How can you tell when someone is love-starved because of their parents?

Answer 1

The actual term for a child that has received minimal or sporadic love from a parent is called "Insecure-Ambivalent". In babies, this manifests itself in a baby crying or becoming extremely upset when detached from the parent, and upon the parent's return, the child oscillates between emotions, wanting contact and then crawling away.

In adults, I would say that there are a variety of ways a person could turn out after being love-starved, but the most obvious one might be someone who speaks about themselves constantly. If a person relates everything back to his experience, turning every point made by the other speaker in the conversation into a story about himself, releases the majority of his burdens to the other speaker, and basically, just speaks about himself and his experiences, it is quite a prominent sign that he is not getting enough attention from his base - his parents, or his family - and so, speaks about his life as much as possible to those who are willing to listen. This applies, as well, to outlandish actions or wild attempts at humor or raucous behavior; the person feels as if he does not receive enough attention or love at home, and so searches for it in others by any means.

Another way might be a person's natural inclination to attach to others. If a person gets emotionally close with others easily, pours her secrets to others, falls in love extremely often or almost always has a relationship, has many friends that she considers to be close, it can be possibly construed as that person searching for the self-validation and love that she never received or continues to not receive from her parents. If the attachment between a parent and a child is malnutritioned due to the parent's lack of love, I would say that the love the child does not receive has to be found in other places - other people. Love-starved people might attach to a multitude of others, constantly searching for the self-validation of, "Yes, I am loved, " that was never previously provided to them - found in multiple relationships, tons of friends, or trying to create deep relationships quickly by pouring out one's deepest parts of the soul.

Also, the person could either end up extremely egotistical, loving himself in an attempt to make up for and negate the fact that his parents starved him of love, and to assuage the worry that he truly is not worthy of love, as his parents' behavior may have suggested to him, or he may become extremely self-depricating, because he was never validated by his parents or encouraged to trust the strength of his being.

Cheers!