Hopeless: Can Developmental Trauma Cause Someone To Feel Hopeless?

If someone has recently gone through a breakup, they could find that they feel deeply hopeless and helpless. They are then going to be in a state of despair and it will be as though their life is over.

This may have been a relationship that lasted for a number of months or it might have been a number of years. Either way, now that it has come to an end it will have left them in a very bad way.

A Long Way Down

Based on what is going on for them, it can be as if they have been dropped into a very deep hole. This will be a hole where there doesn’t appear to be a ladder or rope that they can use to climb out.

Due to how low they feel and their inability to see a way out of what is going on for them, they could have moments when they feel deeply depressed and even think about ending it all. What is clear is that they will need something to happen or else they might end up doing something dramatic.

A Lift

If they are able to feel slightly better and even experience a sense of hope, it could be due to a number of reasons. Perhaps they have ended up talking to their ex again, have had a supportive conversation with a friend or have met someone else, for instance.

The small amount of hope that they may have experienced will then have been enough to lift them, if only slightly, out of a very low place. The support that they needed would then have arrived at just the right time.

Back To Normal

As time passes, other areas of their life could start to return to how they were before. For example, they might not have gone out much before, performed as well at their job or exercised.

But, now that they have started to rise up again, they could go out more, perform better at work and exercise once more. In many ways, they can create the impression that everything is fine again.

Stepping Back

However, if they were to step back and reflect on their life, what they may find is that this is not the first time they have felt this way. They might see that they usually feel this way after a relationship comes to an end.

Along with this, this could be how they have felt after they have experienced other setbacks. So, if they have ever lost their job, not been able to earn a promotion and/or failed an exam, for instance, they might have ended up on their back, so to speak.

A Common Occurrence

But, even when they haven’t experienced a setback and been in a place of utter despair, they might have often felt somewhat hopeless. During these moments, they might have a number of ways to keep how they really feel at bay.

One way this can take place is by them staying busy and practically always being on the go. By being this way, they won’t have to come into contact with how they truly feel and, at times, to feel a sense of control.

Confusion

After realising this, they could wonder why they are more or less only a few moments from either feeling somewhat hopeless or completely hopeless. Being this way could cause them to experience a fair amount of anxiety and fear as they might believe that, one day, they won’t be able to get out of the ditch or the hole they end up in.

If they have been this way for as long as they can remember, there is a chance that they are this way due to what took place during their developmental years. This may have been a time when they missed out on the nutrients that they needed to grow and develop in the right way.

Back In Time

From the moment they were born, they may have often been neglected and when they were given attention, it might have largely been misattuned care. Being left as an infant and then, perhaps throughout their toddlerhood and childhood, would have deeply wounded them.  

They would have often felt totally hopeless and helpless and they were hopeless and helpless. As they were powerless and totally dependent on their caregivers at this stage, there was nothing that they could about what was going on externally.

One Option

To handle the pain they were in, their brain would have automatically repressed how they felt and they would have gone into a shut-down, collapsed, frozen and disconnected state. This would have allowed them to keep it together and to survive.  

Many, many years will have passed since this stage of their life but a big part of them won’t have truly moved on. To this part of them, they will still be hopeless and helpless and there won’t be anything that they can do about it.

Moving Forward

Their parasympathetic nervous system will be activated when they go into this state and this will mean that they won’t have access to the drive that their sympathetic nervous system would provide. The pain that their brain repressed all those years ago will be held inside their brain and body.

For them truly put the past behind them and to longer fall into such a deep hole after a setback, they will probably need to work through this pain. This is a process that will take courage and patience and persistence.
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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