We Stay at the Age When We Weren’t Loved Enough – Irina Parfyonova

I often meet 20, 30, 40-year-old people, but that’s how they look on the outside. On the inside it seems that they are still in their early childhood and are still expecting love that they hadn’t received sufficiently at the time. They stay there until they learn to find pleasure in themselves.
Every age has its needs, which means that parents’ attention and love have their own specificities as years go by.
In early childhood trust begins to form, meaning that for a child mother’s love is a compassionate care for his/her needs.
If at that age mother was unreliable, rejected the child, then the child may start to feel doubt and fear for his/her own well-being.
At the adult age it is hard to make contact with these people. In a relationship they often start interrogating their partner and checking if they could trust them. In close relationships they may feel helpless and vulnerable.
Later, at the age of 2-3, a child learns to be independent and develops self-control. If parents disturbed child’s development in this respect, for example, if they impatiently and persistently did what the child could do alone, or vice-versa, expected the child to perform tasks that he/she wasn’t able to do independently – the feeling of shame is formed.
If parents are always over-vigilant, they remain deaf to the child’s real needs. That’s when the doubt in child’s own abilities, control of the surrounding and self-control start to emerge.
Even as grown-ups, these people, instead of being sure of themselves, think that other people are watching them and treating them with distrust and disapproval. Also, they may have obsessive-compulsive symptoms or paranoid fear of being followed.
For a child at the age of 3-6 love is the encouragement to independently perform actions and support of their initiative, as well as the approval of posing questions and being creative. If at that period parents don’t allow the child to act independently, if they punish him/her too much as a response to his/her needs, the feeling of guilt is being formed.
Then, at the adult age, such ‘big kids’ aren’t sufficiently oriented towards the goal nor are they persistent enough to set realistic goals and accomplish them. Besides, constant feeling of guilt may cause inaction, impotence or frigidity, or psychopathic behaviour.
At school age diligence is formed. If at the time you doubted your child’s abilities or his/her status among peers, it may discourage him/her to learn further. Also, the feeling of inferiority, which can also make him lose confidence in his abilities to efficiently function and exist in the world, may appear, as well.
If children see success at school and work as the only criterion by which they are valued, as grown-ups they may become ‘labour force’ in the established hierarchical society.
I suggest you lent a hand to your inner child and helped him/her grow up. In order to do it, find a photo of you as a child or just imagine a child who lives inside of you. How old is he/she? How does he/she look like? What is he/she thinking about? Who is next to him/her? What does bother him/her?
Talk to him/her…
Take a piece of paper and two crayons of different colours: one in the right hand, the other in the left. If you are right-handed, write with your right hand on your behalf as a grown-up, and with your left hand – on the behalf of your inner child. If you are left-handed, do it the other way around.
It’s just you and your inner child in this dialogue. Who will start the conversation? How will you begin your conversation? Answers that you get to your questions may be unexpected for you.
Now when you have found your child and started talking with him/her, it’s time you established a relationship. Communicate with the child inside as much as you want. Ask him/her what he/she misses. Give him/her what he/she asks for. Call him/her by his/her name, speak warmly, nicely to him/her, and show him/her your love. Give him/her a piece of advice.
Be the parent that you needed at the time.

Transliterated by Jelena