#jonice webb

So I was reading this blog post...and saw a lot of myself in it. Maybe you will, too?

2 Ways Emotional Validation Can Go Wrong

The Child’s Threshold of Emotional Need isn’t met. Many people can look back on their childhoods and remember a time when their parents emotionally validated them. But that doesn’t actually mean all that much. Here’s why. In order to grow up feeling seen, understood, and heard, you must be emotionally validated enough. Even the most well-meaning parents can “fail” their child in this way. Your parents may have loved you and tried their best with you, but they may not have had the emotional awareness or skills to meet the threshold that is enough.

The Child’s Emotions are Actively Invalidated. These parents have a profound misunderstanding of how emotions work in general. Here, your parents may view your feelings as your choice, which is patently wrong, and judge them as a form of bad behavior, which is also patently wrong. Your parents’ false concept of feelings can lead them to actively invalidate your emotions in all kinds of ways. This takes us beyond not getting enough. It is a form of active emotional harm.

Me: Mostly #1, with a crunchy topping of #2.

10 Ways You May Have Been Emotionally Invalidated as a Child

Your parents pretend to listen but actually don’t. When this happens enough during your childhood, you learn that you are not worth hearing

You have a learning disability or some other challenge that goes unacknowledged. This leads to misunderstandings and incorrect assessments of your strengths and weaknesses and may leave you incorrectly feeling deeply flawed.

This is the main one, and probably the cause of all the others. Then throw in parents who probably also had undiagnosed LDs/ADHD, and don’t understand it in themselves and have complicated feelings about it...

Your parents act like they are your friends instead of your parents. You don’t receive the limits and consequences that you need to have in order to have self-discipline and be able to structure yourself.

Not exactly. One of my parents was the “fun parent” with no experience providing structure and routine, and no consistent one for himself, so they were unable to provide the structure and calm discipline I needed.

Your feelings are ignored as if they don’t exist. You learn that your feelings are nothing so you build a wall to shield you (and others) from your feelings. You grow up without enough connection to your feelings. This is classic Childhood Emotional Neglect

Your natural needs to be seen, heard, and validated go unmet. This teaches you that you are not worth being seen and heard, and you feel less valid than other people.

This.

A major event in your family or home is never talked about. This may be a large or small event; divorce, illness, or even the death of a parent may be left undiscussed. This leads you to feel deeply alone in the world and also fails to teach you vital emotional expression skills

Your emotional expressions are twisted and thrown back at you. This form of gaslighting teaches you that you cannot trust yourself. It also sets you up to struggle with generalized anger throughout your life which you may end up turning at yourself

Your parent acts as if you are the parent, not them. When this happens, you learn how to be overly responsible. You are set up to be excessively caretaking of others, putting others before yourself

You receive the message that it’s not okay to have needs. Here, you will learn very well how to have no needs. You may feel it’s wrong to ask for help or accept help. Needing help of any kind may make you feel vulnerable.

I had needs for food, naps, validation, redirection, coping with intense feelings, and so on, that I was constantly told were inconvenient and a hardship to others. My needs weren’t okay, and asking for them made me bad and selfish.

You are told that you don’t, or shouldn’t, feel what you feel. Also a form of emotional gaslighting, this teaches you to hide your feelings because they can and will be used against you. It also undermines your ability to trust your emotions or yourself.

This. I was told what I should feel, more than what I shouldn’t feel. But often, what I felt was very different from what I was supposed to feel, and I’ve struggled a lot with that.

Did you see yourself in any of the examples above?

Seriously, Jonice Webb’s ideas about childhood emotional neglect, and growing up without learning to understand and manage your feelings, are transformative. They explain and acknowledge the seriousness of the life problems one has, without blaming anyone, including the parents. 

I think neurodivergent people, whether diagnosed or not, are especially likely to grow up with childhood emotional neglect, and are more likely to develop trauma as a result. 

Kendinize bir iyilik yapin ve mavi olanini ilk firsatta okuyun. Sag olsun psikologum onerdi, duygularin islevini, duygularin saglikli islenisini, oz bakim ve oz sefkat gibi konulari tane tane dile getirmis. Dili cok acik, ornekli ve suclamadan anlatmis.

Odaklanma problemime ragmen kolaylikla okudum.

Ben d&r den almistim. Sola unitas in kendi sitesinde de var. Kolayca bulabileceginizi dusunuyorum.

