8 Problems of People Who Experienced Too Little Love as a Child
A lifetime of consequences—whether caused consciously or unconsciously. If in childhood we have received too little affection from our parents and guardians, we will suffer negative consequences throughout our lives. Reciprocating feelings is an art we must learn at a young age. Compensating later in adulthood is difficult and often can only be done with professional help and a lot of patience. The bad thing is that we can't change anything here retroactively. The blame game, victimhood, and constantly looking backward to childhood, instead of forward into the future, only make things worse. And since love is a feeling, we can't solve the problem of a lack of it with our intellect or our sheer willpower. Too little love in childhood weakens our emotional immune system for the rest of our lives. This is demonstrated very clearly in the following 8 signs, which we’ll present to you in this article.
1. You Always Feel Like an Outsider
We’ll be confused for a long time. It almost always seems like we're the cuckoo bird hatched in the nest of another species of bird. School, friends, job, and even one's own family sometimes fail to give us the confident feeling of belonging and total acceptance. The reason for this, is that anyone who was never loved and accepted unconditionally as a child, will always be unconsciously looking for conditions that make such unconditional acceptance possible. As a consequence we are practically never ourselves able to give love and attention in a social environment. And, never being able to really give loving attention, we seem always to never be able to figure out the system whereby we might also get loving attention back. This insecurity and inability to connect to others is omnipresent and always makes us a bit of an isolated human island off the social mainland.
2. The Fear of Rejection Haunts Us
For people who were neglected in childhood, maintaining relationships is like a constant dance on thin ice. As adults we tend to expect rejection and assume that we have an inability to meet others’ expectations 100%. If childhood love was abused for emotional blackmail, this trained mechanism will, unfortunately, have long-lasting effects. The most tragic thing is that the fear of rejection is not limited to the private sphere. It also prevents us from developing a career despite our otherwise sufficient potentials. He who never had backup will have a hard time starting out in life. Failure will always seem to be more likely than success.
3. Opening Up to Others Is Extremely Difficult
Those who are constantly on the defensive, constantly wary of others will find it difficult to trust others enough to open up to them. A healthy amount of skepticism toward strangers is certainly wise and advisable in principle. But anyone who grew up without the certainty of unconditional love and support will always see interpersonal relations as dangerous. This caution makes us aloof and distant, even though we may not want to be. Finally discarding such protective mechanisms is extraordinarily difficult.
4. Fear Follows Us Everywhere
A stable and happy childhood cannot be valued highly enough as a foundation for later life. This makes it all the more difficult for people who have been denied this gift. He who knows relationships only as a fragile construct that can vanish at any time and without reason will go through life anxiously and insecurely. It takes many positive and happy experiences to begin to attenuate this fear a little. But it manifests itself not only in the private and interpersonal sphere, anxiety caused by traumatic childhood experiences affects every thought and action. Loss, abuse, and attacks on body soul leave deep scars.
5. Trusting Is Very Difficult
Those who have not learned to trust from an early age, or worse, have learned that mistrust is the only safe approach to life, will naturally find it all the more difficult to do so later. Violated or abused trust leaves deep scars. Even if at some later time clarifying talks with the parents take place, or later insight is offered, the damage that has already been done cannot be undone. This affects not only our love life and our partner search later on. A little trust is the basis for success of any interpersonal interaction. Chronic mistrust creates a real domino effect that sooner or later affects all areas of our daily lives.
6. Healthy Egoism Causes Feelings of Guilt
Anyone who has never been used to being the center of attention and being a princess or prince for parents and grandparents will find it difficult to want to take on a leading role in life. From a purely rational point of view, however, it would be of enormous importance for one's own self-esteem to kick up one's heels a bit and put oneself in the spotlight. Unfortunately, this sounds easier than it really is; the fear of generating resentment and rejection with such behavior is not easily shaken off.
7. Boundaries Are Missing
The desire to be loved can make people give everything and more. They often tend to literally sacrifice themselves for others and be there for them to the point of exhaustion—all in the hope of finally receiving affection and appreciation in return. This limitless giving, however, only opens the door to abuse. It will not compensate for the deficit of childhood and youth, either. A love that is based on a quid pro quo is not real love. Love based upon calculation or ulterior motives, will not result in unconditional love being returned.
8. Childhood Relationship Patterns Persist
The role model effect that our childhood family life has on our own later on cannot be underestimated. Many toxic relationships that adults have to go through have their origins in very similar patterns that they took for granted as children and teenagers. It is not uncommon for women who experienced violence and abuse as girls to seek out such men as partners. Conversely, men who were raised by narcissistic and manipulative mothers are apt to choose women with similar traits as partners. This demonstrates the intensely formative role modeling effect that early childhood experiences have on us. Even if we later know that these mechanisms were wrong, our mind will not easily triumph over our emotions. It is difficult for us to imagine anything other than what we were presented with as reality every day for years.
Today’s Conclusion: Loveless Childhoods Lead to Loveless Adults
Modern psychology assumes that we need 5 positive experiences to compensate for one negative one. This ratio truly does not promise us success in terms of relationships if we were not loved enough as children. However, this 5 to 1 ratio is not an impossibility either. In addition, dealing with emotional trauma is very individual. Some people manage to put their troubled childhoods behind them and simply do better themselves. Unfortunately, not all of them succeed, and they seamlessly pass on the baton of troubles to the next generation. One cannot blame these people. Those who were never allowed to experience the spark of love cannot pass on its light. That's it for today.