Early Deprivation: Can Developmental Trauma Stop Someone From Being Able To Freely Express Themselves?

If someone were to take a step back and reflect on their life, what they might see is that they are typically focused on other people's needs and do what they can to please them. Therefore, they typically won’t be connected to their own needs and do what is right for them.

They might see that they have been this way for as long as they can remember, which means that this will just be what is normal. However, although they will spend most of their life ignoring themselves, they could receive a lot of positive feedback.

External Feedback

For example, they could often be told that they are very caring, thoughtful and/or selfless. Additionally, they might have heard over the years that the world would be different if more people were like them.

It then won’t have occurred to these people that they are going against themselves and are being deprived as a result. And, as they weren’t aware of what was going on before, they might have felt good after receiving this type of feedback.

Another part

There is also a chance that, for most of their life, they have seen themselves as someone who is needles. Unlike others, then, they won’t have been caught up with their own needs and will have been there for others.
Yet, now that they have started to see clearly, they will know that it’s not that they are needless; it’s that they have the tendency to ignore their needs. Thus, being this way will allow them to look good and it will serve others, but it won’t serve them.

Resistance

However, while behaving in this way causes them to be deprived, they may find that they are unable to simply change their behaviour. They can find that merely thinking about changing their behaviour causes them to feel uncomfortable.

This can be a time when they will feel anxious and fearful. If so, it could be said that there will be no reason for them to feel this way, as they are here to freely express themselves, not to please others.

Going Deeper

Even so, having this understating might not have much of an impact on them. If they were to be with the anxiety and fear that they experience, they might find that they expect to be left if they freely express themselves.

This will then mean that they will be alone and their life will come to an end. Now, as they are an adult, it could be said that if the people in their life leave them, they can find others and that they won’t die.

No Basis in Reality

With this in mind, both what came up for them in the beginning and what came up after are irrational and have no basis in reality. Nonetheless, this is not going to be something that their emotional self will be able to accept.

Unless this changes, their life will continue to go in the same direction. What this illustrates is that mentally knowing that something is irrational is not always enough for change to take place.

Another Angle

Still, as irrational as their feelings will appear to be, if they were able to go back in time and observe their early years, it might soon make sense. This is because this may have been a stage of their life when they missed out on the attunement and care that they needed to grow and develop in the right way.

If this is the case, they would have often been left when they needed attention and to be touched and held. As they were powerless and dependent, they wouldn’t have been able to do anything about what was going on.

One option

When they were left and were overwhelmed by pain, their brain would have repressed how they felt and a number of their needs. This would have been the only way for them to keep it together and function.

This would have meant that they gradually lost touch with their connected and feeling true self, and developed a disconnected, unfeeling and outer-directed false self. Adapting to their parent or parents and being who they wanted them to be and doing what they wanted was how their system ensured their survival.

The Message

So, due to what they went through during the most important stage of their development, their system associated surviving with being there for others and self-expression with death. The outcome of being left when they needed to be cared for led to them leaving themselves.

The pain and the unmet development needs that their brain repressed will be held inside their body. This inner material will be what is largely anchoring them to a stage of their life when self-erasure kept them alive.

Moving Forward

For them to gradually put this stage of their life behind them so that they can freely express themselves, they will have pain to face and work through, and unmet developmental needs to experience. 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