Generally, people who experience childhoods which are impoverished of the stimuli necessary to develop robust senses of self and the coping skills that come with it are left much less resilient to life struggles in adulthood.
If you have developed a sense of self early in childhood, then you are able to develop empathy for others, if you bring empathy in to a relationship, then you can be trusted and trust others. Think about it, you cannot rely on a relationship that does not have trust as it's basis, you cannot be trusted in a relationship if you cannot perceive or understand the other persons needs and feelings, and you cannot perceive or understand the other persons needs and feelings if you cannot perceive or understand your own.
If you have a sense of self, and then you have developed empathy, and then taken that empathy in to relationships, and if you have then made the moral choice with that to be a kind person, then that enables you to form resilient relationships. And you take those relationships with you in to adulthood. These relationships, and the coping mechanisms that got you them, are highly effective cushions for the shocks of adult life. Life changing struggles can still afflict such people and bring them down, but then they are much more able to recover since they still have the scaffolding they developed in childhood and they can rebuild.
For those with a childhood impoverished of the necessary stimuli, it is much more difficult, because they are rebuilding it all from scratch.
And then there are those for whom the experiences of life have been so damaging, possibly combined with genetics, that they may never be able to develop a functioning sense of self, or empathy and go through their entire lives. And yeah, the older you get, the more difficult it gets because you may not have the attributes that would enable you to turn it around earlier in life (family or school friends with whom relationships haven't yet been completely poisoned, good looks enough to meet someone new, meeting ambitious people your age at the start of their careers who are looking to network, etc..)
If you have developed a sense of self early in childhood, then you are able to develop empathy for others, if you bring empathy in to a relationship, then you can be trusted and trust others. Think about it, you cannot rely on a relationship that does not have trust as it's basis, you cannot be trusted in a relationship if you cannot perceive or understand the other persons needs and feelings, and you cannot perceive or understand the other persons needs and feelings if you cannot perceive or understand your own.
If you have a sense of self, and then you have developed empathy, and then taken that empathy in to relationships, and if you have then made the moral choice with that to be a kind person, then that enables you to form resilient relationships. And you take those relationships with you in to adulthood. These relationships, and the coping mechanisms that got you them, are highly effective cushions for the shocks of adult life. Life changing struggles can still afflict such people and bring them down, but then they are much more able to recover since they still have the scaffolding they developed in childhood and they can rebuild.
For those with a childhood impoverished of the necessary stimuli, it is much more difficult, because they are rebuilding it all from scratch.
And then there are those for whom the experiences of life have been so damaging, possibly combined with genetics, that they may never be able to develop a functioning sense of self, or empathy and go through their entire lives. And yeah, the older you get, the more difficult it gets because you may not have the attributes that would enable you to turn it around earlier in life (family or school friends with whom relationships haven't yet been completely poisoned, good looks enough to meet someone new, meeting ambitious people your age at the start of their careers who are looking to network, etc..)