Top 35 Jonice Webb Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “There is a good explanation for why Emotional Neglect has been so overlooked. It hides. It dwells in the sins of omission, rather than commission; it’s the white space in the family picture rather than the picture itself. It’s often what was NOT said or observed or remembered from childhood, rather than what WAS said.”

— Jonice Webb

2. “Whatever the level of parental failure, emotionally neglected people see themselves as the problem, rather than seeing their parents as having failed them.”

— Jonice Webb

3. “One of the unfortunate aspects of Emotional Neglect is that it’s self-propagating. Emotionally neglected children grow up with a blind spot about emotions, their own as well as those of others. When they become parents themselves, they’re unaware of the emotions of their own children, and they raise their children to have the same blind spot. And so on and so on and so on.”

— Jonice Webb

4. “Other people live in a different world from me. They see colors, feel things, love each other and get excited. I have none of that. To me, the world is gray. I’m on the outside, looking in.”

— Jonice Webb

5. “Emotions that are not acknowledged or expressed tend to jumble together and emerge as anger. Eventually, suppressed feelings refuse to stay down. When they do, they erupt as small spurts of irritability that hurt others.”

— Jonice Webb

6. “Emotionally neglected people tend to be good listeners. But they are not good at talking, especially about themselves.”

— Jonice Webb

7. “You may have a general sense that you’re missing something that everybody else has, or that you’re on the outside looking in. Something just isn’t right, but it’s hard to name. It makes you feel somehow set apart, disconnected, as if you’re not enjoying life as you should.”

— Jonice Webb

8. “Children of addicted parents experience the lack of predictability as highly anxiety-provoking. As adults, they are therefore at significantly higher risk to have anxiety disorders and to become addicts themselves than are people who were raised by non-addicted parents. Being a good parent most of the time and a horrible parent once in awhile creates insecure, anxious adults who are just waiting for things to go wrong.”

— Jonice Webb

9. “Although many of us may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically we are feeling creatures that think.” – Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Neuroscientist.”

— Jonice Webb

10. “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.”

— Jonice Webb

11. “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.”

— Jonice Webb

12. “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.”

— Jonice Webb

13. “A primary rule of assertiveness is that anyone has the right to ask you for anything; and you have the equal right to say no, without giving a reason.”

— Jonice Webb

14. “We have a tendency to assume that smart people aren’t emotional people, and emotional people aren’t smart. The reality is that the smartest people are those who use their emotions to help them think and who use their thoughts to manage their emotions. The key is to use emotion in a healthy balanced way. Listen to what your feeling is telling you, and then figure out a way to act upon it to better your situation, your life, or the world around you.”

— Jonice Webb

15. “Another pitfall of having permissive parents: the child doesn’t get enough feedback from her parents. She is left to figure out for herself what she can expect from herself: what she’s good at, what her weaknesses are, what she should strive for.”

— Jonice Webb

16. “You are not obligated to give your parents more emotional connection than they have given you. And striving to produce feelings of warmth and love that are not there, simply because others tell you that they should be, will take a huge bite out of your emotional strength and health. In this relationship, I say to you with 100% certainty that you must put yourself first.”

— Jonice Webb

17. “But if there is an absence of such validation of a child’s importance to the parent, 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.”

— Jonice Webb

18. “It’s hard to see that what’s NOT THERE can be more important than what IS there. She had no idea that between her absent father and preoccupied mother, no one had taken the time and energy to actually parent her.”

— Jonice Webb

19. “Renee blamed herself for having unacceptable needs rather than her father for being unreasonable. She was essentially being sentenced to a lifetime of self-blame and self-directed anger. Fortunately, Renee found her way to therapy where she was able to learn to accept that it is okay for her to have her own feelings and needs.”

— Jonice Webb

20. “Americans, in particular, are used to high stress and immediate gratification, both of which feed addictions.”

— Jonice Webb

21. “The magic of feeling better and coping better lies in putting words to your feelings and sharing them.”

— Jonice Webb

22. “It is true that some friendships may not be capable of surviving the challenge of building emotional depth, but one could argue that those friendships may not be of high quality anyway.”

— Jonice Webb

23. “The message David’s parents unwittingly taught him, completely outside of his own and their awareness, was “don’t have feelings, don’t show feelings, don’t need anything from anyone, ever.” His fantasies about being dead or running off to a tropical island were the best ways he could imagine to accomplish that mandate. David was a good boy who learned his lesson well.”

— Jonice Webb

24. “He was a master at offering practical, rational advice to any member who was in pain, but he did so with an absence of emotion. His advice was well-intentioned, but was delivered without feeling.”

— Jonice Webb

25. “Simon wanted to die not because he felt too much, but because he felt nothing.”

— Jonice Webb

26. “After a childhood chock full of unpredictable parenting, the adult child of the addict is anxious, worried, and secretly insecure.”

— Jonice Webb

27. “There is a minimal amount of parental emotional connection, empathy and ongoing attention which is necessary to fuel a child’s growth and development so that he or she will grow into an emotionally healthy and emotionally connected adult. Less than that minimal amount and the child becomes an adult who struggles emotionally–outwardly successful, perhaps, but empty, missing something within, which the world can’t see.”

— Jonice Webb

28. “When a child’s emotions are not acknowledged or validated by her parents, she can grow up to be unable to do so for herself. As an adult, she may have little tolerance for intense feelings or for any feelings at all. She might bury them, and tend to blame herself for being angry, sad, nervous, frustrated, or even happy. The natural human experience of simply having feelings becomes a source of secret shame. “What is wrong with me?” is a question she may often ask herself.”

— Jonice Webb

29. “Elsie is treated as a non-person, simply a reflection of how her mother sees herself.”

— Jonice Webb

30. “One of Josh’s primary presenting complaints was of being incapable of choosing and committing to a career. He had great difficulty figuring out what he was interested in, what he would be good at, or where he might fit in. It was evident that he had low self-esteem and a fragile, poorly developed identity.”

— Jonice Webb

31. “Narcissistic parents don’t really recognize their children as people separate from them. Instead, they see their children as little extensions of themselves. 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.”

— Jonice Webb

32. “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, even at their own great expense.”

— Jonice Webb

33. “I haven’t been happy since I was eight years old,” she said.”

— Jonice Webb

34. “Every day, you must do Three Things that you don’t want to do or stop yourself from doing Three Things you want to do but shouldn’t.”

— Jonice Webb

35. “It’s hard to see that what’s NOT THERE can be more important than what IS there.”

— Jonice Webb

36. “Not only do such parents subconsciously minimize their child’s distress, they also inadvertently burden him with a maturity of which he is not really capable. They often need and expect their healthy child to be as compassionate, as selfless and as patient as they themselves need to be.”

— Jonice Webb

37. “The important thing to keep in mind is that while adolescents crave freedom, it is not healthy for them to get too much of it. Adolescents need a strong parent against whom they can rebel. They learn how to make good decisions and manage their impulses by bumping up against a parent’s rules and consequences.”

— Jonice Webb

38. “But in other ways, they may also make you even more aware of what you are missing. You may experience moments when you go to the well, looking for some feeling for your children, and find that there’s not enough there. At that moment, you may catch a glimpse of an absence of something, and it may feel deeply uncomfortable. The Feelings You Are Left With: Wanting to give, but the well feels dry. Troubled. Ashamed. Sad. Deficient. Exhausted.”

— Jonice Webb

39. “Do unto your child as you wish your parents had done unto you.”

— Jonice Webb