**\#️⃣ Tags:** #Trauma #Developmental > **🌱 Planted:** Tue 28 January 2025 --- > [!quote] > “There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.” — Laurell K. Hamilton When we feel like we are not seen, heard, understood, loved or valued for the exact way we are, we become wounded. Although not physically visible, this wound can manifest almost like a physical pain, feeling like a cut in the chest, a gash in our hearts and a fundamental piercing to the core of our very being. In this wound, know as the [[✦ Narcissistic Wounding]], each rejection, each invalidation, every un-empathetic and un-attuned response lands like a stab to the soul. Our personal subjectivity—our right to exist as who we are, exactly as we are—is entirely invalidated which leaves us feeling not only just emotionally wounded but also physically and spiritually diminished. As if it were wrong for us to be here, as if we don't belong here, and as if we do not have a right to be here. Because the pain of this wound is too much to bear—especially for a little child, in all their purity and innocence—we develop many defences, mechanisms and strategies to adapt all so that we don't have to feel the pain of this wound again. Since these adaptive and defensive patterns are so ingrained, many people have no idea they even carry this wound—it's usually entirely unconscious until one engages in some type of self-inquiry, whether that be through psychotherapy, coaching, meditation or otherwise. --- **➡️ Next:** 1. [[We're born whole, but we split ourselves to preserve the connection with our caregivers]] 2. [[The loss of our personal subjectivity is passed on generationally]] **⬅️ Back:** [[We all have normal developmental needs]] --- **🈁 See Also:** - This wound develops in absence of [[Our caregivers don't need to be perfect, they just need to be good enough|Good Enough Mothering]] and [[Our normal developmental needs are met through empathic attunement and mutual recognition|Empathic Attunement]]. - [[✦ Defence Mechanisms]] describes the defences that help to protect us from the pain of this wound. - [[❍ Parts Work]] describes the method in which we can directly work with our own defences, meet our unmet needs and resolve the pain inflicted from this wound. [^1]: [[The Point of Existence by A. H. Almaas]] [^2]: The Narcissistic Wound is also known as "the primal wound" or "the core wound", and probably many others.