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Which Type Of Emotionally Neglectful Parents Raised You? 17 Signs to Look For

SOURCE:  Dr. Jonice Webb

What kind of parents fail to notice their child’s feelings?

Since this type of parental failure (Childhood Emotional Neglect or CEN) causes significant harm to the child, people naturally assume that emotionally neglectful parents must also be abusive or mean in some way. And it is true that many are.

But one of the most surprising things about Childhood Emotional Neglect is that emotionally neglectful parents are usually not bad people or unloving parents. Many are indeed trying their best to raise their children well.

Type 1: Well-Meaning-But-Neglected-Themselves Parents (WMBNT)

  • Permissive
  • Workaholic
  • Achievement/Perfection 

There are a variety of different ways that well-meaning parents can accidentally neutralize their children’s emotions. They can fail to set enough limits or deliver enough consequences (Permissive), they can work long hours, inadvertently viewing material wealth as a form of parental love (Workaholic), or they can overemphasize their child’s accomplishment and success at the cost of his happiness (Achievement/Perfection).

What makes these parents qualify for Well-Meaning Category 1 status? They think that they are doing what’s best for their children. They are acting out of love, not out of self-interest. Most are simply raising their children the way they themselves were raised. They were raised by parents who were blind to their emotions, so they grew up with the same emotional blind spot that their own parents had. Blind to their children’s emotions, they pass the neglect down, completely unaware that they are doing so.

Children of WMBNT parents generally grow into adulthood with heavy doses of three things: all the symptoms of CEN, a great deal of confusion about where those symptoms came from, and a wagonload of self-blame and guilt. That’s because when, as an adult, you look back at your childhood for an explanation for your problems, you often see a benign-looking one. Everything you can remember may seem absolutely normal and fine. You remember what your well-meaning parents gave you, but you cannot recall what your parents failed to give you.

“It must be me. I’m flawed,” you decide. You blame yourself for what is not right in your adult life. You feel guilty for the seemingly irrational anger that you sometimes have at your well-meaning parents. You also struggle with a lack of emotion skills, unless you have taught them to yourself throughout your life since you had no opportunity to learn them in childhood.

6 Signs To Look For

  • You love your parents and are surprised by the inexplicable anger you sometimes have toward them.
  • You feel confused about your feelings about your parents.
  • You feel guilty for being angry at them.
  • Being with your parents is boring.
  • Your parents don’t see or know the real you, as you are today.
  • You know that your parents love you, but you don’t necessarily feel it.

Type 2: Struggling Parents

  • Caring for a Special Needs Family Member
  • Bereaved, Divorced or Widowed
  • Child as Parent
  • Depressed

Struggling parents emotionally neglect their child because they are so taken up with coping that there is little time, attention or energy left over to notice what their child is feeling or struggling with. Whether bereaved, hurting, depressed or ill, these parents would likely parent much more attentively if only they had the bandwidth to do so.

But these parents couldn’t, so they didn’t. They didn’t notice your feelings enough, and they didn’t respond to your feelings enough. Although the reasons for their failure are actually irrelevant, you have not yet realized this yet. You look back and see a struggling parent who loved you and tried hard, and you find it impossible to hold her accountable.

Children of struggling parents often grow up to be self-sufficient to the extreme and to blame themselves for their adult struggles.

4 Signs To Look For

  • You have great empathy toward your parents, and a strong wish to help or take care of them.
  • You are grateful for all your parents have done for you, and can’t understand why you sometimes feel an inexplicable anger toward them.
  • You have an excessive focus on taking care of other people’s needs, often to your own detriment.
  • Your parents are not harsh or emotionally injurious toward you.

Type 3: Self-Involved Parents

  • Narcissistic
  • Authoritarian
  • Addicted
  • Sociopathic

This category stands out from the other two for two important reasons. The first: self-involved parents are not necessarily motivated by what is best for their child. They are, instead, motivated to gain something for themselves. The second is that many parents in this category can be quite harsh in ways that do damage to the child on top of the Emotional Neglect.

The narcissistic parent wants his child to help him feel special. The authoritarian parent wants respect, at all costs. The addicted parent may not be selfish at heart, but due to her addiction, is driven by a need for her substance of choice. The sociopathic parent wants only two things: power and control. 

Not surprisingly, Category 3 is the most difficult one for most children to see or accept. No one wants to believe that his parents were, and are, out for themselves.

