Early Deprivation: Can Someone Be Like A Chameleon If They Experienced Early Deprivation?

If someone were to step back and reflect on their life, what they might see is that they more or less always adapt to others. So, when it comes to how they behave, it can depend on who they are with.

For example, what can enter their mind is how they play the role of someone who is happy when they are around certain people. Whereas when they are around others, they can play the role of someone who is empathetic and understanding.

A Big Difference

Now, when someone has the ability to adapt, it is undoubtedly going to serve them. But when it relates to them continually losing touch with their needs and how they feel, and thus, being someone who doesn’t express what is going on inside them, it is not going to serve them.
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In this case, it will cause them to continually turn their back on themselves, and most of the people in their life won’t really know them. The outcome of this is that it will be normal for them to be deprived.

It’s Automatic

However, although adapting in this way won’t be serving them, they can then find that it just happens. It is then not that they consciously chose to be who other people want them to be and who they think they want them to be.

No, it is that when they are around another person, they blend with them and become someone else. Their conscious mind is then not going to play a part in what happens; it will be nothing more than a bystander.

An Activity

For them to gain a deeper understanding of why they behave in this way, they can imagine that they spend time around another but are connected to their needs and how they feel and behave as they choose to behave. Instead of coming across as happy, for instance, because another person is, they can come across as serious.

During this time, they can experience a sense of liberation and as though they are finally showing up. Yet, before long, they can feel uncomfortable and have the need to hide themselves again.

Inner Conflict

If they were to stay with the discomfort, it could be as though something bad was going to happen to them. Hiding themselves and mirroring the other person’s emotional state is then going to be what feels safe.

At this point, they can struggle to understand why it is so hard for them to be themselves and so easy for them to be who they are not. Before long, they could feel frustrated and angry, and helpless and hopeless.

What’s going on?

As confusing as this is likely to be, if they were able to go back in time and observe their early years, it would probably soon make sense. Practically from the moment that they were born, they might have missed out on the attunement and care that they needed.

If this were the case, being rejected and left would have been a normal part of their formative years. This would have caused them to be greatly deprived and deeply wounded.

One option

As opposed to experiencing an emotional birth and gradually developing a strong sense of self, they would have stayed in a developmentally stunted state and been forced to disconnect from their body. The connection that they had to their true self would have been lost, and they would have formed a disconnected and outer-directed false self.

If they hadn’t adapted in this way and had stayed connected to themselves, the pain would have probably killed them. Therefore, their system did what it needed to do to keep them alive.

Another Part

Along with how they developed, they would have come to associate their needs and feelings as being bad, and to see themselves as worthless and unlovable. There would have also been the hope that by adapting in this way and being who their parent or parents wanted them to be, they would be loved by them.

But as one or both of their parents probably weren't able to love them, it would have mattered who they became or what they did. Still, this hope, along with their brain repressing a number of their needs and feelings, would have played a big part in them being able to keep it together and function.

Moving Forward

Taking this into account, for them to be in their body and freely express themselves, they are going to have beliefs to question, 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.