Early Deprivation: Can Someone Associate Abuse With Survival If They Experienced Early Deprivation?

Right now, someone may be in a relationship that is anything but loving. So, they could be with someone who undermines them in a variety of different ways.

For example, they could rarely be seen or heard, receive affection, often be put down and humiliated and even be physically harmed. They may have been in this position for a number of months or years.

In A Bad Way

When they are around their partner, they are unlikely to feel good about themselves or be able to relax. What can be normal is for them to feel low, drained and to be on edge.

But, as they will be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t treat them very well, it is to be expected that they would be this way. Most likely, the longer that they stay with them, the more they will suffer.

External Support

They might not have told anyone else about what is going on for them, with them preferring to keep it to themselves. If so, they could believe that no one would listen to them and that they would end up being criticised.

Then again, they might have opened up to another or others but only shared certain details. The person or people who they are opened up to are then not going to have a full understanding of what is going on for them.

Another Reality

Conversely, they might have only said so much but the person who they spoke to might have realised that they were not being completely honest. This is because they might have picked up on how they were feeling.

As a result, they might have ended up fully opening up and being told that they need to leave the person they are with. After being told this and perhaps reaching out for external support, they might end up doing this.

The Next Stage

Assuming that they do cut their ties with them, it doesn’t mean that every part of them will believe that they have made the right decision. Part of them could be relieved that the hell they were living in is over, but another part of them can crave their ex.
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They can also have the sense that they won’t be able to survive with them. If they were to talk to a friend or someone else about what is going on for them, they could be told that they only crave them because they were together for so long and that their survival isn’t dependent on them.

Another Stage

After a while, thanks, in part, to the support that they receive, they could end up settling down and finding themselves again. During this time, they could look back on their life and think about the other relationships that they have been in.

What they may find is that this is not the first relationship that they have been in where they were treated badly. They may have been in at least one other relationship where they were treated in a very similar way and put up with what was going on for a long time.

A Strange Scenario

If this is the case, they could wonder why they continually end up in relationships where they are abused, are unable to end the relationship and question if they can survive without them once it comes to an end. As confusing as this will be, if they were able to go back in time and observe what it was like for them during their formative years, they might soon see why they are this way.

This may have been a stage of their life that was generally anything but nurturing, with them being undermined by their mother and perhaps their father. Both of them might have been emotionally unavailable and out of reach and abused them in a variety of different ways.

A Brutal Time

Throughout this time, they might have often been isolated from others and when they were around others, they might have typically been mistreated. As they needed their parent’s attention and care, as they were powerless and dependent, it would have made it hard for them to handle being alone.

When they were alone, they would have probably had the experience of dying without dying, with them going into a collapsed physiological state to handle what happened. But, when they were not alone, they would have been treated as if they were nothing.

The Meaning

The outcome of this is that they would have come to believe that they only had two options: either they are alone and would die, or they are around others and are mistreated but they survive. They wouldn’t have learnt that they can be treated well by others and survive.

Along with this, as they were egocentric, they would have come to believe that they were worthless and unlovable. Furthermore, as their need to be loved would have been repressed, it would have been removed from their conscious awareness but it wouldn’t have been neutralised.

A Natural Outcome

Taking this into account, it is not going to be a surprise that they have continually replicated what it was like for them as a child. For their life to change, they will need to understand, at the core of their being, that they can be treated well and survive and that they are not worthless and unlovable.

Lastly, they will need to let go of the need to receive the love that they missed out on. To do this, they will 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.