Being raised by Category 3 parents is only easier than the other two categories in one way: typically, you can see that something was (and is) wrong with your parents. You can remember their various mistreatments or harsh or controlling acts so you may be more understanding of the reasons you have problems in your adult life. You may be less prone to blame yourself.

7 Signs To Look For

  • You often feel anxious before seeing your parents.
  • You often find yourself hurt when you’re with your parents.
  • It’s not unusual for you to get physically sick right before, during, or after seeing your parents.
  • You have significant anger at your parents.
  • Your relationship with them feels false, or fake.
  • It’s hard to predict whether your parents will behave in a loving or rejecting way toward you from one moment to the next.
  • Sometimes your parents seem to be playing games with you or manipulating you, or maybe even trying to purposely hurt you.

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I need to change and big steps have to be taken.

I am guy, someone soon to be 27, and I don’t have any close friends (or even proper friends I can rely on ..in my mind) or even made a intimate relationship possible.

I needed a change. I wasn’t able to feel loved or be close to people. Even though I have discovered porn at a very very young age, I have a massive my collection carried on and developed for the past 10 or plus years (stored in a encrypted container about 1TB) but I made my decision to delete the entire stash.

I had wanted to give up porn for about a year or so, but I have relapsed so many times. I used to depend on this stash (accessing it with a complicated password made it very tedious) and I just kept it there and use it for collecting when I acquire new videos (rarely touched these days). I thought I was living okay. Until I made big decisions to move away from my stable job and even getting terminated from that new job. I felt that my behaviors have not improved, I still lack so much social skills, my confidence is broken and has always been and I feel like I don’t know how to properly reach out or make proper friends or become fully successful in my career and I need to release those inhibitors. Porn was one of it. It really does feel weird deleting it all, like releasing a devil baby I have developed for a long time. I need to change. I need to develop and to be better personally and professionally.

I think one of my strategies was to read and study again (even if my brain is mentally slow at understanding and picking up things). In the end I hope to eventually have the drive to want to learn again.

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3 Ways to Look and Not Lust

If you are a guy and have been involved in some sort of accountability group (like an X3group), no doubt the subject of “lust” has come up. In my group on Wednesday mornings we talk about this often.

Usually the conversation focuses on 3 things:

1. What is lust?

2. How do I not lust?

3. What do I do when I lust?

All 3 of these questions could make for their own post, but for the sake of brevity I rather just focus on the second: How do I not lust? Or, more specifically, How do I look and NOT lust?

But before I do I would like to clarify what lust is and isn’t:

Lust IS NOT looking.

Lust is letting your mind wander to sexual thoughts AFTER looking.

You see, lust is not this thing that just happens.
It’s not spontaneous.
It’s not random.

Lust grows.
It’s in many ways organic.
And it has its own lifecycle.

So when you or I look at an attractive person, we aren’t lusting… but it’s at that moment when the lifecycle can start to unfold.

So, with that being said, here are 3 things you can do to make sure your looks don’t turn into lust (and no, I’m not going the whole “bounce your eyes” route either):

1) Count your “looks.” Around here at XXXchurch, we have a saying:

Look once, you’re human; look twice, you’re a man; look three times, you just disrespected your wife.

Now before you get all legalistic, realize that we don’t really boil lust down to the exact number of times you “look.” But the point here is simple; if you keep glancing and looking, chances are you aren’t doing it because you admire that individual for their personality. Most likely you’re continuing the looks because you get some sort of pleasure from what you see.

Simply put, this is a discipline and it takes practice. But if you are conscious of how many times you eye up someone, you’ll also be more aware of the when the lust monster starts knocking at your door.

2) Follow up your look with an action. Okay, so to be clear, not ANY action will do. There are, of course, some actions that would be really inappropriate or maybe even land you in jail.

What I’m talking about is more of a spiritual thing. When you see that “hot” lady jogging by in her form-fitting shorts and top, don’t just look and let your thoughts get taken over by something unhealthy. Be more intentional. This is what the Bible means when it says to take your thoughts captive.

Maybe pray for her (and not because she’s some sort of “Jezebel” wearing tight clothes—she probably isn’t). Or think about how that woman is someone’s daughter or wife and deserves respect, not objectification. Or just recognize that a moment of decision has arrived and you are deciding NOT to lust but rather to think about something else.

Remember, lust has to grow. You can kill that growth with some solid intentionality.

3) Give glory to God. What? Wait a minute? Give glory to God for the “hot” jogger I just saw?

Yes. Exactly.

The Bible tells us to glorify God in all things and give him glory for all things.

