I'm sorry you received no replies to this back when you posted it. I don't know how one determines if one has suffered childhood emotional neglect. Perhaps CEN, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder? I often think about my experiences with my family of origin. Certainly I had a better childhood than some. Still there were troubles as well. (I guess every family has them in one way or another.)

You wrote that you can't talk about this with anyone, apparently even your therapist? I do think it would be good if you could delve into this with your T. After all, this is what therapy is all about, it seems to me. I know something about holding onto things you can't talk about. I've been doing exactly that for my whole long life. And I can tell you from experience it's not pretty. Anyway... thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I enjoyed having the opportunity to reply to your post.