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"Many fine, high-functioning, capable people secretly feel unfulfilled or disconnected. “Shouldn’t I be happier?” “Why haven’t I accomplished more?” “Why doesn’t my life feel more meaningful?” These are questions which are often prompted by the invisible force at work."

"Emotionally neglectful parents distinguish themselves in one of two ways either they emotionally fail their child in some critical way in a moment of crisis, causing the child a wound which may never be repaired OR they are chronically tone-deaf to some aspect of a child’s need"

"if a child is made to feel shame for wanting or needing attention from one parent or the other often enough, she will grow up being blind to many of her own emotional needs."

"While healthy parents may cringe a little when their child fails to catch the fly ball in the big game, the narcissist parent of that child is angry and feels personally humiliated."

"Narcissistic parents don’t really recognize their children as people separate from them. The needs of the child are defined by the needs of the parent, and the child who tries to express his needs is often accused of being selfish or inconsiderate."

"What the narcissistic parent lacks is the ability to imagine or care about what her children feel. A parent without empathy is like a surgeon operating with dull tools in poor lighting. The results are likely to produce scarring."

"Many authoritarian parents tend to equate the child’s obedience with love. In other words, if the child quietly and thoroughly obeys the parent, the parent feels loved. Unfortunately, the converse is also true""

Overly permissive parents: "Despite his relief, though, he had an uneasy feeling running under the surface while he played. “She said I did my best. That means she doesn’t think I can do any better.”"

"If Zeke’s dad continues to ignore his feelings and needs in this way, Zeke will most likely grow up to feel that his dad doesn’t really know him as a person at all. But he won’t understand the reasons for that because he can’t remember what didn’t happen. He will blame himself."

"Because depressed parents appear put-upon, beleaguered or overwhelmed by the ordinary demands of parenting, their children don’t always learn that they are worthwhile and so are at risk to become depressed themselves in adulthood."

"By putting their work first, workaholics convey the message to their children that their feelings and needs are of lesser importance."

"Everyone knows that if a child’s parent dies, the child will suffer with sadness, loss, and possibly depression. No one thinks about this being the case when a child loses a parent to success."

"If the sociopath succeeds in controlling you, he may actually feel some love for you. The flip side of that coin is that if he fails at controlling you, he will despise you."

"Adults who grew up emotionally neglected often seem normal on the surface, but are frequently unaware of the structural flaw in their foundation. They also have no idea that their childhood played a role. Instead they tend to blame themselves for difficulties."

"The fuel of life is feeling. If we’re not filled up in childhood, we must fill ourselves as adults. Otherwise, we will find ourselves running on empty."

"It refers to the drive to need no one, or more specifically, the fear of being dependent. Counter-dependent people go to great lengths to avoid asking for help, to not appear, or feel, needy.They will make every effort not to rely on another person."

"So she did not learn to do these things for herself. Instead, her harsh internal parent took the simple approach, and taught her that she’d better do everything exactly right, or suffer the consequences. As a result, she became paralyzed by disappointment and anger at herself."

"Generally, Laura described feeling emotionally numb. This was because she had successfully managed to cut off her feelings so that they wouldn’t bother her. But each time she had strong feelings of any kind, for any reason, she felt weak and ashamed."

"The Fatal Flaw is not a real flaw. But it is a real feeling. It is the emotionally neglected adult’s deep-seated, buried belief about herself." "If people get to know me, they won’t like me."

"Emotions that are not acknowledged or expressed tend to jumble together and emerge as anger"

"She felt completely isolated from the rest of humankind. Other people seemed happy and complete. They seemed to know each other, to care for each other, and to be free. Other people didn’t seem to hide parts of themselves or to have this struggle. "

"The only way she could soothe herself was to imagine being dead. Being dead would be such a relief. She did not have any intention to kill herself, but she reserved the possibility as a safety net."

"She tried to make the numbness and emptiness go away by watching an old show. It didn’t work, so she lay down on her sofa and started to imagine being dead, since that usually helped. This time, it didn’t seem to work, and instead the emptiness and pain just got more intense".

"Desperate to stop the worsening pain, Robyn impulsively ran to her bathroom and swallowed every pill she could find in her medicine cabinet, many of which she had stored up just in case she ever got this desperate."

"As you can see, the Robyn that everyone else knew and loved was not the real Robyn."

"Emptiness is actually a feeling in and of itself. And I have discovered that it is a feeling that can be very intense and powerful. In fact, it has the power to drive people to do extreme things to escape it."