How unmet childhood needs affect adult relationships

Last week we talked about couples in blended families and relationships and this week we talk about how unmet childhood needs affect adult relationships.

Human beings are wired to need comfortable and attention, just as much as we need food, and oxygen. If we grew up in environments where we could not always count on our caregivers to be there and help us when we needed them, then we would likely have experienced these absences as life threatening and have had to develop ways to divide ourselves to become our own caregiver, as Harry Stack Sullivan says. Some of these ways include becoming overly self-reliant by suppressing our needs for connection and our feelings of distress, or anxiously trying to please others at the expense of developing a true sense of ourselves. We might also have tried to solve the dilemma, by combining the two strategies, such that we both anxiously pursue connection and push others away out of fear, a common feature of what we now call borderline personality disorder. All of these can later show up in our adult relationship, especially with romantic partners. In my practice I came across many clients who has perceived by others self-reliant and strong, but in intimate relationships, which client mostly avoided, he/she would become so anxious and ultimately precipitate their rejection of him/her.

Henry Stack-Sullivan, who is considered the father of interpersonal psychiatry, developed the Interpersonal Theory of Nursing. This theory explained the role of interpersonal relationships and social experiences in regard to the shaping of personalities, as well as the importance of life events to psychopathology. Stack-Sullivan’s theory states that the purpose of behaviour is for the patient to have his or her needs met through interpersonal interactions, as well as decrease or avoid anxiety.

Sullivan argued that individuals' self-identity is built up over the years through their perceptions of how they are regarded by significant people in their environments. Different stages in the course of behavioural development correspond to different ways of interacting with others.

Here are some points highlighting the unmet needs in childhood

• Lack of trust

Children who do not have affectionate parents tend to have lower self-esteem and to feel more alienated, hostile, aggressive, and anti-social.  Distrust can come from a traumatic incident, an unloving childhood, or experienced betrayal in other relationships. When a person's first attachment experience is being unloved, this can create difficulty in closeness and intimacy, creating continuous feelings of anxiety and avoidance of creating deep meaningful relationships as an adult. A client I saw years ago. Her story stays with me. A family member molestored her when she was 6 years old. Since she was a grown up, she never had a stable relationship, she always had a doubt about any men coming to her life, she developed obsessive compulsive disorder, cleaning everywhere and everything, and eating disorder. Even though this client received love from her family, still no one knew she had been abused by family members until she was older, because she wouldn’t trust anyone who would believe her if she told anyone, so she kept it inside.

• Toxic environment

Children who grow up in toxic environments necessarily accept unhealthy environments as ‘normal. By attempting to cope by rationalising the irrational, you can become comfortable and “at home” in similar situations in the future. 

The child will mature into an adult who unconsciously craves the familiar, ‘comfortably uncomfortable’ toxic dynamics of childhood. The now-adult will unconsciously choose friends and partners who seem pleasant and even healthy yet ultimately perpetuate the negative patterns witnessed and lived in childhood.

• Lack of safety

 If safety needs are incomplete or inconsistent in childhood, this predisposes us to either:

• Chase, safety in our adult relationships, hoping someone will come in as a hero and save us, or

• Chasing, unsafe dangerous, “friends” or partners because we’ve been conditioned to believe unsafe = safe from our childhood trauma.

A pattern of chasing unsafe situation or people usually walks hand in hand with feeling numb and confusing instability and unpredictability as fun and exciting.

• Lack of boundaries

Boundaries are learned. So, if your family of origin didn’t model healthy boundaries, you might lack the skills to navigate them as an adult.

Your boundaries might become overly porous or rigid. This can lead to you potentially:

• being taken advantage of

• taking advantage of others

• keeping your guard up for “protection”

• creating barriers to healthy relationships

They might also experience co-dependency, (which might mean) that they’re subconsciously looking to ‘fix’ the caregiver formative attachment experience.

• Lack of Autonomy

Autonomy is defined as our ability to know who we are at our core, and to act on our own feelings, beliefs, and interests. Our development of self-love and self-trust is fundamental to having a sense of autonomy.

Lack of autonomy and self-esteem can cause many symptoms, such as:

• stress.

• addiction.

• domestic violence.

• emotional abuse.

• communication problems.

• worry and anxiety.

• guilt, and shame.

• anger.

In a person’s adult relationships, a lack of autonomy can predispose them to “mirroring” others as a way of trying to gain a sense of self, or they may have a constant need for external validation (“people-pleasing”) as a way of measuring their own behaviour through the “approval” of others. Because of these needs-deficits, a person may appear “clingy” and unable to advocate for themselves, may not be able to make their own choices, or may constantly turn to their partner as having the answers.

At the end…

Childhood emotional neglect can damage a child’s self-esteem and mental health. It teaches them their feelings are not important. The consequences of this neglect can be deep and last a lifetime.

The effects of a childhood without love may be deep rooted, but they can be healed. 

Some ways you can heal from feeling unloved as a child include but are not limited to:

• learning your triggers

• engaging in inner child work

• practicing self-care and self-love

• practicing setting boundaries

• using your past to learn what you do and don’t want in life

• Journaling or reading interactive self-help books

• positively reframing internalised beliefs (e.g., “I am an unloved daughter” to “I deserve love as an adult”)

• building community in support groups with people who share similar experiences

• being patient and kind to yourself through the healing process

You must validate your inner child and the pain that you have experienced as children is not only healing but empowering.

Trust the process and accept that healing is on a scale.

Therapy can also help you heal. individual therapy is an ideal place to start and explore your life experience.