Developmental Dependency Needs

All humans have needs starting from the womb to the grave. If the core needs of a person are not met in childhood, that person will develop neurosis (codependency) or character disorders (narcissism).

These core needs must be met by an attuned caretaker. These core needs must be met externally because a child is not able to meet their own needs. They need help. If the caretaker is undeveloped or did not get their own core needs met in childhood, then that caretaker is ill-equipped to meet the needs of the child. This causes generational passing down of issues that often go unresolved. People with unmet childhood dependency needs are emotionally stunted at the age in which their needs were not met.

If any of your Developmental Dependency Needs were not met in childhood, you will experience a core  wound of toxic shame. Toxic shame becomes your identity which causes a profound level of emotional pain.

The damage caused by lack of nurture in childhood is similar to a bug in a computer program. It effects all other developmental milestones for the child. A child who receives inadequate care will grow into adulthood with arrested development, immature emotional and mental processing and crippling emotional pain that impacts every area of his life. The good news is that you can be healed of your neediness by dealing with the shame and taking care of yourself.

As an adult you can help yourself heal from the wounds caused by childhood neglect and abandonment. The first step is recognizing that you have needs that did not get met. The second step is to reparent yourself by meeting as many of those needs as an adult.

Here is a list of developmental dependency needs:

• The need to be mirrored for who you truly are by your primary care taker.
• The need to have a secure attachment bond with your primary care taker.
• The need to be soothed by your primary caretaker.
• The need to be answered by your primary caretaker if you cried out as a baby.
• The need to know that your primary caretaker will protect you and take care of you.
• The need for food, shelter, warmth and mothering. 
• The need for love, affection and food.
• The need for adequate feeding, watering, nourishing.
• The need for adequate cleaning.
• The need for maternal warmth.
• The need to feel wanted, included and as though you belong. 
• The need to be seen for who you truly are. 
• The need for emotional support.
• The need to be understood.
• The need for eye contact, expression of positive emotions by caretakers or loved ones
• The need for cuddling.
• The need for the fostering of emotional security. 
• The need to feel special, cherished, important.
• The need to feel competent, capable, powerful. 
• The need for acceptance.
• The need to feel safe.
• The need to feel loved.

 The meeting of these developmental dependency needs helps a child develop and form secure attachments with caregivers. If these basic needs were not met for you properly as a child, then you will have difficulty forming healthy relationships as an adult. The relationship you have with your primary caregiver in infancy forms your working model for all future relationships in your life. If you didn't get your needs met as a child, you will not be able to get your needs met as an adult, unless you heal and learn to meet your own needs.

These needs are most basic to a person's identity. If left unmet, these needs become wounds that generate toxic thoughts and feelings and turn yourself against yourself. If these needs are unmet, they will result in negative core beliefs, also called "schemas" about the self which effects every area of the person's life including mental functioning, emotions, relationships, work, play and physical health.

These developmental needs can be met in therapy by a trained therapist. You can also meet your own biological and social needs that were unmet in childhood as an adult through reparenting techniques, meditation, self-soothing and self-talk. Your spouse or partner can also help to meet some of your unmet childhood dependency needs.

A person who suffered abuse in childhood or any kind of dysfunctional childhood will likely have needs that went unmet. This is a problem that affects every walk of life. There are many hurting people with wounded hearts that we speak to and interact with every day. The best thing we can do is get ourselves healed so that we can be a light for others. 

Sources used for this article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_need
Healing the Shame that Binds You, John Bradshaw

Invalidation

INVALIDATION is the root of codependency. Our true selves, our personal truth was not validated... If we want to heal we must REPARENT ourselves by validating ourselves instead of repeating the abuse that we received while our hearts were innocent and vulnerable... http://eqi.org/invalid.htm

Love this article by Darlene at Emerging from Broken on Self Validation for Emotional Healing from Abuse

This article contains my research on Invalidation

"Invalidation is to reject, ignore, mock, tease, judge, or diminish someone's feelings. It is an attempt to control how they feel and for how long they feel it."

Constant invalidation may be one of the most significant reasons a person with high innate emotional intelligence suffers from unmet emotional needs later in life.(1) A sensitive child who is repeatedly invalidated becomes confused and begins to distrust his own emotions. He fails to develop confidence in and healthy use of his emotional brain-- one of nature's most basic survival tools. To adapt to this unhealthy and dysfunctional environment, the working relationship between his thoughts and feelings becomes twisted. His emotional responses, emotional management, and emotional development will likely be seriously, and perhaps permanently, impaired. The emotional processes which worked for him as a child may begin to work against him as an adult. 


All invalidation is a form of psychological attack. When we are attacked, our survival instinct tells us to defend ourselves either through withdrawal or counter-attack. Repeated withdrawal, though, tends to decrease our self-confidence and lead to a sense of powerlessness and depression. On the other hand, going on the offensive often escalates the conflict or puts us in the position of trying to change another person. 

One sign of both high self-esteem and high EQ is the absence of either of these defensive responses. A healthier response, one which is both informative and assertive, without being aggressive, is to simply express your feelings clearly and concisely. For example, you might respond, "I feel invalidated," "I feel mocked," or "I feel judged."
How the other person responds to your emotional honesty will depend upon, and be indicative of:

(a) how much they respect you
(b) how much they care about you and your feelings
(c) how insecure and defensive they are
(d) how much they are trying to change or control you

All of this is information which will help you make decisions which are in your best interest.

