Overcoming Childhood Emotional Trauma

This is a very relatable post. I've been an emotional and sensitive child. And I had an angry yelling mother. I couldn't connect these dots as a problem until recently, and realized I carry an unhealed wound from childhood.

Good to know you got help in counselling.

Watching this post hoping to read perspectives of people who overcame it.

 

Very well expressed and written......

Unfortunately, we all are polluted by so called modern world pollution things........

 

When you guys get a solid idea on what was wrong or broken, finish up a bit of healing with a great guiding literature that has already provided me with a healthy new perspective and understanding to start to replace my childhood trauma based attachments. My partner is much like you guys and he's been letting me read it to him, which has been really bonding for us.

How to be an adult in relationships
And
Daring to trust

Both by the same author and both written almost poetically, really wraps a logical and spiritually resonant tone that has no particular religious angle. Buy one of them at least, you can let it sit on your coffee table because i guarantee you or someone you know will open it at just the right moment in life.

 

Even now, at 36, I can look back at my childhood and point to how people expressed themselves with anger, see the emotional void it created and how it’s shaped various parts of my personality over the years.

Society isn’t going to help you pick up the pieces from a collection of dysfunctionional misfits, though. The message is to commit yourself to internal work (Working a program, cognitive behavioral therapy, 12 steps, etc...) or therapy - which gets expensive.

I’d say relationships are the most important gift we’re given. Thank God for those, especially now.

 

I relate to this so much! I remember my mum once said "I know you don't like it when I breathe on you,"to me when she was drunk. Looking back, I realise it was because I was holding my breath and shielding my teeth as an instinctual fear reaction.

I don't know whether depersonalisation is a splitting-off from something, or a failure of something to develop, but the inability to judge social distance, I can definitely relate. I bet you're INFJ on the MBTI, too?

It's been really hard, but I've had to learn the hard way by being forced into real-life situations over the last 15 years or so that made me adapt and learn how to cope in more effective ways. On the one hand, things are more manageable, although on the other, I'm only just starting to plumb the depths of my broken childhood/incomplete self.

Things that have helped:

- Take responsibility for things, even if you want to reject it like a 2-year-old having a tantrum, because the reality is that your sense of self hasn't ever developed to the point where you have a solid sense of agency/selfhood (if this applies in your case).
- Be truthful. Not sure if you're nihilistic, but I certainly was. And paranoid. Opening up and being truthful will metamorphose your life and build trust in yourself and others. It's also the best way to simplify relationships. Oversharing/undersharing can take a back seat to truthfulness, at least in the medium-term.
- Get involved in situations where things have consequences, like doing manual work. It's hard to work out emotions and relationships; it's less hard to deny that you just totally missed the wood with the nail gun. It's grounding.
- Reflect on the fact that the word 'reason' come from French, and it means to discuss/debate/talk with people. You can only develop rational ability by dealing with people in real situations. This will develop/strengthen your sense of self.

Souds like you're ahead of me anyway, since you're dating. But still, these things might help you move further forward too.

Good luck with stuff!

 

I can relate to this as well. Like yours, my parents were/are not abusive but they still act in a way that I think impacted my personal development in a negative way. The best example of this I can think of is how my interests and the things that were important to me were passively dismissed, and how when I tried to express myself in any meaningful way it was almost always either once again passively dismissed or outright shot down. This has led to me developing a complex where once I start talking to someone, I keep rambling on until I tire myself out, because on some deeper level I am afraid that if I let anyone else say anything it will lead to me getting dismissed again. This can even be reflected in the way I write on forum posts to a lesser extent.

Its sad to say, but this dismissive behaviour continues to this day. My parents and my younger sister regularly act like I am completely dependent on people doing things for me, cooking, cleaning, etc, despite the fact I am the only one in the house who has lived away from home for any length of time (I lived first with strangers then with friends at university for three years). This makes me feel belittled, like on some level they look at me like I am some manchild invalid. I am currently writing a novel, and have written several short stories in the past too, and if I do say so myself I have trained myself to be pretty bloody good at writing, but yet whenever I try to explain that I am not sitting in my bedroom doing nothing, I am writing a fucking book, this doesnt get treated as though it means anything, as though it "doesnt count" compared to the things anyone else is doing. Once again this makes me feel like my passions dont matter.

 

I forgot what I was on for a second and wanted to 'retweet' that XD
My blood pressure went through the roof because I related to it so much. I don't what it was. But every thing I was ever interested in or had an inclination for... it was a scam, it was fake, it was not a 'real job' it was this it was that.
You want to know what's a really sad life?
When every time you're about to make a decision you sit there like an idiot wondering how you're going to explain it to your mom. how you know shes not going to like it. etc etc etc.
It just eats away at you so much because you became a prisoner of your own life because you were so worried about what she would think.
And whenever something didn't go well there was almost always a sense of happiness that i was wrong and i was stupid and confirms that i never knew shit about fuck.

Watch this video... it's called "The man who hated the world" it's only about 10 minutes long. I think it will help you at least... summarize everything in your mind.

 

My parents are unable to understand the negative impact of depression on my life, were scapegoating other failiures and making me feel guilty (rather non intentio ally) for their concerns and stress that was a result of my halted progress due to depression. I felt like I was both responsible for their and my own well being. Especially my father was unable to ubderstand how it is to go through depression, both of them were comparing how I fared to hiw they did at my age. I just doesn't understand why they can't accept my explanations, they know that my performance was better in the past, why they keep going with their interpretations.

 

Yeah for me its writing and videogames as well, among other things. When it comes to videogames my families attitude is the typical one of people who grew up without them being as mainstream as they are now, ie, they think that they are "lesser" than other "real" hobbies such as sports or anything along those lines. I dont really care about them thinking that but where it becomes aggravating is when they act like me enjoying myself upstairs playing a videogame is any different from them watching TV for hours every night.

As for writing, my parents only view me writing as a way to make money, and when they talk about me getting published and making loads of money it makes me uncomfortable because I dont write as a job, I write because I want to, because I enjoy the actual act of writing fiction and I find it satisfying in a way very few things are for me. They seem incapable of grasping that I can do something and not have the motivation be linked to financial gain, its very annoying.

 

This is so frustrating. In the end, it's better to save your breath, because you're wasting your life-force on trying to make them understand you, but they don't even want to.

 

I feel like I should clarify that I dont actually listen to what my parents think of my life anymore, I stopped paying attention to them when I realised they would never be happy unless I just did exactly what they told me and nothing else, and even then they would probably find reason to criticise me.

As for the video, it was interesting, thanks for linking it. I see elements of myself in the man in the cell but at the same time I also see elements of other people in him too. I'm not sure if that was the point or not but that was my reaction to it. On one hand I am self aware of the fact I live a rather sheltered life, and perhaps there is more I want to do with it, but at the same time I resent it when others act like what I currently do doesnt matter because it doesnt fit their own notion of what makes something worthwhile. Like I said to another in this thread, I dont write fiction for monetary gain, I do it because I love it. I understand the mindset that from a practical viewpoint, money is important whether you personally are invested in it or not, thats just the nature of the world at the end of the day. But having said that, me valuing things I am passionate about over things I can make money from doesnt make my passions less valid, anyone who says otherwise can frankly fuck off.

 

Well, I do this only when situation is really, really bad. I dislike it because we never really had bad relations before. I feel that it may ruin my trust just before becoming financially independent adult.

What is wrong with boomers (I assumed your parents are boomers or are close, like early gen x)? People from this generation in many countries (I don't livr in US, when thus term originated) are either openly materialistic or cynical (you will see how important is money!). I think that for many young people the generational experience is that if their parents cared at all (permissivism is source of neetdom etc.), they cared only about the ability to earn money, and about what kind of person you are.

"Oh, it's not real job" is a thing I observed a lot among my peers.

 

I think its what you said mixed in with straight up arrogance, where to my parents, anything they like or are interested in is worthwhile, and anything I like or am interested in isnt. They like to pretend they dont look down on my interests but their actual behaviour makes it clear they do.