Early Deprivation: Can Early Deprivation Cause Someone To Associate Separation With Death?

Recently, someone may have gone through a breakup, and, since then, they might not have been in a good way. This may have been a relationship that was going well or it might not.

Either way, there can be moments when they experience fear and anxiety, and other moments when they lose touch with how they feel and go into a disconnected and collapsed physiological state. When the former takes place, they can message or call a friend and when the latter takes place, they can be out of reach to others.

A Pattern

This could be the first time that they have had this experience; then again, they might have been in this position before. If they have been in this position on at least one other occasion, they might see that it took a long time for them to recover.

They might see that they were emotionally all at sea for weeks, months and even years before they were able to get back on their feet. Along with this, they needed to spend a lot of time around friends and perhaps family.

Another Element

What might also enter their mind is that after they have spent time around a friend or a family member, they experience a sense of loss after. It's then not that they have just said goodbye and will likely meet again in the future; it is that they will never see them again.

They might then see that being this way typically makes them very needy and clingy. Due to this, they might have pushed a number of people away over the years, as these people have found them too much to handle.

A Challenge

They might see that they do what they can to spend as little time as possible by themselves. If they are by themselves, they can have the need to distract themselves in one way or another.

Therefore, in general, they are going to do what they can to spend time around another or others. This may mean that they have spent most of their adult life in a relationship.

A Strange Scenario

What will stand out is that they don’t feel comfortable being by themselves; this will be seen as a threat to their survival. It could be said that there is no reason for them to feel this way.

They should be able to be by themselves and feel at ease and, when they say goodbye to another, they should also feel at ease after. Lastly, while a breakup can be painful, they shouldn’t feel as though their life is going to end afterwards.

What’s going on?

As this is not the case, it could be said that how they feel and respond is irrational. However, as bizarre as this can appear to be, if they were to able to go back in time and observe what it was like for them as a child, it might gradually make sense.

This may have been a time when their primary caregiver didn’t provide them with the attunement and care that they needed to grow and develop in the right way. Instead, they might have often been left when they needed attention and received attention when they didn’t need it.

A Big Impact

This would have caused them to be greatly wounded and deeply deprived. If they had received what they needed, they would have developed a sense of trust in their caregiver.

They would have known that their needs would be met and developed the sense that the world is responsive to their needs. This would have allowed them to go from a dependent to an interdependent human being.

Another Reality

But, as they didn’t receive what they needed, they wouldn’t have developed a sense of trust in their caregiver, which would have prevented them from knowing that their needs would be met and developing the sense that the world is responsive to their needs. Being left for however long would have been normal.

And, as they were in an underdeveloped and highly emotional state, being left for minutes, for instance, would have felt like forever. They would then have often had the experience of dying without dying.

The Outcome

Ultimately, they didn’t have the capacity to know that even though they had been left, they hadn’t been abandoned. To handle the pain that they were in, their brain would have repressed how they felt and a number of their needs.

This wouldn’t have changed their caregiver’s behaviour but it would have stopped them from being consciously aware of the pain they were in, and, thus, allowed them to keep it together and function. Their system would have also come to associate being left with death.

The Past Is Present

Many years will have passed since they were a powerless and dependent infant, toddler and child, but a big part of them will be anchored to this stage of their life. Thanks to this, when a relationship comes to an end or they say goodbye to a friend, for instance, their brain will instantly scan their past to decide how they should behave in the present.

So, as their brain has associated separation with death, they will then experience fear and anxiety and it will be as if they are going to die. After this, they can end up going into a collapsed physiological state, to stop them from being overwhelmed with pain.

Moving Forward

For them to be able to emotionally grow up and move beyond this stage of their development, they are likely to 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.