#jonice webb

[eaudelune]

We have a tendency to assume that smart people aren’t emotional people, and emotional people aren’t smart. The reality is that the smartest people are those who use their emotions to help them think and who use their thoughts to manage their emotions. The key is to use emotion in a healthy balanced way.

Jonice Webb, Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect  

#Jonice Webb #emotions #emotional intelligence #balance

[bookipede]

running on empty // jonice webb

#jonice webb #running on empty #emotional neglect #cptsd #ptsd #tw suicide #trauma #recovery

[ali-labyrinth]

"Guilt is meant to stop us from unnecessarily harming of violating others. It is not meant to stop us from protecting ourselves."

- Jonice Webb, PhD

#running on empty no more #running on empty #childhood emotional neglect #CEN #jonice webb #guilt #shame #healing #therapy #book #quotes #book quotations

[several-spoons]

Reasons for feeling unseen, unheard, misunderstood

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. 

If any of this resonates with you, I encourage you to check out her CEN Questionnaire. It will help you understand yourself and your childhood more deeply.

#queued #cen #jonice webb #trauma #neurodivergent trauma #disability trauma #actually neurodivergent #actuallyadhd #actually adhd #about the blogger #oversharing #it me #literally me #me irl #feels #child development #social and emotional development #introspection #bpd

[waterbabym]

Emotions do more, though, than drive us to do things. They also feed the human connections that give life the depth and richness that make it worthwhile. It is this depth and richness which I believe provides the best answer to the question, “What is the meaning of life?” Emotional connections to others help us stave off feelings of emptiness as well as existential angst. Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect by Jonice Webb

#emotions #words #quote #jonice webb #wellbeing #recovery #healing #wisdom #love

[anothersadwhitegirl]

#yes i put this on multiple blogs #mother's day #emotional neglect #cen #dr jonice webb #childhood emotional neglect #moms #mothers

[weltenwellen]

Hello! Have you got any reading recommendations either about childhood neglect/the mother wound specifically or anything fiction/non fiction generally?

No, not that much. I've read on emotional immaturity: Lindsay C. Gibson's Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and Running On Empty by Jonice Webb. Specifically about mothers I can only think now of Emotionally Absent Mother by Jasmin Lee Cori and Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by Karyl McBride.

Then furthermore what stuck with me were things from the book Healing Your Emotional Self by Beverly Engel and Healing the Shame That Binds You by John Bradshaw.

Going further in terms of current boundaries and dynamics, self discovery: Lori Gottlieb's Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, Attached by Amir Levine and maybe Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab.

Then if we're talking about understanding Trauma and what it does to the brain and the body of course The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk and Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman. Furthermore I like in that direction Bruce Perry's The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and Good Morning, Monster by Catherine Gildiner.

#Anonymous

[earthcrumbs]

Emotion is considered the antithesis of thought. We tend to assume that smart people aren't emotional and emotional people aren't smart. The reality is that the smartest people are those who use their emotions to help them think and who use their thoughts to manage their emotions.

Jonice Webb, Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect

#accountability #authenticity #health #purpose #presence #mentalhealth #love #selfworth #transformation #values #spiritualjourney #spiritualhealing #individuality #boundaries #innerhealing #innerwisdom #spiritualawakening #higherconsciousness #spiritualism #lovefrequency #emotional neglect #self development #quotes #text #emotions

[sage-a-licious]

In an effort to do something about how I’ve been feeling lately (numb, confused, kinda sad) I’m reading Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect by Jonice Webb, Phd. I was reading the 12 types of emotionally neglectful parents and none were resonating until Type 11: Child as Parent. I still feel like I’m parenting my parents to this day. I don’t want to feel responsible for them in this way, but I do and I don’t know how to stop. Hopefully, I’ll get some help from the rest of the book. I’ve tried reading it before but never finished it. This passage is me to a T. I have a hard time not feeling empty and disconnected. I’ve been trying to fake it until I make it but it’s not working.

