Early Deprivation: What Can Happen If Someone’s Parent Made Them Into Their Parent?

Even if someone is an adult, it doesn’t mean that they will have actually had a childhood. Of course, there will have been a stage of their life when they were a child but this might have been a stage when they were rarely able to be a child.

If so, throughout this stage of their life, they would have often focused on their parent or parent’s needs and been there for them. However, this might not be something that they are consciously aware of.

Blocked Out

But, even if they are not consciously aware of what this stage of their life was like, it doesn’t mean that they will have moved on. No, their life can continue to be affected by what took place and the impact that it had on them.

In this case, their brain will have blocked out what took place to allow them to keep it together and function. If they were aware of some of the things that took place, they would be able to see why their life is that way that it is but their conscious mind would probably be flooded with memories and pain.

Self-Abandonment

So, thanks to what their early years were like, they are likely to have the tendency to ignore their own needs and be there for others. This can mean that they are used to receiving positive feedback from others and they could be seen as ‘selfless’.

They might even see themselves as someone who doesn’t have many needs and is happy to be there for others. Even so, as they will be neglecting themselves by living in this way, they are going to pay a price.

Out of Balance

For example, their need to rest and recharge, focus on their own interests, spend time with friends, and have fun could largely be overlooked. Yet, the feedback inside them, that will tell them that they are on the wrong track, can generally be overlooked.

This feedback can be experienced as tension and, as soon as they become aware of it, they can do or take something to remove it from their conscious awareness. But, although they will be able to do this, there may come a point in time when this approach doesn’t work.

Worn Down

As the days, weeks and years pass, it can get harder for them to behave in this way. The reason for this is that they might gradually lose both the desire and energy to behave in this way.

When they arrive at this point, they can notice that a big part of them can want to carry on behaving in the same way. So, when they think about changing their behaviour, let alone actually changing it, they can experience anxiety, guilt and shame.

A lot of Resistance

Not being able to behave in the same way will have caused them to experience a lot of inner conflict but it will be a blessing in disguise. Yet, as they won’t just be able to change their behaviour and start being there for themselves and saying no when they don’t want to do something, they are going to suffer.

At this stage, they could wonder why they have such a strong need to be there for others and feel bad when it comes to being there for themselves. Nonetheless, if they were to think about their early years, what might gradually become clear is that they often had to be there for their mother and perhaps their father.

An Emotional Desert

Assuming that they often had to be there for their mother, they might see that they were more like her parent than her child. When they expressed a need, they might have often been ignored, criticised, rejected and/or left.

If their basic needs were typically met, then, their emotional needs would have seldom, if ever, been met. At this stage, they were ‘’needy’ because they were in an underdeveloped state and needed to receive the right nutrients to grow but they would have been treated as though their needs were bad and a problem.

Role Reversal

Over time, they would have not only come to see their needs as bad and stopped expressing them but lost touch with a number of them. As dysfunctional as this was, as they were powerless and dependent, they had to adapt to what was going on.

The other part of this is that they would have become externally focused and done what they could to meet their mother’s needs. Thanks to the direct and indirect messages that they had received in regard to their own needs, if they didn’t focus on her needs, they would have felt guilty and ashamed and feared that they would be harmed.

The Truth

Most likely, their mother had also been used by one or both of her parents and, thus, while she looked like an adult, would have felt like a deprived child deep down. It was then not that she chose to deprive them, it was that she simply couldn’t provide them with what they needed.

With this in mind, there is nothing inherently wrong with their needs and they are not worthless or unlovable. For them to know this, at the core of their being, 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