Why Your Relationships Never Feel Like Enough

Sometimes trauma is obvious. Something happened. But sometimes the damage comes from something that never happened at all. You weren't emotionally understood. Nobody helped you make sense of sadness, anger, rejection or separation. You weren't shown what safe emotional connection felt like. You may have been fed, clothed and cared for — while something important was still missing. And because you never experienced it, you may not even know what you're missing. In this video I look at unmet childhood needs, emotional absence, people-pleasing, hyper-independence, abandonment, perfectionism and why the behaviours causing problems in adult life can sometimes point directly back to what you needed as a child. Sometimes the thing you've spent your whole life chasing is also the thing you run away from when it finally arrives — because you don't have the script for it. unmet needs 1 media final trans… Work with me: The Ridge Intensive – a private residential retreat in the mountains of Andalusia. Six guests, five days, deep work. https://theridgeintensive.com ClearVision Psychotherapy – my clinical practice, online and in person. https://www.clear-vision-psychotherap... Instagram:   / simonhitchcock_   TikTok:   / simonhitchcock   My book, The Hidden Sense In Your Nonsense, is coming. More soon. Chapters 00:00 The blank look I see in therapy 00:26 Does trauma need a traumatic event? 00:58 The empty feeling underneath 01:39 Emotionally absent doesn’t mean physically absent 02:34 Seeing childhood through the child’s eyes 03:12 What children learn from emotional absence 03:38 Love with a debt attached 04:17 “I am the problem” 05:04 Why we cling in adult relationships 05:38 Trying to meet old needs through other people 06:00 Filling the empty space 06:48 Parenting and unmet needs 07:11 How children adapt to get connection 08:00 How it follows us into adult relationships 08:49 Flip the behaviour upside down 08:58 Perfectionism, achievement and praise 09:19 Trauma can be the absence of something 10:23 Two different paths to the same wound 11:06 “I haven’t got any trauma” 11:44 What didn’t happen can do the damage 12:17 How to start meeting the need now 13:18 Vulnerability, trust and healing 13:48 The wound caused by absence