[shitfridge]

@kurbaga thanks for the tag :)

last song: depression-why do people hate us

last show: barry

currently reading: jonice webb-running on empty

currently watching: barry

current obsession: finding tragacanth gum for cheap

@sofuton @sapper-in-the-wire @ilayda @saturnhalo @annevbonny @divinecruelty

[notjusthespongenextdoor]

i'm reading jonice webb's running on empty books and while they aren't really my favorite on the subject, they are teaching me some very like. material and basic things that i never knew before

like, we literally don't know who we are in the absence of other people who perceive us and echo ourselves back to us. obviously there is some balance to be had here, because if you're constantly surrounded by people and have no time to think you may not be able to solidify those concepts and filter out what feels right and wrong to you (some people may only echo their preconceived notions that don't really have anything to do with you)

but something that emotionally adept and present parents do when we're children is just like. observe us and tell us what they learn about us, which in turn helps us learn about ourselves. like, wow you pick up math concepts so quickly, you're very good at this! it seems like you're struggling in your science class though, so let's figure out how to help you. oh, you want the elephant stickers? you really like elephants, don't you! yes, it's true that you do cry more than the other kids, but there's nothing wrong with that. people express themselves in different ways and it's good that you're learning how to get help when you're distressed.

but if you don't have that, someone who pays attention and contextualizes yourself for you, you don't learn who you are. it really hit me when this book was like, then the kid ends up going to college and having no idea what to major in, because they don't know what they like or what they're good at. which like. oof.

so those "jokes" that people on tumblr make about how they're hungry for the attention of people and are "obsessed" with themselves because they love when people tell them about themselves it's like. maybe i'm projecting, but i sense an amount of self-censure in there. that they feel selfish or wrong for wanting this. but it's actually entirely normal, especially if you didn't get this as a child and are now completely lost in yourself. when people tell you about yourself, even the smallest little things, you're being fed something you should have received in childhood. a few things, actually! not just identity, but knowing that someone is paying attention to you and notices you and really sees who you are. it's so many wonderful things and it makes perfect sense that you crave that deeply.

so i invite people to not only try to let go of that guilt for seeking acknowledgement, but to also try to give that to your friends when you are able. it can be very small things. notice what colors they like and what times they're most talkative and what makes them happy or sad and tell them about it. and especially let them know if they're good at things! sometimes people just legitimately don't know, and giving them that information is a wonderful gift.

#spongesound.txt #i'm longposting on tumblr again someone call my therapist

[eaudelune]

Emotions themselves are not good or bad, right or wrong, moral or amoral. Every human being has felt rage, jealousy, hate, destructiveness, and superiority, for example, at one time or another. Most people have even had homicidal feelings. These feelings themselves are not bad, and do not make us a bad person. It’s what we do with them that matters. Do not judge yourself for your feelings. Judge yourself for your actions.

Jonice Webb, Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect  

#Jonice Webb #emotions

[bookipede]

running on empty // jonice webb

#jonice webb #running on empty #emotional neglect #trauma #recovery #cptsd #ptsd

[slippery-minghus]

damn, this book on emotional neglect (running on empty, jonice webb) really has me thinking about the night and day shift between how my parents raised me before and after their divorce. like, i've always known it was a big change, but this book is often emphasizing what didn't happen, what you can't remember (because it didn't happen), and i suppose i never really understood that 13 was young enough that things happening then would have a developmental effect on me too.

(putting this under a cut because i get kinda detailed in talking about shit i went through)

i went from having a mom who was not just depressed, but over-involved and over-protective. there were a lot of rules (not that any were made understandable to me) and expectations to follow. i couldn't step out of line without immediate consequences and shaming. and my dad was... a lot more strict. or at least, had more demands. he was never very involved in my life, but he was more back then than after my parents split, even though i probably actually saw him more after the divorce.

and then when i was 13 everything flipped upside down. mom was never around. i was actually left home alone for a few hours each day, when hardly a year before i hadn't even been allowed to pick out my own clothes or cut up my own food. i reveled in the freedom, and found out ways to get away with more than i ever had before. i went from having a perhaps-too-present (but still emotionally unavailable) mother to one who was just never available across the board. and she was always so overwhelmed and miserable i felt even more guilty for making her life harder by existing. and my dad's expectations just got loftier and more vague.

before the divorce, i was always under constant threat of parenting, it was always watching, waiting for me to mess up or remind them that i existed. but after, i was left to parent myself. i had to figure out how to be responsible for myself, because i couldn't rely on anyone to look out for me. so at 13, i had to quickly and messily start learning skills that my parents had refused to teach me up until that point. i went from being behind on developmental skills to suddenly advanced beyond what was age appropriate.

