Early Deprivation: Can It Be Harder For Someone To Process A Loss If They Experienced Early Deprivation?

If someone were to experience a breakup, lose a pet or loved one, they might face and experience how they feel. This doesn’t mean that they won’t be able to live their life.

However, due to the impact that a loss has on them, they might not be able to live in the same way as they did before. So, they can have moments when they are unable to function and are not interested in doing some of the things that they did before.

Another Reality

Then again, as a result of the impact that it has on them, they might not be able to function and can lose just about all of their motivation. But, by facing how they feel and with the support of friends and family, for instance, over time, they should be able to embrace life once again.

This is not to say that their life will go back to how it was before, as their life will never go back to how it was before. What they will experience is a new normal.

A Different Direction

Alte
atively, after experiencing a loss, they might not fully face and experience how they feel. Instead, whenever they connect to how they feel, they could soon take or do something in order to push their feelings out of their mind.

This is something that can take place automatically and without them needing to think about it. Thanks to this, they can, more or less, continue to behave in the same way.

Exte
al Feedback

Some of the people in their life can then be surprised by how well they appear to be doing and can describe them as being very strong and resilient. What these people won’t realise, then, is that it is not that they are doing well; it is just that they are avoiding how they feel.

How they come across on the outside will be very different to what is actually going on for them on the inside. If they were to experience another loss, though, the same approach might not work.

The next stage

After a number of months or years pass, they could experience another loss and this time, they might not be able to avoid how they feel. This time, they might not be able to behave in the same way.

They can have moments when they are overwhelmed with pain and other moments when they disconnect from how they feel and go into a collapsed physiological state and are depressed. At this point, they can have moments when they start to wonder why this loss has had such a big impact on them.

The next questio

If this is a thought that enters their mind, they can think about how they have avoided how they felt after previous losses and can see that this has caused a lot of pain to build up inside them. The experience that they are currently having will then be a consequence of many unprocessed losses.

After this, they can wonder why this has taken place, and they haven’t faced how they have felt after each loss that they have experienced. Now, as confusing as this will be, there is a chance that they have behaved in this way because of what took place during their formative years and the impact it had on them.

Back In Time

From a very young age, they might have missed out on the attunement, care, mirroring, and support that they needed to grow and develop in the right way. This would have caused them to be greatly deprived and deeply wounded.

To handle not having a number of their needs consistently met and the pain that this caused them, their brain would have repressed how they felt and a number of their needs. Additionally, they would have lived in the hope that, if they became who their mother and perhaps father wanted and behaved how they wanted, they would be loved.

A Futile Struggle

Yet, as their mother and perhaps their father probably couldn’t provide them with the love that they needed, it wouldn’t have mattered how they behaved or what they did. Still, this false hope would have served as a secondary defence that helped them keep this inner material outside of their conscious awareness and release tension and, thereby, made it easier for them to keep it together and function.

Many years will have passed since this stage of their life, of course, but the pain and the unmet developmental needs that were repressed will have stayed inside them. Thus, when they have experienced a loss in the past and didn’t face how they felt, this would have been a way for their system to stop them from being overwhelmed with pain and falling apart.

A Lot to Handle

If, on the other hand, their early years were different and they were not carrying so much pain, they would probably have the inner resources to gradually face the loss and sadness that arises after a loss. But as they will have hundreds or even thousands of unprocessed losses inside them, they won’t be in a position where they can handle an adult loss, as this will unlock some of their unresolved childhood losses.

If they have come into contact with a lot of the loss that is inside them after a current loss, they will no longer be able to run away from themselves, as their brain will no longer have the ability to keep this pain outside of their conscious awareness. Facing and processing this pain will take courage, support, 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 exte
al support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.