What happens when our emotional needs are not met in childhood?

From being difficult on ourselves to having a difficult time expressing the way we feel, here are a few examples of what happens when our emotional needs are not met.

Childhood is a crucial journey of learning to acknowledge our emotions. The way we are brought up, the people we are brought up around, and most importantly, homes and their ways of accepting and acknowledging our emotions play a huge role in shaping our emotional maturity as we grow up, mature and learn to do life. Often people are born and brought up in homes where their emotional needs are not met in a healthy way. This further leads to issues in their emotional relationships and maturity in the later stages of their life.

What happens when our emotional needs are not met in childhood? (Unsplash)

Emily H Sanders, Psychotherapist addressed this issue on her recent Instagram post and wrote, “Emotional needs being met are very important, and contribute to our overall development and sense of well-being. After all, we aren’t born with the ability to self-soothe, that is a skill that is learned.” She further noted down the issues that people face when their emotional needs are not met in their childhood. They are as follows:

Frustration: When we are not used to being emotionally acknowledges, we tend to get frustrated and emotionally tired easily.

Needs: We always think that we are not important or that our needs are not as important as others. We always learn to put others first.

Expressing feelings: Speaking and expressing the way we feel is a difficult thing for us to do – since, we are not used to being brought up like this.

Tough times: In tough times, we often are difficult to ourselves. Even though our feelings are hurt, we judge ourselves are feeling in that way.

Struggles: We often struggle accessing the emotions and the feelings we have.

Doubt: We are always filled with the doubt of no one ever caring about us or the way we feel.

Being unkind: We are extremely insensitive to ourselves. We have a difficult time being kind to ourselves and our emotions.