Childhood is the most defining part of our lives; it molds who we are going to be as people. Unfortunately, not everyone is fortunate enough to have a positive childhood, and this can lead to the following 17 habits you probably developed if you weren’t loved as a child.
Overanalyzing social interactions
It’s a sad fact that many people who weren’t loved as a child develop social anxiety as adults. They’ll worry about the smallest things and overanalyze every social interaction, constantly replaying awkward conversations in their heads. Thankfully, with some support and therapy, this becomes easier to deal with over time.
Striving for perfection
Perfectionism is often connected to wanting to please a parent; we strive for perfection to get more love and attention from others, which usually stems back to our childhood. This means that if you didn’t experience love as a child, you probably set extremely high standards for yourself.
Seeking external validation
It’s common to seek out the approval of others if you weren’t loved as a child. In your younger years, you were constantly trying to impress, and this seeps into your adult life. Unfortunately, Psychology Today believes that social media only feeds this excessive reassurance-seeking.
You’re always daydreaming
When you’re an unloved child, you daydream and fantasize about a better life, as it’s a way to escape the emotional toll of feeling neglected. However, such a honed skill will never leave you, which means you’ll probably still rely on escapism into your adulthood.
Finding it hard to trust people
Your parents are the first people you will ever trust in life, and this is the one relationship that shouldn’t come with conditions. However, some children sadly experience conditional love from their parents, withholding it as punishment. Naturally, this makes it hard for them to trust and love people as adults.
A fear of abandonment
If you constantly feel like people are going to leave you, it’s probably linked to some childhood trauma. Fears of abandonment are very common, particularly in romantic relationships. It often stems from a lack of love as a child when children are not shown enough care or attention, making them feel abandoned.
You have difficulty expressing your needs
We all have needs in a relationship, but some of us have difficulty expressing them. We do this out of fear, worrying that our needs will push other people away. This is particularly common in children with abusive parents, as they feel ignored and dismissed as a child, carrying this into adulthood.
Suppressing emotions
Many toxic parents make their children fearful of expressing their emotions. NewsMedical states that repressed emotions are ones that you subconsciously avoid, a habit developed in childhood by many struggling children. As a result, they bottle up their feelings as an adult, as they never felt comfortable expressing themselves.
Constantly Overcompensating
Attempting to prove your worth in relationships leads to overcompensating, something that is very common among adults who were unloved as children. This habit forms a long-term cycle where victims aggressively try to prove that they are worth love in relationships. Sadly, this usually only pushes people away.
You self-isolate
There is a huge difference between enjoying alone time and self-isolating. Isolating yourself is a major form of self-sabotage, and withdrawing from others will only negatively impact your emotional health. Unfortunately, if you were unloved as a child, this is probably a habit you developed to avoid rejection.
Plagued by chronic guilt
Children who don’t experience love from their parents carry the heavy burden of guilt that they are to blame for this lack. This guilt never goes away, so if you experience chronic guilt in adult life over things that are not your fault, you probably grew up in a toxic household.
You’re highly sarcastic
Sarcasm is the top form of humor for anyone who grew up in a toxic household. It arises as a self-defense tactic, which research from the National Library of Medicine confirms. It explains that sarcasm is a coping mechanism used to avoid emotional distress. Who would have known!?
You avoid eye contact
Eye contact is a major communication skill that is developed in childhood, but not everyone finds it easy. There are many reasons why people avoid eye contact, but unloved children do it out of shame. When you feel unworthy, lack of eye contact is an avoidance tactic to protect your vulnerability.
Being Self-reliant
When you can’t rely on your parents, who exactly can you rely on? As an adult, you may have heightened self-reliance and may be excessively independent. When we are children, we are highly dependent on our parents, so if we don’t receive this care or attention, we learn to look for it inwards.
Dismissing personal achievements
It can be difficult to celebrate your own accomplishments if you never had anyone celebrate them as a child. This makes it common for victims of poor parenting to dismiss or downplay their personal achievements. This all comes down to low self-esteem, an unfortunate result of nobody acknowledging their strengths as a child.
A fear of making mistakes
Mistakes are a part of life, but many children receive punishment for them. If you were punished for making mistakes as a child, you’d fear them in adult life, too. The only way we grow is to learn from our mistakes, but sadly, unloved children never have this opportunity.
Preferring online relationships
The final common habit that people develop when left unloved as children is to prefer online relationships over those in the real world. As adults, they often feel safer online because, as the Counseling Directory points out, unloved children are afraid of developing meaningful relationships in the real adult world.
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