Emotional Deprivation Disorder

{edited and reposted from my adoption blog}

With a grateful hat tip to Helen of Castle of the Immaculate, I have found out about the late Condrad Baars, a Catholic Psychiatrist and author. Perusing his website brought me to this link on Emotional Deprivation Disorder. It's kind of a nasty name for a psychological condition that arises when a child does not know unconditional love early in life. From the website:

Emotional Deprivation Disorder is a syndrome which results from a lack of authentic affirmation and emotional strengthening in one's life. A person may have been criticized, ignored, neglected, abused, or emotionally rejected by primary caregivers early in life, resulting in that individual’s stunted emotional growth. Unaffirmed persons are incapable of developing into emotionally mature adults until they receive authentic affirmation from another person. Maturity is reached when there is a harmonious relationship between a person’s body, mind, emotions and spiritual soul under the guidance of their reason and will.

I also believe that a lesser form of this disorder is common among adoptees who come from good adoptive homes, particularly those who feel more acutely the pain of being relinquished by the person who they feel should move mountains for them, their birth mothers.

 ((eta: I know I have not talked much about being gifted yet, but I believe this plays into it here -- gifted people often have a very acute sense of morality, what "should be done"  and what's "right" and I am no exception. I also feel things deeply. I am deeply hurt that my birthmother didn't/couldn't do what "should be done" and what is "right" and keep me and raise me -- this is not said in a blaming way, just a fact that she didn't do it.  Yet I still love her and don't blame her, because we all have to do hard things in life and don't always make the decision someone else would want. It's so confusing!))

Here is a list of "symptoms" in Emotional Deprivation Disorder. I've put in blue the ones I think I exhibit...light blue for those that I show more mildly.

Insufficiently Developed Emotional Life

Abnormal Rapport
o Incapable of establishing normal, mature contact with others
o Feels lonely and uncomfortable in social settings
o Capable of a willed rapport but not an emotional investment in relationships

Egocentric
o Childhood level of emotional development
o Feels like a child or and infant and others must focus their attention on the individual just as an adult would focus on a young child. (I don't exhibit this the way it's written, but I do *melt* when people pamper me and I love being taken care of intead of my usual need to be everyone and everything for my family!)
o Incapable of emotional surrender to a spouse

Reactions Around Others
o May be fearful in nature or courageous and energetic
o More fearful people tend to become discouraged or depressed (eta: the gifted tendency to be a defeated perfectionist is playing into this too - I can't tell where one begins and the other ends)
o More courageous and energetic persons can become more aggressive
 
Uncertainty & Insecurity

Fear or anxiety
o Can be in the form of a generalized anxiety (much worse when pregnant or postpartum, so, ummm, much of the past 15 years, lol)
o Fear of hurting someone else’s feelings
o Fear of hurting others or contaminating them (e.g. with germs or a cold)
o Need for frequent reassurance

Feels incapable of coping with life
o Worry that they’ll be put in a situation they can’t handle (think I'm getting better about this...it was dark blue when I wrote it years ago)
o Can be easily discouraged or depressed
o May pretend to be in control in order to mask inner feelings and fearfulness

Hesitation and Indecisiveness
o Difficulty in making decisions
o Easily changes mind (isn't this a woman's perogative? LOL)

Oversensitivity
o Overly sensitive to the judgments of others, criticism or slights
o Easily hurt or embarrassed

Need to Please Others
o Pleases others in order to protect self from criticism or rejection and gain approval of others
o Easily taken advantage of or exploited  (fine line between being sacrificially generous and letting others walk over me)
o Fear of asking for favors or services needed

Self-consciousness
o Worried about what other people think
o Self-doubt and need for reassurance

Helplessness
o Do not dare to say “no” for fear of rejection

Inferiority and Inadequacy

Feel Unloved
o Believe that no one could possibly love them (I will add "really love them, like when things get tough")
o Feel devoid of all feelings of love (I "act as if" I love, but I don't "feel" loving)
o Believe they are incapable of loving others or God (I constantly fear hell for this very reason - If I can't love in my heart, but only through faking it because I don't "feel" anything, isn't God going to damn me because He is Love??)
o Suspicious of any token of affection – continually doubt sincerity of others (well yes, because EVERY single person with the exception of dh has left me eventually or ignored me when things got tough. Some have come back, others not. I have no trust.)

Physical Appearance
o May have feelings of inadequacy due to physical appearance

Feelings of Intellectual Incompetence
o May have difficult completing projects
o Repeated failure or fear of failure

Show Signs of Disintegration in New Circumstances
o Fear of new situations and challenges (and at the same time I crave a complete change, a move, a starting over and I don't fear that one bit)
o Difficulty coping with new job, landlord, moving, etc. (but for some reason I seek these out - don't know why! see above)

Sense Impairments
o Undeveloped or underdeveloped senses (touch, taste, sight, smell)
o Lack of order, disorganization
o Fatigue (although this may have more to do with the fact that I have five children!)

Further symptoms found in some individuals with emotional deprivation disorder:

o Deep feelings of guilt
o Kleptomania
o Need to collect and hoard useless things
o Paranoid condition

******************************
So look at all that blue up there. Seems like a good diagnosis of Emotional Deprivation Disorder could be made, huh? I don't like the name of that though. It sounds like I had some horrible childhood. Which I didn't. My adoptive parents are good parents and love me like their own child. I think it was just an unfortunate mix of being adopted, my personality and talents/interests, their personality and talents/interests (different than mine), having a brother who was their biological child and appeared to be loved no matter what he did (whereas I felt that was not true with me)... and more, lots of little things all piled up together... all things just mixed together to make me feel as I do.

 Conrad Baars has several books that I have ordered : Born Only Once , Feeling and Healing Your Emotions, and Healing the Unaffirmed: Recognizing Emotional Deprivation Disorder.   They are easy to read and at the same time  heavy and hard to get through (I think because I'm actually trying to help myself with them). I read and put them away for long periods of time to get on with my life.