Early Deprivation: Can Someone Be A People Pleaser If They Experienced Early Deprivation?

What someone may have become aware of, after stepping back and reflecting on their life, is that they have the inclination to please others. They might also see that they have been this way for as long as they can remember.

When they are around another person, what can be normal is for them to focus on their needs and lose touch with their own and do what they can to meet them. As a result of this, they will act like an extension of the other person as opposed to a separate human being.

On The Plus Side

Thanks to how they behave, they can often be described as being understanding, caring, and a good listener. If so, this feedback can have a positive effect on their wellbeing, with them often feeling appreciated.

Even so, it won’t make up for the fact that they will be erasing themselves and ignoring their own needs. They might often think about how, although they are understanding, caring and a good listener toward others, they are not this way toward themselves.

Self-Neglect

Either way, they are not going to live a life that is fulfilling; instead, it will be a life where they often feel frustrated and are deprived. In general, it can be as if they are just playing a role and are not fully showing up.

What might often cross their mind is how free and alive they would feel if they were able to step out of this role and just be themselves. At this point, though, this might seem like nothing more than a dream.

A Closer Look

In order for them to understand why they behave in this way, there is an exercise that they can do. They can imagine that, when they are around others, they freely express themselves.

At first, they can feel free, powerful and alive, before feeling relieved and grateful. However, it might not be long before they feel anxious and have the need to abandon themselves and be there for others.

A Strange Scenario

Assuming that this is what takes place, they can wonder why simply being themselves feels so uncomfortable. But as this is going to be experienced as something that is a threat to their survival, this is to be expected.

As confusing as this is, if they were able to go back in time and observe their early years, it might gradually make sense. This may have been a stage of their life that was anything but nurturing.

Back In Time

From a very young age, they might have been expected to do what their parent or parents wanted. And, if they didn’t, they might have been ignored, rejected, hit or abandoned.

This would have meant that they wouldn’t have been accepted for who they were; they were only accepted when they played a role. The outcome of this is that they would have missed out on the attunement, mirroring, care, affection, support and protection that they needed to grow and develop in the right way.

One option

So, to try to be accepted and avoid being left, they would have become who their parent or parents wanted them to be and behaved how they wanted them to behave. This would have involved them losing touch with their embodied, connected, fully feeling and inner-directed true self.

In its place would have been the creation of a disembodied, disconnected, not fully feeling and outer-directed false self. But although they would have lived in the hope that, adapting in this way would allow them to be loved, it probably wouldn’t have mattered.

It was futile

The reason for this is that one or both of their parents probably couldn’t love them as they themselves had also been deprived during their formative years. But as helpless as they were, this hope would have served as a secondary defence, as it would have aided repression and allowed them to release tension.

Many years will have passed since this stage of their life, of course, but they won’t have fully moved on. They will still be uprooted from their body, associate self-expression with being left and their life coming to an end, and they will still be struggling for the love that they missed out on.

Moving Forward

For them to change their life, they will have a number of steps to take. They will have beliefs to question, pain to face and process, and unmet developmental needs to experience.

This will take courage, support, 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, as many others have.

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

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