I explain these special holiday challenges,
I encourage you to really turn your attention inward.
Think about yourself.
And whether each one of these applies to you.
Knowing and thinking about these challenges before they happen.
Or as they are happening,
Will help you minimize their effects on you this holiday season and well beyond.
So,
The nine traps.
Childhood emotional neglect during the holidays.
The first trap is The holidays make your tendency to put others first even more exaggerated.
When your parents failed to notice your feelings and emotional needs in your childhood,
They gave you this kind of subliminal message that your feelings and needs are unimportant.
This plays out powerfully during the holidays.
When you're prone to be too worried about making other people happy and not paying enough attention to yourself and your own happiness.
So the second thing that happens When the holidays and CEN work together,
They can make you feel even more alone.
And Waldorf.
Because with your feelings walled off,
It's hard to connect with other people on a deep and meaningful emotional level.
During the holiday season.
You feel the expectations of the season.
Portrayals of loving,
Warm families gathered around a fire,
Candles,
Or an amazing holiday dinner can make you feel even more acutely whatever is missing in your own.
So the next.
Way that the holidays affect CEN people.
Is that you are vulnerable to missing out on what matters the most.
Lacking full access to your own emotions plays a major part.
Can result in you going all the way through the holidays focusing on gifts other people's needs and pleasing others instead of the feeling part of the experience.
This is also something that's very hard to realize in yourself because it's difficult to know.
What you're missing.
The next trap is you may be set up for disappointment.
Looking forward to your family holiday event and then feeling let down.
Emotionally neglectful families often can appear perfectly normal from the outside.
So you're vulnerable to expecting to feel happy and connected with your people.
Only to feel the lack of true emotional connection.
When you actually see them.
This can lead to a roller coaster experience.
Happy excited expectations followed by disappointing letdown.
Believe me,
I've heard many CEN people describe that experience with their very families over and over again.
And it's not uncommon to be on that roller coaster every year.
High expectations,
Disappointment.
High expectations,
Disappointment.
It's difficult to catch on to that and figure out what's happening.
The next trap is being around your family continues.
Your childhood emotional neglect.
If your parents emotionally neglected you in your childhood,
Chances are high that they are still doing that.
You'll feel it when you see them for the holidays and probably you'll feel it even more when surrounded by all the trappings of the holiday.
This is one of the main causes of the disappointment.
That I just described.
So the next trap.
Once you're aware of childhood emotional neglect in your life,
It makes you see your parents and siblings differently.
Seeing emotional neglect in your family changes how you view your birth family in some powerful ways.
You begin to see that what seemed benign before is actually hurtful and harmful to you.
This might make you feel angry or frustrated with them.
The seventh trap is the pressure to be joyous makes you feel lacking.
CEN makes it hard to feel as intensely as others do and it also makes you prone to feeling empty at times.
So for many with CEN,
The pressure to feel joy makes it even more obvious that something is missing in your life.
You may experience the emptiness even more.
The eighth trap is your tendency towards self-anger and self-blame gets triggered.
You may feel angry at yourself.
Overeating,
Not exercising enough,
Or for saying something you regret.
These are extra opportunities to do any or all of these things during the holidays.
So the ninth trap is that you are more likely to find yourself running on empty.
Riding the roller coaster of disappointment,
Surrounded by family,
But feeling alone.
Over focused on others at the expense of yourself and out of touch with the energy of your feelings you are likely to power through the holidays by sheer force of will,
All the while growing ever more drained day by day.
So what do you do about all of this when the holidays are coming?
Well,
Although the CEN ship has already sailed,
Through your childhood.
It is never too late to turn that ship around.
But to do so,
You have to be proactive.
Now that you see what's been dragging down your holidays for years,
You're in a good position to start making things different for yourself.
In the short term,
Now before the holidays,
Start treating yourself more as if you matter.
Set aside time every single day to do something that nurtures you.
Pay attention to the feelings you're having each and every day and accept what you feel without judgment.
Make sure you get enough healthy rest.
Healthy food and fresh air,
And spend time with someone you enjoy.
And most importantly,
Start healing the roots of what's wrong.
With your childhood.
Your childhood emotional neglect.
If you found this video helpful and got some good ideas,
To help you understand yourself and your holiday experience and improve it,
Please let me know in the comments below.
I always love to hear from you.
And I'll be sharing much more about how to care for yourself.
And not only cope,
But heal the effects of growing up with CEN.
Thanks so much for watching.
