Mother Wounds: Can A Man Hide His Needs If He Had A Neglectful Mother?

Having needs is part of the human experience, and this means that they are not bad or wrong. However, although this is the case, a man can be in a position where he has the need to hide most of his needs.

This can be something that typically takes place without him even being aware of what is going on. By being this way, it is likely to stop him from receiving what he needs in order to thrive.

A Negative Association

So, irrespective of whether he is aware of what is going on or not, he is likely to believe that his needs are bad. This is why it will be essential for him to do everything he can to hide them from others.

He is then typically going to do his best to come across as needless and he could spend a lot of time doing things for others. Consequently, other people could often describe him as being selfless and have a lot of good things to say about him.

Deprived

The truth is that he will have needs, just like everyone else, so not acknowledging all of them and doing what he can to meet them is going to cause him to run on empty. He will be like a high-performance car that is not getting the fuel that it needs to run at its best.

Thanks to this, although he may often come across as happy and easy-going, this is unlikely to be a reflection of what is truly going on for him. Behind the mask that he may present to the world is likely to be a very different experience.

A Build-Up

If he has been this way for many, many years, it is to be expected that he will be in a lot of pain, deep down. He can feel deeply frustrated and depressed, and it can be as though he has no control over his life.

Yet, not only can he do his best to hide his true feelings from others, he can also do his best to hide them from himself. If he was to embrace how he really feels, he could end up being overwhelmed by pain.

Basic Needs

Now, of course, he will meet some of his needs or he wouldn’t be alive and able to experience this pain and this miserable existence. So, he will have food and drink, somewhere to live, clothes to wear, and at least one device that allows him to connect to the web.

He may even have a job that ‘pays the bills’ but it probably won’t do much else for him. Most of his emotional needs, then, are going to be overlooked, and these are going to play a big part in what would allow him to do more than just survive.

For Example

This will include the need to be happy, fulfilled, appreciated, supported, seen, heard, loved and valued. These are the kinds of needs that would be met by his friends, family and an intimate partner.

Also, if he had a vacation as opposed to a job, that’s assuming that this is the case, this would also play a part in what would allow him to fulfil these needs as well as others. Naturally, for this to take place, he will need to embrace these needs and express them.

A Closer Look

As these needs are simply part of the human experience, it can seem strange as to why he would feel the need to hide them and be out of touch with them himself. If he was able to take a step back and see what is going on, it would give him to chance to connect to his needs and to express them.

However, even if he was to become aware of what is going on, it doesn’t mean that he will just be able to connect to his needs. In the beginning, he could find that he is unable to do this.

Two Hurdles

This is likely to show that he is out of touch with his body as this is where most of his needs will be found. If he was to connect to a few of the needs that he had been estranged from, he could find that he feels uncomfortable when he thinks about expressing them.

He could find that expressing his needs is seen as something that would cause him to be rejected and abandoned. Therefore, expressing his needs won’t be seen as what will allow him to grow and expand; it will be seen as a threat to his very survival.

Way Back

What this can illustrate is that his needs were rarely, if ever, met during his formative years. This may have been a time when he was often left by his mother and given the wrong type of care when he wasn’t.

By being egocentric, he would have come to see his needs as being the reason why he was being left. To try to keep his mother around, something that was out of his control, he would have automatically lost touch with his needs.

Another Part

Additionally, the pain that he experienced, by not getting his needs met, would have been too much for him to handle. The only way for him to handle this pain was to disconnect from his needs and, in the process, his body.

This would have caused him to lose touch with himself but, as he was unable to change his mother’s behaviour or to run away and find another mother, this was his only option. He would have had many, many moments when he was rejected and abandoned, and the pain that he experienced will still be locked inside his body.

Still a Risk

Many, many years will have passed since this stage of his life but as this pain is still held inside him, he won’t be able to realise that it is over. What he fears will happen, if he expresses his needs, will have already happened.

For him to know that this stage of his life is over and to freely express his needs, he will need to work through this pain. This is something that will take time; it won’t happen overnight.
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Awareness

If a man can relate to this and he is ready to change his life, he 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