Early Deprivation: Can Early Deprivation Cause Someone To Associate Surviving With Not Feeling?

What someone may have come to see is that their ability to feel is limited. Therefore, while they can feel certain feelings, they can’t feel others, and when they do feel, they seldom feel deeply.

So, when it comes to the feelings that they do feel, they can see that they experience frustration, anger, and guilt, for instance. Deeper feelings, on the other hand, such as love, longing, helplessness, hopelessness, loss and sadness, can seldom, if ever, be experienced.

A Stranger Scenario

After reflecting on this, they might conclude that there is something inherently wrong with them. It can be as though, unlike others, they are missing something, and this is then why they are this way.

If this takes place, what can play a part are the responses that they have received from others. There may have been moments when other people have criticised them for how they are and made out or created the impression that there is something wrong with them.

Looking Back

If they were to think about what has caused them to step back and reflect on how they are, they might see that it is a relationship. Not too long ago, they might have found it hard to emotionally bond with and feel love for the person they were with.

As a result, this would have probably meant that the other person had the impression that they didn’t really want to be with them, let alone love them. This is because it is through feeling these deeper feelings that they will behave in ways that show their love for another person.

Another Component

During this time, they might have had moments when they questioned if the other person was right for them. But at other moments, they might have known that they did; it was just that they felt blocked in their ability to connect to and show their love for them.

This might have even been something that they brought up, only for what they said to be dismissed. The other person may have said that if they really loved them, they would show it.

Stepping back

After thinking about their last and perhaps other relationships, if this has happened on more than one occasion, they might see that they have been this way for as long as they can remember. Due to this, they might believe that they were simply born this way.

This is then why other people have this ability, and they don't, as they were born with something that they themselves don’t have. However, what if there is more to it? What if they were not born this way?

Another Angle

The reason that they are this way can be because their early years were anything but nurturing. Practically from the moment that they were born, they might have often been left, and this might have continued for a number of years after.

Thus, instead of receiving the attunement, mirroring, care, affection and support they needed, they would have been greatly deprived and deeply wounded. When they were left, they would have been overwhelmed and as though their life was going to end.

One option

The reason for this is that as they were in an underdeveloped and dependent state, their system was unable to regulate them. They needed their parent to soothe them so that they could settle down.

So when they were left, the only way for their system to handle all of their arousal and to stop their life from ending was to repress how they felt and a number of their needs. In other words, their connection to their emotional self would have largely been severed, which would have stopped them from having access to all of themselves.

Another Element

Their system would have come to associate feeling with being annihilated and their life coming to an end. It would then have done everything it could to stop them from being able to feel.

And, as their brain repressed how they felt and a number of their needs, and ‘wired’ differently, they would have lost touch with their embodied, connected and fully feeling true self. In its place would have been the creation of a disembodied, disconnected and not fully feeling false self.

Its over

This stage of their life will now be over, of course, but the association that was formed all those years ago will still be in place. Not only that, but so will the pain and the unmet developmental needs that were repressed.

Thanks to this, they will no longer be a powerless and dependent child who has to hold it all together by themselves, but due to the material that is held inside them, it will be as if they are. Not feeling, like then, will still be seen as the only way for them to exist.

Moving Forward

Taking all this into account, they are this way because they were deeply traumatised very early on, not because they are defective. For them to reconnect to their emotional self and have a whole brain, they will need to face, process, and integrate their repressed pain, and experience their unmet developmental needs.

This will take courage, support, patience and persistence.

Awareness

If you would like to find out about the personalised consultations that I offer, click on this link - https://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk/consultations.html

---

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

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

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