Anxiety: Can Early Deprivation Cause Someone To Suffer From Anxiety?

If someone were to take a step back and reflect on their life, they may find is that they often feel anxious. When this takes place, they can feel tense, their breathing rate can increase, and it can be hard for them to think clearly, among other things.

This might be something that only takes place in one area of their life, or it could take place in a number of areas. Either way, their ability to both embrace and enjoy life is going to be diminished.

One Area

So, when they are out socialising with friends or just around others, they could find that they become tense. Thanks to this, they might often turn down opportunities to socialise and do what they can to avoid going to public places by themselves.

And, when they do go out, they could find that they often focus on other people’s needs and ignore their own. Behaving in this way can allow them to feel more settled.

Another Area

If they are in an intimate relationship, they might often feel tense and fearful when they are around their partner. They might also feel this way when their partner is not around and are by themselves.

Once again, this can cause them to focus on their partners needs and overlook their own, with this being a way for them to feel more settled. This will then be another area of their life where they are deprived. 

External Feedback

If they were to talk to a friend or family member about what is going on for them, they could empathise with them and be supportive. After this, they could say that they don’t need to live in this way and that help is available.

The outcome of this is that they could end up reaching out for support. They might see their doctor, or they could end up looking for assistance online.

One Scenario

If the former takes place, they might end up being put on medication and/or working with a therapist. Yet, if the latter takes place, they could just end up working with a therapist.

Assuming that they end up working with a therapist, this can be a time when they focus on what is taking place in their mind. The reason for this is that what is taking place for them at this level can be seen as what is causing them to be so unsettled.

One Level

Their ‘negative’ thoughts and beliefs will be the issue, and, therefore, changing them will be essential. They might also be taught different breathing techniques to help them to handle their inner experience.

Anyway, by going down this path, they may find that it gradually becomes easier for them to feel more settled. As a result, they can be more aware of their needs when they are around another or others and start meeting them.

Another Reality

Then again, after changing what is going on in their mind, they might find that their life only changes for a little while. Before long, it could go back to how it was before.

Or, they might find that this approach doesn’t have much of an impact on them. If so, they could believe that they just need to keep going and, sooner or later, it will change.

Another Angle

However, even if this approach does work, it doesn’t mean that what is taking place in their mind is the cause of what is going on. What is going on for them at this level can be nothing more than a symptom.

The reason they experience anxiety can be because another part of them is projecting their past onto the present. This part of them is then not responding to how things are; it’s responding to how things were.

A Closer Look

What this can illustrate is that their early years were not very nurturing. This may have been a time when they were often left and perhaps physically harmed.

Instead of receiving the love that they needed to grow and develop, they would have been greatly deprived and deeply deprived. But, as they were powerless and dependent, they were unable to change their parent or parent’s behaviour.

One Option

Thus, for them to handle what happened, their brain would have repressed how they felt and a number of their needs. This would have involved them losing touch with their connected, true self, and developing a disconnected, false self.

Many years will have passed since that stage of their life, of course, but as what they experienced was repressed and not faced, experienced, and integrated, what did happen will be seen as something that will happen. This part of them has no sense of time and is blind, so it won’t realise that this stage of their life is over and that other people are not parental figures who they are dependent on.

Moving Forward

For their life to change, they will need to face and work through the pain and unmet developmental needs that they had to repress. This will take courage, patience and persistence.

Awareness

If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk