It seems like these coping skills may have first started when you were between the ages of 3 and 5
Our level of insight grows as we age. When we are newborns we have no insight. We think we are part of our caretaker. As we grow we gain more insight. Sometimes we get stuck at a certain age level of insight if there was a trauma. Between these ages is when we are learning some independence from our caregiver/s. It’s also the ages in which we hopefully have the chance to learn how to interact with our peers. We are learning how to use our words to get our needs met. We are learning from the people in our surroundings how to do that. So let’s say for instance we are learning that our caregiver only meets our needs when we cry or throw a tantrum. Or that our caregiver met our needs some of the time but not others, this can be confusing. According to Erik Erikson, this is the stage of "initiative vs. guilt" where our virtue to be learned at this point is "purpose". And if we do not learn these virtues they are expected to reappear as problems in the future.