It’s a terribly painful, and common, affliction to carry the pain of missing some core developmental care during childhood- the kind of care, attunement, and mirroring essential for a child’s emotional world to feel recognised and secure. Parenthood (I imagine) is difficult, adulting is difficult, and we are so often riddled with our own complexes that fully attending to another is nearly impossible without missing things. Being “good enough,” as Winnicott says, is, well, good enough. Nonetheless, we are often left with wounds from this inevitability, and today I am sharing one of my biggest ouchies.

 I’m a 25, going on 26, year old who is home to a little girl who desperately wants to be understood.

When ‘little Amira’ feels she’s not understood, there is no greater pain. Adult Amira feels her pain, and transforms it into rage. I feel protective of her. I’m angry that the adults around her couldn’t see how much she needed to be heard, to be attuned to, to be understood- and together, we are angry about it

I’ve tried to talk to little Amira, soothe and reassure her that I understand her- but it’s not enough. I’ve spent much of my life turning my ‘self’ inside out in various therapists’ chairs over the past eight years. I’ve written various blog entries about my inner workings, poured my heart out to those who know me intimately- and yet, I can’t seem to escape the feeling that no amount of sharing my understanding of my ‘self’ will get me what I crave so deeply.

This insatiable need to be understood, to have my internal world reflected back to me, to be attuned to- well, it doesn’t seem to go away. Whilst the rage has quietened over the years, every so often little Amira still shouts, “Why can’t I be understood!?”. I contend with her, trying to ground her in present reality by reminding her of all the times someone has seen her, and that no one could get it right all the time- but she doesn’t care. Logical thinking offers no solace to a wounded child.

Much of my self-discovery has been shared with those around me. I pour a lot of effort and time into explaining why I do the things I do, feel the things I feel, need the things I need, to those who know me most intimately- and whilst they may do 9/10 of those things, that 1/10 time? It’s as if the ground has opened and swallowed me whole.

I frequently oscillate between two beliefs:
a) The pain little Amira feels will never be satiated by another and therefore I must comfort her myself,
b) The other person is incompetent, doesn’t listen to me, and has not read the encyclopaedia of Amira that I have provided them with- and, it’s. not. fair.

I often fall into category (b) thinking in moments of misattunement. It makes me feel like all of my explaining was a waste of energy, time, and effort. Then I fall into another excruciatingly painful pattern of thinking: ‘In order to get what I need, I must put in a lot of work’- and this devastates little Amira, who just wants to be taken care of without having to do very much at all. Do you see how the need for attunement, unmet in my formative years, is woven into this?

To end on a more hopeful note, I’ll acknowledge the catharsis found in meeting little Amira. Since uncovering more of her, I have developed self-soothing techniques in attempt to “re-parent” little Amira, and I am beginning to understand when I can be met by another and when I need to meet myself.

The difficult reality is that little Amira won’t ever fully receive that understanding and reflection of her internal world from infancy that she needed, because time machines don’t exist. I must mourn this and move forward. I can hold little Amira with all the compassion in the world, by simply being the kind of adult who would understand her.

Anyhow, this is a deeply personal blog post, and I would love to hear from anyone who shares this same pain. It feels like an awful lonely predicament to have, but maybe it doesn’t have to be.

Further reading

Klein, M. (1932). The psychoanalysis of children. International Psychoanalytical Library.

Winnicott, D. W. (1960). The theory of the parent-child relationship. In The maturational processes and the facilitating environment (pp. 37-55). International Universities Press.

Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The child and the outside world. Penguin.

Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and reality. Routledge.