Early Deprivation: Can Someone Believe That There Is Not Enough If They Experienced Early Deprivation?

If someone were to step back and reflect on their life, what they might find is that it’s as though they live in a desert. The reason for this is that they could seldom, if ever, receive what they need.

So, they might generally be able to meet the needs that allow them to survive, but that could typically be as far as it will go. As a result, a number of their needs are rarely, if ever, going to be met.

A Bleak Existence

When it comes to the life that they lead, then, they can have somewhere to live, clothes to wear and food to eat. Now, they could be grateful that they are not in a position where they live on the street, have nothing to wear or food to eat, but they will want more.

In addition to these basic needs, there are the needs that they need to meet to live a fulfilling life. This will relate to their need to be supported, be free, and be valued and loved, among other things.

One Reality

When it comes to their life, however, they may or may not live somewhere where they feel at home, they could have a job that is soul-destroying, they might not have any close friends, and they might not be in an intimate relationship. Assuming that this is the case, they will receive what they need to stay alive, but that will be about it.

If, on the other hand, they lived somewhere where they felt at home, had a job that filled them with joy, had close friends and were even in an intimate relationship, they would be able to meet more than just their basic needs. Thanks to how they live, it can be as though they are just going through the motions in life.

The Norm

If they were to look back on their life, they may find that their life has been this way for as long as they can remember. Due to this, they just believe that this is how life is, and there is very little that they can do.

They can believe that they just need to do the best that they can and to hope that, sooner or later, their life will get better. What can be normal is for them to feel helpless and hopeless and be deeply depressed.

A Very Different Reality

Yet, as barren as their life will often be, they may know people who have lives that are radically different to theirs. For example, these people may do something for a living that is deeply rewarding and are paid well, have close friends and are in a loving relationship.

They are then going to live on the same planet as these people, but it will be as if they are on a different planet entirely. Another way of looking at this would be to say that people like this live in a world that responds to their needs, while they themselves don’t.

What’s going on?

One way of looking at this would be to say that their life is this way because they are unlucky or unfortunate. Alternatively, it could be said that other people have something that they themselves don’t have.

Nonetheless, what if they are not unlucky or unfortunate, and other people don’t have something that they themselves don’t have? What if their life is this way because of what is taking place inside them?

A Closer Look

If this is how their life has been for as long as they can remember, there is a strong chance that their early years were anything but nurturing. Practically from the moment that they were born, they might have been greatly deprived and deeply wounded.

So, instead of receiving the attunement and care that they needed, they might have typically been left and received attention at the wrong times. To handle the pain that they were in, their brain would have repressed a number of their needs and feelings, causing them to disconnect from their connected and feeling, true self.

No Other Choice

They then had needs that needed to consistently be met for them to grow and develop in the right way, but as their mother and perhaps their father didn’t do this, they had to adapt to the lack of love that was on offer. In addition to how every part of their being had to adapt, there would have been the meaning that their underdeveloped brain made.

They would have come to associate their needs and feelings as bad, and seen themselves as worthless and unlovable. Furthermore, they would have also developed the sense that there was not enough for them and that they could only survive by hiding their needs.

A Natural Outcome

As confusing as their adult behaviour is, then, it will largely be a consequence of how they had to adapt and what they came to believe as a result of being brought up in a very unresponsive environment. Of course, this stage of their life will be over, but as a big part of them won’t realise this, they will continue to create a life that is just as depriving.

Being connected to their body and in touch with their needs and feelings will cause them to come into contact with the pain and the unmet developmental needs that their brain has repressed. Also, if they were to express the needs that they have largely been out of touch with, they can expect to be rejected and left, as this is what would have happened very early on.

Moving Forward

Taking all this into account, for them to reconnect to their needs and freely express them, 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.