Why does emotional neglect make you feel like you're running on empty?

It’s an excellent question.

Not long after my first book, Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect, came out, I was interviewed on NPR. The first thing the interviewer asked me was, “Why the name Running on Empty? Where did that come from?”

To be honest, I was somewhat unprepared for this question, and I stumbled a bit. The only answer I could think of at first was: “Because that’s what childhood emotional neglect makes you feel.” It made such intuitive sense to me that I had never even thought about how to explain it.

Since that day, I have been asked that question many, many more times. And I have put considerably more thought into how to describe the relationship between childhood emotional neglect and emptiness in a way that makes not only intuitive sense but also offers helpful personal understanding to those who grew up emotionally neglected.

First, we’ll define what “empty” actually feels like. Then we’ll talk about what it means to be running on empty.

Here are some of the ways I have heard it described by many different people.

A hollow feeling in my stomach

A lack of feelings, like I have no emotions

A weird feeling in my throat

A sense of being entirely depleted, and having nothing more to give

Going through life on autopilot

Numbness

Unfulfilled and lost

As you can probably see from the different expressions above, “empty” can........

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