Dependent: Can Developmental Trauma Cause Someone to Be Dependent?

Although someone is an adult, it doesn’t mean that they will be able to stand on their own two feet and support themselves. This is likely to mean that they will either still need their parents/s or others to be able to survive.

As a result of this, how they look is not going to match up with how they behave. If another person was to take into account their age and then how they experience life, they could say that they are like a child in an adult’s body.

The Norm

However, while this will be so, it doesn’t mean that they will be aware of the fact that they will feel like a child or even younger. The reason for this is that how they experience life is likely to just be what is normal.

This is not to say that, by living in this way, there won’t be moments when they experience a number of painful feelings. No, what it means is that they won’t have a clear understanding of what is going on and why they are this way.

A Bleak Existence

There is a strong chance that they will often feel frustrated, angry and helpless, with how they live their life being seen as their only option. Naturally, as they are an adult, they will want to live their own life but this won’t be possible.

So, regardless of whether or not they have a job, they are unlikely to earn enough money to break away and to create their own life. Along with this, they are unlikely to feel emotionally strong enough to take this step.

Two Parts

Therefore, to say that they are unable to live their own life simply because they don’t have enough money is not going to be the complete truth. There is even the chance that they do have the money to take this step.

Nonetheless, thanks to what is going on for them at an emotional level, this will be irrelevant. Additionally, they can find it hard to make decisions and generally need others to tell them what to do and how to live their life.

Needing To Be Lead

If another person doesn’t tell them what to do or give them guidance, they could passively wait around. What will be clear from this is that they don’t have much oomph or drive and typically need external pressure to get moving.

Being left can be one of if not their greatest fear, so along with needing endless input from others, they won’t want to spend much time by themselves. If they are by themselves, this can be a time when they will feel deeply alone and be overwhelmed with fear, anxiety and panic and maybe even terror.

A Door Mat

Out of their need to avoid being left, they can typically be in a relationship. Once one ends, they could soon find another person to be with, with this being a way to avoid their own pain as opposed to them actually wanting to connect to another.

Due to how needy and desperate they will be, it could also mean that they have been in a number of unhealthy relationships. But, as painful as a relationship like this will have been, it is likely to have been seen as being far better than the alternative – being alone.

Life or Death

If a partner has ever threatened to leave or has walked away in the past, they may have done just about everything that they could to stop them. Like a child clinging to their parent, they won’t have wanted them to go.

When this has taken place, they probably felt deeply helpless and hopeless and as though their life was going to come to an end. Being in a relationship, then, will be a way for them to try to keep it all together.

What’s going on?

If they were able to step back and reflect on what is going on, what they may find is that they have been this way for as long as they can remember. They may believe that they were just born this way and, unlike others, they are missing something.

There is a strong chance that they are this way due to what took place during their developmental years. This may have been a stage of their life when they missed out on what they needed to be able to grow and develop in the right way.

Way Back

Practically from the moment they were born, they may have often been left and when they were given attention, they may have largely received misattuned care. Being left would have been far too much for their underdeveloped brain and nervous system to handle.

To handle this pain, they would have automatically repressed how they felt and gone onto a collapsed, shut down, and disconnected state. When they were given attention and received misattuned care, this would have also been painful.

Frozen In Time

The outcome of all this is that they wouldn’t have been able to grow beyond this stage of their life. On the one hand, shutting down would have been a way for them to handle the pain that they were in and to survive but, on the other, it would have stopped them from being able to receive the nutrients they needed to grow.

Yet, as these nutrients were not available anyway, this wouldn’t have mattered. Now that they are an adult, they will be developmentally stunted and they will both consciously and unconsciously do their best to keep their early pain at bay.

Moving Forward

For them to move forward, it is likely to be essential for them to face this pain and to work through it. This will allow them to gradually go from feeling like a totally helpless and dependent infant to a strong and capable adult.

But, as they are likely to be carrying many, many layers of pain inside them, this will have to be done in stages. This is a process that will require courage and 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.

---

If you feel this has been of value, please leave a comment, like or get in touch. And feel free to share this article.

• Join my Facebook Page.
• Follow me on Twitter.
• The books I have written.
• Consultations.

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