This means…

You glorify God for what happened in church on Sunday.
You glorify God for the promotion you just got.
You glorify God for the beautiful sunset you just witnessed.

And yes, you can glorify God for creating the beautiful jogger who just ran by.

Don’t be a legalistic tool and think it’s impossible to see an attractive person and appreciate their beauty without being some sort of perv. You can.

Remember … looking is not lusting. Lust doesn’t just happen; it’s cultivated.

Next time you see someone who hits a “10” on your hotness scale, take a minute and say, “Thank you God for creating that person.” Then, move along and continue with your day.

I hear so many Christians bemoan about lust and how visual distractions are all around them.

It’s true; you will always see beautiful people. Sometimes wearing clothes that leave less to the imagination. But remember:

Lusting isn’t inevitable. Lust is a choice.

You can stop lust by killing it at the root.

So next time you see someone who’s looking good, remember these three steps:

1. Count the looks.

2. Be intentional with your thoughts

3. Say “Thank you Jesus!”

If you do these 3 things and go about your day, you will halt lust in its tracks. Because the “battle of lust” begins where it dies … in your mind.

Source: XXXchurch

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Yes, Using Porn Is Cheating. Here’s Why.

I’ve heard it said that there are men who don’t look at porn, and then there are men who are breathing. If recent surveys are any indication, porn use has become the norm among men, not the exception.

Still, I get a lot of questions from women who are feeling the heartbreaking impact of porn on their marriages. To them, porn feels like cheating, and for good reason.

It is.

I understand why many don’t think this is true (reasons I’ll address below), but first it is important that I define some terms.

By “using porn” I don’t mean merely seeing it. It’s hard not to walk about in public places or go online without seeing something that is at least meant to titillate the eyes of men. When I say “using” I mean intentionally taking porn in through one’s senses with the intention of being turned on and then, most likely, masturbating or at least getting sexually aroused.

By “cheating” I mean that using porn is breaking a vow—either implicitly or explicitly—made to one’s spouse. This is because marriage is, in part, about sexual exclusivity; it is about “forsaking all others.”

The Slippery Porn Slope

Take some steps with me down a morally slippery slope.

Step 1: Let’s say I were to visit a prostitute and have sex with her. That would be cheating on my wife. I assume no one would debate me on this point.

Step 2: However, let’s say that when I met with the prostitute we didn’t actually touch each other: I just watched her have sex with someone else while I masturbated in the same room. (Weird, I know. But just go with it.) Would that be cheating? Both in this case and in the previous case I am seeking the services of a prostituted woman for sexual pleasure—seeking out and enjoying the body of a woman who is not my wife in order to be sexually gratified. Could a man rightly say, “Yes, I pleasured myself in front of a hooker, but we didn’t touch each other. I stayed faithful to you”? I don’t think so. The pretense of no physical contact doesn’t matter because the action still violates the spirit of the sexual exclusivity.

Step 3: However, let’s say I didn’t visit the prostitute in person but only interacted with her online through erotic video chat. Let’s say I masturbated during the chat session while using the video image as the source of my fantasy. Is this cheating? Has the lack of physical proximity suddenly changed the situation that it is no longer breaking my marriage vow? I don’t think so.

Step 4: Now let’s say that instead of engaging in the video chat live, the prostitute recorded herself for me so I could masturbate at my convenience. Is this still cheating? Am I now suddenly remaining faithful to my marriage vows because someone hit the record button? No. That’s just stupid.

Step 5: Now let’s say the prostitute has a business card with a fancy title on it: “Pornographic Actress.” She even has a website with a resume listing of all the films she’s been in. Her pimp—I mean, agent—pays taxes and everything. Totally legit. Let’s say I reach out to this prostitute and pay her to view her recorded videos which she gladly sells me. Is this cheating? Does the change in title and the veneer of professionalism change the nature of the act? No.

Step 6: Now let’s say that this entire enterprise is industrialized so that this woman is part of a large network of other prostitutes who are doing the same thing. Much like walking into a brothel, I can pick the woman I want when I want, pay my fee, and enjoy her body for my lustful purposes. Is this cheating? What about the industrialized nature of the product changes the nature of the act? Nothing.

And on this last step we have arrived at what the modern porn industry is. This is why using pornography is cheating. It is engagement with a digital prostitute despite one’s vow to forsake all others.

Hold On, I’m Not Convinced.

I can hear the screeching of mental breaks right about now. Many are thinking, “Wait a second. Something major has shifted between the first scenario and the last. No one sees porn as digital prostitution. If this was the way our culture understood porn, it might be one thing. But very few people who watch porn go online thinking, ‘I can’t wait to get sexual gratification from a digital prostitute.’”

This is a good objection. After all, motive and intention count for something when it comes to the promises or vows we make. If I sign a contract saying I will not share proprietary information from my employer, but then forward a work e-mail along to a friend, not knowing it counts as “proprietary,” I’m not guilty of intentionally breaking my promise (even if my employer has grounds to fire me). Someone who uses porn might think along the same lines: “I’m just watching video clips made by actors and actresses, not intentionally seeking digital interactions with a prostitute.”

I agree, but motives only carry some of the weight when it comes to our moral decisions. The above slippery slope is not as much about motives as it is about the nature of the actions. Behind the making of pornography are real people really selling themselves for the sexual gratification of viewers. The medium doesn’t change the fact that a prostituted woman was used for her body and sex appeal, no matter the viewer’s understanding of the act.

This is why so many women say using porn feels like cheating: the act of seeking out another woman for sexual pleasure—even if she is hidden behind a veil of pixels and a sleazy acting agency—is not a movement towards faithfulness, but away from it.

Why Cheating Matters (and Why It Doesn’t)

However, by saying that using porn is breaking a marriage vow, I am not prescribing a specific reaction we should have to it. The six-step slippery slope presents six different scenarios, each having their own gravity of the offense. They may all be cheating, but they all show different levels of intensity.

We need to turn the tables on those who ask, “Is using porn cheating?” and address why it matters.

  • For some, when they ask, “Is using porn cheating?” they bring a lot of baggage with the question. They think, “Since porn is cheating, I can never forgive you.” “Since porn is cheating, I have grounds to divorce you—and I will.” “Since porn is cheating, I will lash out and cheat on you.” These dispositions are, quite frankly, completely separate issues to address. To say a man has broken his marriage vow by seeking out porn is one thing. To say that he cannot be forgiven, that he should be divorced, or that he deserves revenge are other matters altogether.
  • For others, when they ask, “Is using porn cheating?” they simply want their spouse to know that when they said, “I do,” they expected a spirit of monogamy. Yes, the world is full of sexual temptations. Yes, they know their spouse is full of hormones and attracted to other people walking about in the world. But they expected to be the focus of their spouse’s sexual energy, attention, and devotion. When they vowed to “forsake all others,” that is what they promised and what they expected in return.

The Heart of the Matter

Two facts lie at the heart of the issue.

First, people often desire the perks of marriage, but marriage vows are not taken seriously. As such, we find ourselves straddling two worlds. In one world, we embrace an idyllic picture of finding “the one,” growing old together, loving and serving another person until death we do part. In the other world, we enjoy the convenience and self-centeredness of solo-sex in front of the computer screen. These two worlds mix like oil and water in our miry hearts. Before long, you will either have to abandon pornography or abandon a genuine spirit of monogamy.

Second, people have been blinded by the sense of distance the digital world places between ourselves and the real world. We believe something doesn’t count as much if it is “online” or “on television” or “just fantasy.” We rename offenses: stealing becomes downloading, cruelty becomes speaking one’s mind, and exploitation becomes entertainment. We have settled for what Chris Hedges calls an empire of illusion. “Pornography does not promote sex if one defines sex as a shared act between two partners. It promotes masturbation,” Hedges writes. “It promotes the solitary auto-arousal that precludes intimacy and love. Pornography is about getting yourself off at someone else’s expense.”

So, He’s Cheating. Now What?

If your husband (or wife) is engrossed in porn, you are right to feel like this is cheating. He is defrauding you of something that should be your exclusive domain. You are not a prude for thinking this. You just take your vows seriously, as everyone should.

But where do you go from here? Start by getting educated about the addictive nature of pornography and the steps other couples have taken to take a new direction. Contact us 205-610-9319

by Luke Gilkerson · January 19, 2015

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Depression: Trapped in My Own Mind

SOURCE:  Sarah Walton/Desiring God

Three Lies Depression Loves

“I can’t live like this anymore!” I cried through sobs. “I just want to die!”

I sat on my bed and tried to make sense of what was going on inside. I was tired of the chronic pain, the frequent bouts of illness, and the weariness of dealing with my kids’ struggles. But what broke me was the torture of being a prisoner in my own mind. It took everything in me just to keep breathing, while part of me wished my breathing would just stop.

