Early Deprivation: Can Someone Hide Their True Self If They Had A Narcissistic Mother?

If someone were to take a step back and reflect on their life, what they may see is that they have the tendency to hide themselves around others. Due to this, they won’t freely express who they are.

The outcome of this is that they will hide a number of their needs and how they feel. They can then typically play a role, a role where they are easy-going and act as though they are fine.

Another Part

Along with this, they can have the inclination to focus on other people’s needs and to do what they can to meet them. Other people can then describe them as attentive and selfless.

But, while they might be used to receiving positive feedback from others, they are going to be living in a way that is not serving them. Their true self will seldom, if ever, see the light of day, and this will cause them to be deprived.

It’s Automatic

However, as unfulfilling as their life will be, they may find that even though they are aware of what takes place, they are unable to simply change their behaviour. So, when they are around others, they can just act in this way.

It can then be as if someone or something ‘out there’ takes over and prevents them from being able to freely express themselves. At this point, they could feel helpless and hopeless, and as though they have no control over how they behave.

A Closer Look

For them to gain a deeper understanding of what is going on, it will be a good idea for them to use their imagination. What they can imagine is that they are freely expressing who they are.

At first, they can feel a sense of liberation and be alive and end up feeling a deep sense of gratitude. This will then be a time when they are fully showing up and allowing others to see them.

The Next Stage

After a while, though, they could end up being filled with anxiety and fear, with it being as if something bad is going to happen. They can soon have the need to go back to hiding themselves and playing a role.

Due to how unsettled they feel when they simply imagine freely expressing themselves, it is not going to be a surprise that they hide themselves. At this stage, they could conclude that there is no reason for them to be this way.

Going Deeper

Now, if they were to sit with the anxiety and fear that arises when they imagine freely expressing themselves, they can find that they expect to be criticised, humiliated, ignored, and even left. Therefore, being themselves is not going to be seen as something that will allow them to be supported, valued or loved.

Hiding themselves, on the other hand, will be seen as something that will allow them to be supported and accepted, if not valued or loved. What this is likely to illustrate is that they believe that there is something inherently wrong with them, and they are not lovable.

A Natural Outcome

Thus, in order for them to survive, they have to hide who they are and merely settle for being accepted for who they are not, as opposed to being valued and loved for who they are. For them to understand why they are this way, it will be a good idea for them to reflect on their early years.

If they were to do this, what they may gradually see is that this was a stage of their life that was anything but nurturing. Their mother may have largely seen them as nothing more than an object that was there to meet her needs.

A Brutal Time

By not being seen as a separate being who had their own needs and feelings, they would have missed out on the emotional nutrients that they needed to grow and develop in the right way. This would have caused them to be greatly deprived and deeply wounded.

To handle the pain of not having an attentive and caring mother, their brain would have repressed how they felt and a number of their needs. They would then have lost touch with their connected, true self and developed a disconnected, false self.

The meaning

And, although how they were treated was not a reflection of their value or lovability and was most likely a reflection of how wounded their mother was, they would have personalised what took place. They were then not treated like a valuable and lovable being, as they were worthless and unlovable.

Hiding themselves and playing a role, and settling for the crumbs of acceptance that were on offer, were the only way for them to survive in an environment where there was very little love on offer and minimising the chances of being put down, humiliated, left and perhaps hit. Now that they an adult, they will no longer live in this environment, but a big part of them won’t have moved on.
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Moving Forward

As a result of what they experienced, they are going to carry the unmet developmental needs and pain that they had to repress all those years ago. There will also be the inaccurate beliefs that they formed.

For their life to change, they are going to have beliefs to question, 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