Early Deprivation: Can Early Deprivation Cause Someone To Carry Split-Off Child Parts?

Although someone’s childhood will be well and truly behind them, it doesn’t mean that they have fully moved on from this stage of their life. Due to this, what happened and the impact it had on them can still have a big effect on their life.

However, if they are not aware of this, what is going on for them can just be what is normal. As a result, they can suffer in one or a variety of different ways but they will just tolerate what is going on.

Another Scenario

Then again, they could be aware of the fact that they suffer from anxiety, for instance, but they could believe that they were just born this way. Alternatively, they could believe that they have a ‘chemical imbalance’.

When it comes to the former, they will just have to do their best to manage what is going on for them. As for the latter, they might end up going on medication.

Covered Up

The approach that they take may allow them to function better but it won’t get to the root of what is going on for them. The anxiety that they experienced will be a messenger but instead of listening to the message, it will have been silenced.

Yet, as they won’t realise that it is a message and they will live in a society that is primarily focused on treating symptoms not causes, this is not going to be a surprise. In this society, the focus will be on patching people up and allowing them to function again.

The Next Stage

As time passes, though, the approach that they are using to deal with their anxiety might no longer work. It is at this point that they might end up taking a deeper look into why their life is this way.

If this is so, they can take the time to be with their anxiety and look into why they are experiencing it. What they can find is that they fear they will be ignored, rejected and/or left.

A Warning Sign

Assuming that this is so, they will see that the anxiety that they experience is not the problem per se; it is there to let them know that something bad is about to happen. What could enter their mind is that even if they were ignored, rejected and/or left, their life wouldn’t end.

Thus, they could believe that there is no reason for them to experience this anxiety. Consequently, they could come to the conclusion that the anxiety they experience is irrational.

A Deeper Look

Nonetheless, while the anxiety that they experience in the here and now will be irrational, parts of them won’t realise this. The reason for this is that there are likely to be many child parts inside them that are frozen in time.

These parts are then not going to be able to accept that although they feel like children or younger, this stage of their life is over. Like then, these parts will feel helpless and hopeless.

What’s going on?

Due to what is going on for them, they could wonder why they are carrying these ‘child parts’ inside them. If they were able to go back in time and observe what it was like for them during their formative years, they might soon understand why they are this way.

Throughout this stage of their life, they might have had a mother and perhaps a father who were emotionally unavailable and out of reach. Along with this, they might have often been put down and even physically harmed.

A Brutal Time

A stage of their life, when they needed attuned and caring parents, would then have been a time when they were greatly deprived and deeply wounded. Being ignored, rejected and left would have been the norm.

As they were powerless and dependent, their brain would have repressed how they felt and the needs that they had. This would have caused them to lose touch with their inner experience and allowed them to keep it together and function.

A Build Up

The outcome of this is that they would have lost access to a big part of their consciousness, with them being forced to live on the surface of themselves. Many years will have passed since that stage of their life, of course, but these split-off child, toddler and infant parts will be crying out to be seen and heard.
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As these parts won’t have a sense of time and will be blind, they won’t be able to accept that this stage is over or that other people are not all-powerful, god-like figures who are in control of their survival. For them to integrate these split-off parts and be able to live in the now, they will have pain to face and work through and unmet developmental needs to experience.

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.