Oh, how I longed to be with Jesus — free from my aching body and broken mind. But I knew deep within me that my life was not my own and that the Lord must have a purpose for these days.

Constant Cloud

Zack Eswine captured my own inner reality — the constant cloud of depression — in his book Spurgeon’s Sorrows,

Painful circumstances . . . put on their muddy boots and stand thick, full weighted and heavy upon our tired chests. It is almost like anxiety tying rope around the ankles and hands of our breath. Tied to a chair, with the lights out, we sit swallowing in panic the dark air.

These kinds of circumstances . . . steal the gifts of divine love too, as if all of God’s love letters and picture albums are burning up in a fire just outside the door, a fire which we are helpless to stop. We sit there, helpless in the dark of divine absence, tied to this chair, present only to ash and wheeze, while all we hold dear seems lost forever. We even wonder if we’ve brought this all on ourselves. It’s our fault. God is against us. (18)

Depression can cloud our view of God, weigh down our spirits, distort reality, and tempt us to question all that we’ve known to be true. Sometimes, our depression is due to circumstances that have pounded us, wave upon wave, until we can no longer hold our heads above the water. Other times, it comes as a result of illness, as Charles Spurgeon writes, “You may be without any real reason for grief, and yet may be among the most unhappy of men because, for the time, your body has conquered your soul” (“The Saddest Cry from the Cross”).

In Good Company

If you have experienced this kind of darkness, you are in good company. Job, after initially responding with faith in the immediate aftermath of his loss, suddenly found himself walking in the valley of despair as his suffering continued:

“When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’ then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.” (Job 7:13–16)

I thank God that he gives us a glimpse into the darkest days of Job’s life. Job’s story assures us that we aren’t alone in our battle with despair, and it offers us perspective when we struggle to feel God’s presence on our darkest days. Whether we are battling depression or trying to encourage someone who is, we must remember three truths in the face of depression’s lies.

1. Depression does not mean God is punishing you.

It’s easy to believe that our despair is a sign of God’s displeasure. Though at times we may feel the heavy hand of God upon us in order to draw us into repentance (Psalm 32:3–4), depression often fills our minds with lies, tempting us to believe that our feelings are an accurate reflection of our relationship with Christ. If we feel unlovable, we must be unloved. If we feel sadness and hopelessness, we must be hopeless. If we feel lonely, we must be alone. And if we feel shame, we must be unforgiven.

For a time, Job believed that God targeted him out of anger. “Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past” (Job 14:13). But in the midst of these bouts with despair, God planted Job’s feet firmly on the truth of salvation. “Though he slay me,” Job confessed, “I will hope in him” (Job 13:15).

Like Job, we must keep the hope of the gospel in front of us in order to fight back against all that bombards us from within. Though we may struggle to digest much Scripture, and though the words of a hopeful person may bounce right off our hardened shell of depression, we anchor our feet firmly in the truth that we are forgiven and loved by God in Christ, not in our ability to feel his love.

2. Depression does not mean God is absent.

Similarly, depression can cause us to feel an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Not only do we feel as if the world is going on without us, but we can even feel estranged from ourselves — as if we have lost our former identity. This loneliness can also cause us to feel, as Job did, that God has abandoned us. “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him” (Job 23:8). But as Eswine writes,

Depression of spirit is no index of declining grace. It is Christ and not the absence of depression that saves us. So, we declare this truth. Our sense of God’s absence does not mean that he is so. Though our bodily gloom allows us no feeling of his tender touch, he holds on to us still. Our feelings of him do not save us. He does. (Spurgeon’s Sorrows, 38–39)

3. Depression does not make you useless.

Though we may feel useless under the cloud of despair and depression, nothing could be further from the truth. When despondency strips from us our natural ability to see and feel hope, joy, and purpose in our sorrow, we realize that Someone greater is holding us up. And when others witness our dependence on Christ for the endurance to press on in darkness — especially when we have no earthly reason to — we become a picture of Christ’s sustaining grace, flowing from the Father to his children.

Once again, consider Spurgeon. He battled deep depression through the majority of his life, and yet God used his suffering for the good of multitudes that he never met. And then there was Job, whose life became a cosmic display of God’s power and worth for our comfort. If we are God’s children, then even our depression will display his glory and purposes as he holds us secure in his unfailing love.

Suffering brother or sister, lift your heavy heart. As Spurgeon once said, “We need patience under pain and hope under depression of spirit. . . . Our God . . . will either make the burden lighter or the back stronger; he will diminish the need or increase the supply” (“Sword and Trowel,” 15).