Early Deprivation: Can Someone Feel Guilty For Being Happy If They Had A Depressed Mother?

If someone were to step back and reflect on their life, what they may find is that they rarely feel happy or experience joy. In general, then, they are going to spend a lot of time feeling flat or down.

What might stand out is that they have been this way for as long as they can remember. If this is the case, what might enter their mind is that they were born this way.

A Life Sentence

The outcome of this is that they will just have to do their best to tolerate what is going on. One option might be for them to go on medication, for instance, as this might make it easier for them to function.

However, although they might believe that they were born this way, what if there is far more to it? What if the reason that they typically experience life in this way is because this is what feels comfortable?

Confusion

After hearing this, they could say that they don’t feel comfortable experiencing life in this way. Yet, if they were to use their imagination, they might gradually find out what is going on for them.

What they can imagine is that they live a life where they often feel happy and experience joy, and that they express how they feel around others. In the beginning, they might feel relieved and grateful that their life is this way.

The Next Stage

After a while, though, they could end up feeling anxious and fearful and as though they have done something wrong. They can then be overwhelmed with guilt and they can experience shame.

From this, it will be clear that experiencing these positive feelings and freely expressing themselves is seen as a threat to their survival and as something that is bad. It is then not a surprise that they have the tendency to feel flat or down.

Inner Conflict

Having a neutral or low mood will have been a way for them to unknowingly manage their inner state. They can believe that there is no reason for them to be this way and that how they feel when they change their behaviour, is irrational.

Nonetheless, if they were able to go back in time and observe what it was like for them as a child, they might realise why they are this way. This may have been a stage of their life when their mother was seldom in a good way emotionally.

Back In Time

So, their mother might have spent a lot of time in bed, with her rarely getting up during the day. Or, she might have rarely been in bed during the day and gone to work but often been miserable when she was up.

This would have meant that she wasn’t in a position to attune to their needs and be there for them. To try to be seen and heard and loved by her, they are likely to have automatically attuned to her needs and done what they could to try to make her feel better.

Role Reversal

As they had to adapt to her needs and tried to change her mode, they would have lost touch with a number of their needs and feelings. The connection that they had to their connected, true self would then have been replaced by a disconnected and outer-directed, false self.

Therefore, instead of being able to stay connected to and freely express themselves, they would have gradually moulded themselves into a selfless, caregiver. But, as their mother had probably also been deprived during her formative years and was likely to be developmentally stunted, it wouldn’t have mattered who they became or what they did as she wouldn’t have been able to love them.

Another Element

Additionally, if they did express happiness, joy or have fun, their mother might have ended up criticising them and become even more out of reach. Based on how she behaved, it would have been as if they were being selfish and were punishing her by changing their behaviour.

This would have played a part in them believing that it was wrong for them to experience positive feelings and that it would cause them to be rejected and abandoned and for their life to end. Not allowing their emotional state to rise beyond the level of their mothers and being focused on her needs would have been seen as the only way for them to survive.
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Moving Forward

Many years will have passed since this stage of their life, of course, but, deep down, they will believe that if they allow themselves to be happy and express how they feel, they will be rejected and abandoned and their life will come to an end. Behaving in this way will also serve as a defence that allows them to keep the pain that they partly experienced but had to repress all those years ago outside of their conscious awareness.

For them to change their life, they are likely to have beliefs to question, pain to face and work through, and unmet developmental needs to experience. This will take courage, patience and persistence.

Awareness

If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.