When Love Is Withheld

Getting to a place where you're asking "how did I get here?"—especially when you know your inner child wasn’t loved or acknowledged—is both painful and profound. It means you're waking up to truths that have long been buried or denied. And that kind of awakening often comes after years of trying to survive or make sense of things that never quite felt right.

When a child’s emotional needs go unmet—when they’re not seen, heard, or nurtured—they grow up learning to disconnect from themselves just to cope. They may become:

• People-pleasers or over-givers, hoping to earn love through sacrifice.

• Hyper-independent, not trusting anyone to truly care.

• Drawn to relationships that mirror the same neglect or emotional confusion they experienced early on.

In other words, you “got here” by surviving, by doing the best you could with what you had. And now, you're in a place where you can finally start asking deeper questions—where your inner child is trying to speak, maybe for the first time. Carlin