You may struggle to call what you experienced in childhood, abuse or trauma, and you are constantly brushing it off as no big deal, yet something still feels off. You might struggle to identify your feelings, have difficulty forming close relationships, always feel like you are too much or you cannot show vulnerability or feel like something is just... missing. If that resonates with you, you might be dealing with the impact of Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN).

Unlike physical abuse or verbal attacks, emotional neglect is quiet. It's the absence of something vital—emotional connection, validation, and support. And even though it's invisible, the effects run deep. Even though it seems like it isn’t a big deal, it is. Kids need love and support and to feel seen and heard. It is a basic need just like food and shelter yet most parents put it on the backburner. Not because they are evil but they don’t know any better or were never given the tools themself therefore they can’t give emotional regulation to their children. Regardless of the intention, the impact is there.

In this post, we’ll break down what emotional neglect is, the common signs and symptoms, and how it might still be showing up in your adult life.

Have you ever wished your mom would ask about your day instead of commenting on your weight or what’s on your plate?

Grieving a parent who is still alive is deeply confusing, isolating, and even shame-inducing. If you grew up with emotional neglect, you may carry an invisible grief—the loss of never having the parent you needed. As an adult, you might still find yourself longing for the idealized parent: the one who listened, nurtured, and truly saw you.

This hidden grief is incredibly common for adult children of emotionally immature or emotionally unavailable parents. If you’re new to the term childhood emotional neglect, check out this post to learn more.

No matter how old we are, we’re wired to seek love and approval from our parents. That need for connection is deeply biological. I remember when I worked in child abuse prevention at a children’s advocacy center. We would see horrific cases, yet the children almost never “gave up” their parents. At first, I didn’t understand—how could they protect someone who hurt them so badly?

But over time, I learned about the deep impact of trauma and attachment. We’re wired to connect. Our parents are the first people who either offer us safety and love—or don’t. And even if we don’t receive the emotional support we needed, we still keep trying. It’s human. It’s survival.

That’s where this idea of grieving the idealized parent comes in—the loving, present parent we needed vs. the actual parents we have.

Complex trauma is a new buzzword. But what is it exactly? When I first started trauma work over 10 years ago, a person either had PTSD or a personality disorder when it came to working with someone with trauma. Those were the diagnoses available to therapists. 

Through my work I noticed not everyone fit into those boxes. I had clients who clearly had childhood trauma but didn’t have the classic PTSD symptoms of flashbacks and nightmares. What I was seeing in my work was clients who struggled feeling safe in relationships, thought very little of themselves, and had a hard time making decisions. 

In my continued research on trauma, I came across this concept of complex trauma. It has also been called CPTSD, Disorders of Extreme Stress Not Otherwise Specified, relational trauma, developmental trauma, or attachment trauma. 

In this blog post, I will be outlining the 6 aspects of complex trauma according to Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk, who has done extensive research on this topic and heavily advocated for the inclusion of complex trauma into the DSM (the official book of diagnoses). It was denied and that is another blog post for another day so stay tuned! I will conclude with some of my favorite resources for complex trauma.

White-Out: Diving into the unconventional mind of an anti-therapist, challenging norms, and redefining mental health through raw musings. This is a guest post by my warrior mama, Penny Curry. She shared this with me years ago with full permission to post it. She is such an incredible writer and writing is her way of processing her past since talking about her feelings isn’t really her thing.

Boundaries are tough. Figuring out when to set them, how to set them and with who, can be tricky. When you have been raised in a house where your voice or opinion didn’t really matter, it can be very hard to set boundaries in your adult life. You second guess yourself. You think you are being mean or selfish. I will skip to the end here: Boundaries are NOT selfish. 

In this blog post, I will discuss what a boundary is, why it is difficult for some people to set them, how to communicate a boundary, how to sit with the discomfort that comes up when you set a boundary, all within the context of setting boundaries with family. I will end by sharing some of my favorite resources when it comes to boundaries. 

It all begins with an idea.