in some ways, maybe a lot of ways, i think the effects on me before and after were very similar. i was dealing with opposite but mirrored extremes. i'd already known before the divorce that i couldn't ask for help, that my emotions were unacceptable, that my needs were a burden (and that having needs was proof my mom had failed as a parent, because what kind of shitty mom doesn't just intuitively know? and make it better before it needs to be asked about?), and that i could not rely on my parents for helpful feedback. they were an oppressive force to be placated to avoid their wrath. and then after... all of that just got amplified, under the twist that while i was no longer in a panopticon, they would still only pay attention to me when i messed up. and no attention at all was better than that kind of attention. so rather than going off the rails and rebelling with my newfound freedom, i stuck to the lessons i'd learned in the panopticon: stay small, stay out of sight.

and there was no real help from my parents in trying to understand, as a 13y/o child, what the divorce meant and how to process my feelings about it. not that that was new. what attempts they did make all circled around "mommy and daddy don't love each other anymore and this is why. *lists everything bad the other parent has ever done*". because vilifying each other was the only way they could think to explain it. because they were too caught up in their own pain and agendas. so instead of learning to sit with the uneasy feelings i had, and process what the changes meant for my life, i was learning about the graphic abuses my dad put my mom through from as far back as before they even married.

and when my dad got a new girlfriend, i was expected to just accept it. and welcome her into my life. i found out about her within a few months of the divorce- emphasis on found out about, not was told. i had been borrowing my dad's computer, and he hadn't turned off his instant messenger with her before giving it to me. and years later, after i'd accepted her as my replacement mom (because she was so much nicer than my actual mom, who was at that time even more neglectful than usual) when their messy break ups started, i was expected to not feel a thing. to just roll with it when the only parent who cared about me was taken away.

and by then, i was already a little self sufficient adult in that house. i got myself to school, managed my own budget (aka stole quarters from my dad's change bowl so i could afford lunch at school and gas for my car to get to school), i did my own shopping and fed myself most nights. my parents were so caught up in their own lives, but it was okay, because they didn't have to worry about me.

it was better that they didn't worry about me. because the alternative was not even getting to pick out what shirt i wanted to wear for the day.

edit: coming back to read through this and confirm my suspicions that... yep. i say all this, in the context of emotional neglect, and mention what emotions i was feeling exactly one (1) time. and vaguely at that. it's not that i didn't have them just.. they're not important. it feels more important to validate the history, to say this is what happened. a bit like it might lose integrity if i add and this is how i felt. because the unending overarching blanket of it was so painful and scary and i was so angry just... i dunno. like, we get it. it sucked. everything is stained with that feeling, to the point that i must've just been overreacting or feeling that way intentionally to ruin my parents' lives. but no, set the emotions aside, because here are the events, here is the proof that it was so hard. (the proof that it was their actions at fault, not me Having Feelings Wrong) emotions have no substance. they can come from anything, warranted or not. but talking about how at 13/14ish my mom wouldn't let me walk two blocks from school with a large group of friends but no adults? that's real. it's a concrete thing you can point to and say 'that's fucked up'. (and it is fucked up. it makes present me very frustrated. and reminds me of how infantilized and scared/trapped young me felt. how lonely i felt because no wonder no one liked me if i was always being singled out and overprotected like this. it was like she'd never stopped pinning the "not allowed to run" sign to my shirt. i felt humiliated. and so i was angry)

#personal

[orderrup]

banner image from zach ozma. go buy a pin!

favorite books:

Why Does He Do That? - Lundy Bancroft

Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect - Dr Jonice Webb

Unmasking Autism - Dr Devon Price

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents - Lindsay C Gibson

The Will To Change - bell hooks

Teaching to Transgress - bell hooks

Whipping Girl - Julia Serrano

Cultish - Amanda Montell

The Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy

We Both Laughed in Pleasure Selected diaries of Lou Sullivan - edited by Ellis Martin and Zach Ozma

How Do I Get Through To You? - Terrence Real

Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World - Naomi Klein

The Courage To Be Disliked - Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

[the-healing-mindset]

#article #emotional neglect #childhood trauma #childhood wounds #childhood emotional neglect #Sharon Martin Counseling #So much to relate to in this article. #Given that I still live in very close proximity to my relatives I still see these patterns on a weekly basis. #In truth they’re really emotionally abusive people and not just neglectful.