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"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."