Early Deprivation: Can Someone Be Out Of Touch With Their True Self If They Had A Narcissistic Mother?

If someone were able to step back and reflect on their life, what they may find is that they have the tendency to please others. They can see that this takes place without them having to think about it.

Along with this, they can find that they don’t have a good connection with their needs and feelings. Thanks to how they experience life, they are unlikely to have a very fulfilling life.

Off Centre

But as they will largely be focused on others and out of touch with themselves, this is to be expected. They will be a separate human being who has their own needs, feelings and life to lead, and yet, it will be as if they are an extension of others.

However, although they won’t be happy living in this way, they might have the need to keep what is going on to themselves. As a result of this, they can not only feel deeply unhappy, but they can also have the need to hide their suffering.

A Strange Scenario

Assuming that this is what is going on for them, they can wonder why they behave in a way that is not serving them. For them to gain a deeper understanding of what is going on, they can use their imagination.
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So, they can imagine that they live a life where they freely express themselves and are not solely focused on other people’s needs. This will then be a life where they are connected to their needs and feelings and do what is right for them.

Two Stages

At first, they can feel free, powerful and alive and be filled with gratitude. This will be because they are living in a way that is in alignment with who they are.

But, as time passes, they could end up feeling very uncomfortable and have the need to go back to how they were before. They can find that they feel anxious and fearful, with it being as though something bad is going to happen.

Confusion

What they can find is that, if they freely express themselves, they expect to be criticised, humiliated, rejected and even left. Freely expressing themselves is then going to be seen as something that is both bad and a threat to their survival.

As this is what they believe, it is not going to be a surprise that they have such a strong need to ignore themselves and focus on others. Still, as strange as this will be, if they were able to go back in time and observe what it was like for them as a child, it might soon make sense.

Back In Time

Throughout their early years, they may have had a mother who was anything but maternal.  Instead of their mother seeing them as a separate being who had their own needs, feelings and life to lead, she might have generally seen them as nothing more than an extension of herself.

It was then not her purpose to focus on their needs and provide them with the love that they needed to grow and develop in the right way; no, it was their purpose to focus on her needs and meet them.

A Brutal Time

The outcome of this is that their mother would have been like a child, a tyrannical child, while they would have had to be the parent. If they did express their needs or resisted what was going on, they are likely to have been punished.

This is likely to have been a time when they were criticised, humiliated, rejected, left and even physically harmed. Being connected to and freely expressing themselves would have gradually been associated with something that was bad and a threat to their survival.

One Option

To handle this lack of attunement and care, they would have been forced to lose touch with their connected and feeling, true self. What would have been created in its place is a disconnected, unfeeling and outer-directed, false self.

This false self would have allowed them to handle being in an environment where they were greatly deprived and deeply wounded. The pain that they experienced and the needs that were not met will have ended up being repressed by their brain.

Moving Forward

There is a strong chance that their mother had also been brought up by a mother or a father who was just as developmentally stunted and lacked the ability to attune to her needs. Her child was then moulded into the responsive parent that she never had.

With this in mind, how they were treated was not a sign that they were worthless or unlovable; it was a sign of how damaged their mother was. For them to gradually change their life, they are likely to have a lot of inner work to do.

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