30 tl benzeri bir fiyati vardi diye hatirliyorum.

Erisiminiz yoksa veya alamiyorsaniz jonice webb in kendi sitesinden duygusal ihmal ile ilgili kisimlari okuyabilirsiniz.

Ingilizcesini anlamakta gucluk cekerseniz burada jonice webb in makalelerini cevirmisler.

Hayatimi degistirdi, ic dunyami zenginlestirdi ve hayati bir nebze olsun kolay kildi benim icin.

1. If you are Neurodivergent and you:

Feel more intensely or less intensely than others;

Feel others' emotions -- or have difficulty recognizing and feeling even your own;

React instantly or long after most people would;

Feel different emotions in different situations than others;

Are more expressive or less expressive than most;

Feel you are different than others

Are seen as different by others and treated that way

Think differently and often misunderstand others or are misunderstood;

Use language more literally or more metaphorically;

Talk more or less than others;

Talk more abstractly so people think you're vague, or in more details so people think you're missing the big picture, or switch between these styles;

You have probably received information about emotions, human psychology and social interactions that doesn't match your experience. As a result, you probably have an inadequate emotional and social education.

2. If you are Neurodivergent, you are more likely to experience abuse, from family, peers, teachers. You may be rejected and bullied, or you may learn to hide so you can find safety in "being just like everybody else."

3. If you are Neurodivergent, you are likely to receive ableist, deeply shaming messages about yourself. This experience is itself traumatizing.

4. If you are Neurodivergent, your own parents are likely to be Neurodivergent too, but undiagnosed. They are likely to have gone through abuse and become traumatized. And like many victims of abuse, without meaning to do so, they may pass some of the toxicity on to you.

It's not news we are more likely to develop anxiety, depression, rejection sensitive dysphoria, toxic shame, alexithymia, personality disorders, PTSD, even become suicidal.

The new idea here is that we are caught in a cycle of intergenerational trauma, that even in "normal" families many of us are exposed to similar experiences to neurotypicals dealing with childhood emotional neglect and abuse.

This is not a matter of lack of "social skills" or "theory of mind." Rather, it's a basic wound that interferes with applying whatever social skills you may learn. How can you connect with people when you do not believe yourself worthy to do it?

Jonice Webb describes Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) like this:

"What makes Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) invisible and unmemorable? Several important factors. First, it can happen in otherwise loving, caring families that lack for nothing materially. Second, your parents’ failure to respond is not something that happens to you as a child. Instead, it’s something that fails to happen for you as a child. Our eyes don’t see the things that fail to happen. And so our brains can’t record them. 

Decades later, an adult, you sense that something is not right, but you don’t know what it is. You may look at your childhood for answers, but you cannot see the invisible. So you are left to assume that something is innately wrong with you.

“Whatever is wrong, it’s my own fault,” you secretly believe. “I’m different from other people. Something is missing. I’m flawed.”

...Parents who under-notice, undervalue or under-respond to their child’s emotions inadvertently convey a powerful, subliminal message to the child:

Your feelings don’t matter.

To cope as a child, you naturally push your emotions down, to keep them from becoming a “problem” in your childhood home.

Then, as an adult, you are living without enough access to your emotions: your emotions, which should be directing, guiding, informing, connecting and enriching you; your emotions, which should be telling you who matters to you and what matters to you, and why.

Yet it’s not your fault. There are answers. And once you understand the problem, you can heal."

Did you grow up with Childhood Emotional Neglect? Take the quiz here, and find out.

Have a beautiful day.

Of course, it is true that in many of life’s situations the offender does not notice that she’s hurt you or does not appear to care. There is no accountability, no acknowledgment, no apology. So, sadly, there can be no meeting of the minds. These are some of life’s most difficult and painful experiences.

Here the solution becomes not about forgiveness, but about balance and self-care. If you allow your hurt and anger to rule you, you will be in danger of becoming bitter or vengeful.

Instead, please use your anger and hurt to build and enforce boundaries that will protect you from the other person. Soothe and balance your painful feelings with attention to your own health and recovery. Talk to those who care about you, eat well, and rest. Pay attention to your feelings and manage them.

And always keep in your mind the most healthy and powerful guiding principle for one who has been unjustly harmed and left with no accountability:

The best revenge is living well.