I realize, reading the posts in the Childhood Emotional Neglect Survivors group on Facebook that I'm in an almost unique situation: I'm healing well and fast.

Maybe it's because I went through a sequence of realizations that worked really well for me:

I realized I suffered from "Nice Guy" syndrome.

I saw, in a dream, three parts of me: a grey cat's head (my false self, I realized later), a big black cat (my emotional self) and a small quiet dog who was patiently waiting to play (an aspect of my true self).

I realized I had a false self, when meant there was a true self buried down inside me somewhere.

I "saw" my false self in a moment of realization/revelation, sitting quietly in a chair beside my dresser.

I got married to an extraordinarily supportive and wise woman, which is the best part of this list.

I realized I was a highly sensitive person, and felt things more intensely than most.

I realized that my emotional self had been neglected as a child, and that's why I suppressed my false self.

I am healing fast. Lots of grief and mourning to go, sure, but lots of fun, too. But an important part in all this is how clear my True Self is to me, how vivid he is to me. That's important, I think. It's given me a very certain framework to describe what's been going on, with few self-doubts.