9 Signs You Were Left Alone A Lot As A Child And It's Affecting You Now
A lonely childhood creates a lonely adult.
Krakenimages.com | Shutterstock Your childhood experiences shape your identity and your outlook on the world.
If your parents were consistent and available, you probably developed a secure attachment style and a healthy sense of self. But if you connect with any of the signs you were left alone a lot as a child, that physical and emotional solitude can deeply affect you as an adult.
Your parents and primary caregivers are the first relationship model you see, so the way they show up for you has a major impact on how you form relationships as you grow up. Having neglectful parents doesn't strictly dictate your future, but it can have lasting psychological consequences.
Here are 9 signs you were left alone a lot as a child and it’s affecting you now
1. You don't think you deserve love
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A clear sign that you were left alone a lot as a child and it's affecting you now can be found in the way you receive love.
Your attachment style is the way you form bonds to other people. It's influenced by the way your parents or primary caregivers related to you in childhood. Having neglectful or absent parents often leads to the development of an avoidant attachment style.
Psychotherapist Diane Poole Heller explained that avoidant attachment occurs when parents reject their children or only offer their attention related to specific tasks. These types of parents are unable or unwilling to attend to their child's emotional needs. "Children in these households are also often left alone too much," Poole Heller revealed.
If you were raised in a household where care wasn't consistent, you might doubt your inherent lovability. People with avoidant attachment styles often struggle to connect to others on a deep emotional level, which reinforces the belief that you deserve to be alone.
While a person's attachment style is a rooted part of their psychological makeup, it's not necessarily permanent. You can shift your attachment style by learning healthy coping mechanisms and maintaining a practice of direct and open communication. The more you unpack your past, the more you'll see the patterns that shaped you, which allows you to change.
2. You often feel emotionally numb
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If you struggle to recognize your own emotions or you often tune out how you feel, it's highly possible that you were left alone a lot as a child.
Feeling detached from your emotions usually occurs when your emotional needs aren't met in your younger years. Because your parents weren't present, either physically or emotionally, you learned to dissociate from how you felt in order to protect yourself.
Going numb is a coping mechanism. Keeping your feelings at a distance helped you survive your childhood, but it can be damaging in adulthood. Not having access to how you feel makes it virtually impossible to be vulnerable, which is necessary for building relationships.
While the process of reconnecting to your emotions is challenging, it's also totally worth it, because it allows you to understand yourself on a deeper level.
3. You're scared of being seen as a burden
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Another indication that your emotional needs didn't get met in childhood is that you hold a deep-seated worry that you're a burden to the people you love.
It takes you a long time to open up, and even when you do, you hesitate to reveal any personal problems, because you don't want to cause any strain on your relationships. You struggle to ask for support because you hold onto the belief that your needs aren't actually important. At the base of this behavioral pattern is the fear that you might get left alone, again, if you express your truth.
Having absent parents taught you to bottle up your needs, but now that you're an adult, not giving your needs proper attention can cause emotional and psychological distress. It might be scary to ask for help, but it's also part of building trust and intimacy in your relationships.
4. You don't have good boundaries
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Being left alone a lot as a child can affect your sense of self-worth and the way you relate to others, both of which impact how you set boundaries. Struggling to set boundaries usually manifests in two ways: Either you let people push your boundaries and take advantage of your time and energy, or you set overly strict boundaries that keep other people out.
As counselor and therapist Audrey Tait explained, "Boundaries are meant to protect you, to keep you safe. You get to choose your boundaries." Tait shared her process for establishing healthy boundaries, starting with clearly defining your limits, both for yourself and other people.
Tait also emphasized that feeling angry signals that someone has crossed your boundaries, but you have to express that anger in a healthy way. She noted that broken boundaries have to come with actionable consequences, so that people learn that they can't ignore your boundaries.
Learning how to set healthy boundaries might take a lifetime of practice, but it's worth the effort to care for yourself in that way.
5. You always expect things to go wrong
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If you feel like you're always waiting for the next bad thing to happen, it's a sign that your nervous system is constantly activated, which could be the result of having an unstable childhood.
Being a hypervigilant adult is often caused by not being given adequate support when you were younger. Being left alone a lot as a child can keep you stuck in fight, flight, or freeze mode. Anxiety is your default mode, as you never knew what to expect when you were a kid. Having a dysregulated nervous system can kick your stress hormones into overdrive, so you feel like you're always on edge. Even if you logically know you're safe now, your body still thinks it's in imminent danger.
There are various therapeutic modalities you can access to help you heal your nervous system. Resetting your body's internalized trauma will allow you to stay in the present and feel a consistent sense of calm.
6. You form unstable relationships
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Falling into a pattern of forming unstable relationships is a sign you were left alone a lot as a child and it's affecting you now.
You have trouble trusting other people, because you learned from a young age not to rely on anyone else but yourself. Since your parents weren't present when you needed them, your fear of abandonment runs deep.
Your ongoing struggle to establish secure relationships could be viewed as a trauma response. You're still holding onto your childhood trauma of being left alone when you needed consistent care and love, which leads you to seek out people who aren't the right fit for you.
You might thrive on crash-and-burn romances or lose interest in someone once they express their feelings for you. It's possible that stability feels foreign or scary, because it's not something you grew up with.
Once you're able to locate the underlying reasons your relationships don't work out, you'll be able to work on healing and show up for yourself the way you deserve.
7. You often feel invisible
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Feeling like no one notices you in social situations is a sign you were left alone a lot as a child and it's affecting you now.
Your sense of being invisible reflects how you felt as a child, when your parents didn't pay you enough attention. As a result of their negligence, you often feel like other people don't notice you or care about you.
Feeling invisible can also reflect having low confidence and self-worth. Because you weren't given the care you needed as a child, you weren't given the tools you needed to develop a healthy sense of self.
Boosting your self-esteem requires you to trust yourself and believe that you're deserving of care, even if your parents couldn't provide it. Seek out relationships that nourish you and help you feel seen, heard, and understood.
8. You have a hard time making decisions
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Being left alone a lot as a child means that your parents weren't available to give you necessary guidance and protection, which can create a strong sense of self-doubt. While you may have reacted to their absence by becoming highly independent, it's also possible that you became codependent.
You struggle to see yourself as a fully-formed individual, so you have a hard time making decisions, both big and small. Your indecisiveness leads you to rely on other people's opinions to shape your own beliefs. You lack confidence in your own ability to judge certain situations, so you look outside yourself for answers.
Being decisive is a muscle you can build up with practice. Listen closely to your intuition and make choices based on what your gut tells you. You're bound to make mistakes, so be gentle with yourself. Acknowledge that you're learning a new skill and taking care of yourself in the process.
9. You feel chronically lonely
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A long-lasting effect of being left alone a lot as a child is having a persistent sense of loneliness, even when you're around other people.
Your past still haunts you, and your unmet emotional needs from childhood carried over into your adult life. Feeling chronically lonely is an isolating way to exist, but you can heal this part of yourself by seeking out strong connections with others, even when it scares you.
Psychologist Guy Winch described loneliness as "A universal and deeply human experience," yet the commonality of loneliness doesn't make it particularly easy to deal with or accept. As Winch explained, "Loneliness traps us. We feel like nobody cares so we're extremely hesitant to reach out to those who could make us feel connected."
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.