emotional damage?
[Alt text: A Margaret Keane painting of a blonde girl in a yellow dress shedding tears and holding a black cat in her arms.]
Late last week, Lifehacker posted an article about emotional neglect v. emotional invalidation, with specific examples of how parents may actively and passively psychologically damage their children. It's maybe worth reading if you are currently a parent of young children; it's not too late to correct course. Since this is in Lifehacker, not the New England Journal of Medicine, my initial takeaway was something of a shrug. Of course we're all carrying around baggage from/because of our parents. Who among us does NOT need therapy?
But just as I was about to close the tab, I saw this part:
"If any of the examples listed above sound familiar to you, you may have grown up with CEN (childhood emotional neglect). You can also consult this checklist provided by Dr. Jonice Webb, a psychologist who specializes in CEN."
Of course I clicked; I cannot resist personality quizzes. I had to provide my email address in order to see the questions. If you don't want to get on anyone's email marketing list, here you go:
Do You...
Sometimes feel like you don’t belong when with your family or friends?
Pride yourself on not relying upon others?
Have difficulty asking for help?
Have friends or family who complain that you are aloof or distant?
Feel you have not met your potential in life?
Often just want to be left alone?
Secretly feel that you may be a fraud?
Tend to feel uncomfortable in social situations?
Often feel disappointed with, or angry at, yourself?
Judge yourself more harshly than you judge others?
Compare yourself to others and often find yourself sadly lacking?
Find it easier to love animals than people?
Often feel irritable or unhappy for no apparent reason?
Have trouble knowing what you’re feeling?
Have trouble identifying your strengths and weaknesses?
Sometimes feel like you’re on the outside looking in?
Believe you’re one of those people who could easily live as a hermit?
Have trouble calming yourself?
Feel there’s something holding you back from being present in the moment?
At times feel empty inside?
Secretly feel there’s something wrong with you?
Struggle with self-discipline?
I answered "yes" or "hell yes" to every single one of those questions.
The cynic in me thinks this is a cheap way to promote Dr. Webb's book, Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect (author's site). She (or her agent or publicist) could have easily written this story and sent it to Lifehacker, where the blogger was like oh thank god, one less post I have to write.
The critic in me thinks this list is crap. It's 22 different ways of asking "are you unhappy sometimes?" Late stage capitalism depends on us being unhappy most of the time, so we will buy happiness in the form of direct-to-consumer luggage/baking pans and self-help books, to be good shoppers while the world continues to fall apart (Washington Post). It's way more fun, and so much easier, to be a greedy narcissist than an activist.
Finally, I have a theory that a majority of GenX and older people will answer "yes" to most of those questions. Being raised by ABC after-school specials, having to entertain ourselves before the internet, going to bed every night with real and legitimate fears of nuclear war, blah blah blah — we collectively absorbed the idea that we didn't count for much, and it took us a while to rebrand it into "We don't care and that makes us cool." Which is nonsense. Of course we care; we answered yes to most of those questions!
Meanwhile GenZ and Millennials (at least the ones I know), seem to have boatloads of self-confidence. My kingdom for a tech bro to figure out how to siphon some of that out of them and into this aging corpse. Emotional damage? That's just a meme now. (KnowYourMeme)
What do you think? How many of those questions did you answer "yes" to? And if you did answer yes, whose fault is it, if anyone's? It feels way too easy to blame our parents/Catholic schools for all our problems, but maybe there's some nugget of truth in there? Or maybe I just need more therapy. In which case, if you know of a good therapist in the DC area, let me know. As always, you can reply directly to this email and anything I share will be anonymous.
Links
The linguistics nerd in me enjoyed this video on pronouncing Zulu clicks. (YouTube)
RIP Margaret Keane. (CNN)
Spot the difference. (Instagram)
A history of the 9:30 club building. For non-DC people, the equivalent would be Metro in Chicago, or the Fillmore in SF. (Washingtonian)
Boxing gloves as art canvases. (Colossal)
A Reddit thread about things that stop being fun once you hit 30. (Digg)
Pandemic inactivity + it being too hot to go outside = weight gain over here. I went out looking for new clothes today, and I am embarrassed and almost ashamed to admit I almost bought this pair of pants at Talbots. If you ever see me heading towards a Chico's, please tackle me and/or stage an intervention.
"He is survived by his three children, no four. Oops, five children. Well as of 2022 we believe there is one more that we know about, but there could be more." The best/funniest/darkest obituary for an NYPD cop — written by his son! "Emotional damage" indeed. (BoingBoing)