Recent research by Thomas R. Lynch, Ph.D. of Duke University supports the idea that invalidation leads to mental health problems. He writes "...a history of emotion invalidation (i.e., a history of childhood psychological abuse and parental punishment, minimization, and distress in response to negative emotion) was significantly associated with emotion inhibition (i.e., ambivalence over emotional expression, thought suppression, and avoidant stress responses). Further, emotion inhibition significantly predicted psychological distress, including depression and anxiety symptoms.) (Reference)

We regularly invalidate others because we ourselves were, and are often invalidated, so it has become habitual. Below are a few of the many ways we are invalidated:

• We are told we shouldn't feel the way we feel
• We are dictated not to feel the way we feel
• We are told we are too sensitive, too "dramatic"
• We are ignored
• We are judged
• We are led to believe there is something wrong with us for feeling how we feel

Examples of invalidating expressions. -- Each is an attempt to talk you out of your feelings.

"Ordering" You to Feel Differently
Smile.
Be happy.
Cheer up
Lighten up.
Get over it.
Grow up
Get a life
Don't cry.
Don't worry.
Don't be sad.
Stop whining
Stop laughing..
Don't get angry
Deal with it.
Give it a rest.
Forget about it.
Stop complaining.
Don't be so dramatic.
Don't be so sensitive.
Stop being so emotional.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself (Source)
Stop taking everything so personally

Ordering You to "Look" Differently
Don't look so sad.
Don't look so smug.
Don't look so down.
Don't look like that.
Don't make that face.
Don't look so serious.
Don't look so proud of yourself.
Don't look so pleased with yourself.


Denying Your Perception, Defending
You've got it all wrong.
But of course I respect you.
But I do listen to you.
That is ridiculous (nonsense, totally absurd, etc.)
I was only kidding.
That's not the way things are.
That's not how things are.
I honestly don't judge you as much as you think.
It's not going to happen
Trying to Make You Feel Guilty While Invalidating You
I tried to help you..
At least I .....
At least you....
You are making everyone else miserable. (Source)

Trying to Isolate You
You are the only one who feels that way.
It doesn't bother anyone else, why should it bother you?

Minimizing Your Feelings
You must be kidding.
You can't be serious.
It can't be that bad.
Your life can't be that bad.
You are just ... (being difficult; being dramatic, in a bad mood, tired, etc)
It's nothing to get upset over.
It's not worth getting that upset over.
There's nothing wrong with you. (Source)


Using Reason
There is no reason to get upset.
You are not being rational.
But it doesn't make any sense to feel that way.
Let's look at the facts.
Let's stick to the facts.
But if you really think about it....

Telling You How You "Should" Feel or Act
You should be excited.
You should be thrilled.
You should feel guilty.
You should feel thankful that...
You should be happy that ....
You should be glad that ...
You should just drop it.
You shouldn't worry so much.
You shouldn't let it bother you.
You should just forget about it.
You should feel ashamed of yourself.
You shouldn't wear your heart out on your sleeve.
You shouldn't say that about your father.

Defending The Other Person
Maybe they were just having a bad day.
I am sure she didn't mean it like that.
You just took it wrong.
I am sure she means well.

Negating, Denial & Confusion
Now you know that isn't true.
You don't mean that. You know you love your baby brother.
You don't really mean that. You are just ... (in a bad mood today, tired, cranky)

Sarcasm and Mocking
Oh, you poor thing. Did I hurt your little feelings?
What did you think? The world was created to serve you?
What happened to you? Did you get out of the wrong side of bed again?

Laying Guilt Trips
Don't you ever think of anyone but yourself?
What about my feelings?!
Have you ever stopped to consider my feelings?

Philosophizing Or Clichés
Time heals all wounds.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Life is full of pain and pleasure.
In time you will understand this.
When you are older you will understand
You are just going through a phase.
Everything has its reasons.
Everything is just the way it is supposed to be.

Talking about you when you can hear it
She is impossible to talk to.
You can't say anything to her.

Showing Intolerance
This is getting really old.
This is getting really pathetic.
I am sick of hearing about it.

A person with well-developed emotional intelligence, a healthy set of emotional skills, empathy, and a healthy self-esteem will rarely invalidate another person's feelings, especially not the feelings of a sensitive child.
___

Validating / Invalidating  - Great article

"One disqualifies oneself when one is afraid to say what one really feels and means for fear that others will reject it.  Hence disqualifiers say things in a way that allows them “plausible deniability.” They can claim they were misinterpreted if the other family members object." 


They accomplish this through wide range of deviant communicational phenomena, “…such as self-contradictions, inconsistencies, subject switches, tangentializations, incomplete sentences, misunderstandings, obscure style or mannerisms of speech, the literal interpretation of metaphor and the metaphorical interpretation of literal remarks, etc." (p. 76).
___
 

Linehan (1993a) investigates 'invalidating environments' and relates them to self injury.

"An invalidating environment is one in which communication of private experiences is met by erratic, inappropriate, or extreme responses. In other words, the expression of private experiences is not validated; instead it is often punished and/or trivialized. The experience of painful emotions disregarded. The individual's interpretations of her own behavior, including the experience of the intents and motivations of the behavior, are dismissed..."

"When your awareness rises, you'll begin to notice such comments on a regular basis. Together, they take their toll on us. We wonder if there is something wrong with us for feeling how we do. It seems fair to say that with enough invalidation, one person can figuratively, if not literally, drive another person crazy. This is especially possible, I believe, in the case where one person has long-term power over another. Examples of such relationships are parent/child, teacher/child, "spiritual" leader/follower, boss/employee, spouse A/spouse B. Such a sad scenario appears to be even more likely when the person being invalidated is highly sensitive, intelligent and has previously suffered self-esteem damage."

Addressing Invalidation with CBT