Early Deprivation: Can Early Deprivation Cause Someone To Carry Narcissistic Wounds?

Over the years, someone may have spent a fair amount of time around people who always wanted to be the centre of attention, to always be admired, had a strong sense of entitlement and were self-centred, for instance. Unlike these people, they could come across in a very different way.

So, they might typically avoid attention, have no interest in being admired, not feel entitled to anything and spend a lot of time being focused on others. Thus, to say that they are anything like these people wouldn’t be accurate.

Random

Thanks to the experiences that they have had around people like this, they may have spent a lot of time researching why someone would behave in this way. They may have learned that these people are deeply wounded and rarely if ever change.

However, if they were to put what is going on for someone like this to one side and look at their behaviour, they might soon see that they are also out of balance. What might enter their mind is how they have gone too far to the other extreme.

Two Sides

If the people who are on the other side of the spectrum need to turn the volume down, they need to turn the volume up, so to speak. They are then going to need to allow themselves to receive attention, to be admired from time to time, to develop a healthy sense of entitlement and to be there for themselves, for instance.

By being this way, they are not going from one extreme to another; they will be becoming more balanced. But, although this will be the right thing for them to do, it doesn’t mean that they will feel comfortable doing this.

Resistance

What they could find, if they were to imagine becoming more balanced, is that they feel deeply uncomfortable. They could experience anxiety and a fair amount of guilt and shame.

It could be said that there is no reason for them to be this way and that the thoughts that they have and how they feel are irrational. Even so, if they were to look back on what their early years were like, what is going on for them might make complete sense.

Back In Time

This may have been a stage of their life when they were greatly deprived and deeply wounded. Their mother and perhaps their father might have been emotionally unavailable and consumed by their own needs.

As a result of this, they wouldn’t have been able to be there for them and provide with them the love that they needed. They would have seldom received attention, had their needs and feelings acknowledged, been supported and encouraged, or treated as though they were valuable and lovable.

A Big Impact

At this stage of their life, in order to grow and develop in the right way, they needed to receive a lot of attention, for their needs and feelings to be acknowledged, to be supported for who they were, and treated as though they were valuable and lovable. But, while this didn’t take place, these needs wouldn’t have disappeared.

No, these developmental or narcissistic needs would have ended up being removed from their conscious awareness and repressed. If they had stayed connected to these needs, they would have suffered even more.

An Adaption

Over time, they would have lost touch with their embodied true self and developed a disembodied false self. This self would have related to them being needless and being comfortable not being seen and heard.

But, underneath this disembodied false self would have been all the needs that had not and were not being met. They were then, at this point, a stranger to themselves and had fully adjusted to their depriving environment.

The Next Stage

Now, the years will have passed and they will no longer be a child, but, they will still carry their unmet developmental needs. These needs, along with a number of their adult needs, will be outside of their conscious awareness but they will continue to influence how they experience life.

The people, who they have spent time with, who appeared to be very different to them, will have then been a reflection of what they need to heal inside themselves. The trouble is that as they won’t have been aware of what was taking place outside of their conscious awareness, they won’t have been able to join the dots, so to speak.

A Time of Integration

For their life to change and for them to no longer be drawn to people who are out of balance, they will need to do at least two things. First, they will need to face and work through their unmet development needs and the pain that they experienced.

Second, they will need to reconnect to the adult needs that they have been out of touch with. 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