It is a difficult situation. To grow up while not getting love, or at least not the way you would need it. Or maybe your parents mean something completely else regarding “love” – acting upon their own inner injuries -, compared to what would be healthy.

In your childhood you don’t notice it, of course. At that time your family means your world. You think, that everything is all right the way they are. You accept what is happenning to you. The way your parents love you, or actually not love you.

As a child, during all those years it can be built in yourself that you are a bad child, you are worth nothing, you will be a noone in your life, you are worthless. You start to believe that you cannot be really and fully loved, only if you do what your parents expect you to do. Love with condition. You are only OK, if your parents think you are OK. Your self-esteem wastes away, in case you had it anyways. You start believe that you are not important.

And if you are not important, your emotions are not important either. If your parents cannot connect to your emotions, understand and help you, you will close away what you really feel. Because noone cares, noone understands you, so why bother?

In this state of mind you will become a grown person. With a low self-esteem and with the feeling of worthlessness and not being understood. Furthermore, you will think that you are not allowed to feel, show your emotions as they only cause trouble. But inside you are suffering. Maybe even raging. And you don’t understand why. You don’t understand the physical symptoms, illnesses, mental problems, depression and unability of advocacy.

You also don’t understand why people don’t love you now, that you are an adult, either.

Or at least you don’t feel they would love you.

The answer is within your own self. As you closed away all the emotions in your life so far, most probably you also cannot show the love you have inside. Maybe you don’t even feel the love. Because it is something you should have learnt in your childhood – but it did not happen. You didn’t get uncoditional love as a child and as a result you also didn’t learn how to feel that about others and how to show it to them.

If you cannot feel and show it, unavoidably you will meet many people on the way, who have the very same problem. So that they can show up the mirror to you, to learn from it.

This is the situation for you to see that you need to work on this. On the topic of being un-loved,  on your own state of mind. On being able to give and receive love. The real one, not the fake that originates from the inner injuries.

When paying attention to yourself and the people around you, you can find out what are those things that are used by them and maybe also by you instead of real love: worry, anxiety, urge to control and influence others, sick jealousy, desire for posessing of other people? Or many other things. But none of these are real love. All of them are only a type of subtitution of love. And all these will only cause you to waste away yourself, your kids, friends, partner, family. Noone here in this situation will be truly happy.

Those who grow up un-loved often show the symptoms of narcissism. In a previous Hungarian article of mine I already wrote that narcissism is a scale to show how special we think we are.

On the left side of the scale you can find the narcissism deficit. If you grew up not really being important to your parents, your feelings, thoughts, your own self, one option is that you are here on the scale. You try to fit in, have a high desire for compliance, you want to blend in to your environment, with all these “buy” the love of the people around you. At this very same time of course you push your own feelings, needs aside  – or maybe you are not even aware of them.

The other option after such a childhood is the right side of the scale, which is the extreme narcissism. When you try to compensate the old times’ feelings of  not being understood and not being loved by…. Practically with anything and anyone. You are craving for the admiration of everyone. Only in that case you feel that you are someone and you are important if people supply you with their utmost exaggerated love, worship, praise, adoration all the time continuously. However, if you don’t get this, the vulcano erupts, plates are breaking. In this situation both you and the people around you suffer a lot. The energy of the people sorrounding you is drained as they need to keep you up above the surface with all their endeavor.

This is why the relationship of a narcissism deficit person and an extreme narcissistic person is fantastic – in its own absolutely unhealthy way.

One of them wants to blend in, wants to submit him/herself, the other enjoys this and uses it for his/her own good.

However, on the long run, none of them are improving in this situation and in reality none of them are happy. Because all these are only workarounds, substitutions, compensations instead of solving the root cause of the problem.

The low self-esteem, being un-loved, not articulated needs, not lived and expressed feelings, lack of real attention. These are the real areas of work.

Discover it for your own selves what are the compensation moments of your lives and find their real roots.

Because with those, you can really work. Solving them leads you to a happier, more complete life!