Childhood trauma does not just come from what you experience physically, emotionally, etc. It doesn’t even have to be huge events. It can be micro in nature that accumulates, and it can also come from neglect, but neglect in the form of what we don’t experience as children and need to. The following examples are all situations that when lacking in our childhood, can lead to us developing unhealthy habits and expectations. When reading through each one have a think about what growing up was like for you and how the lack of these things could have impacted your development.
Spontaneity. This is an important part of childhood. Was it always serious in your household? No time for fun and joy? When parents are over-serious it’s usually a sign of parents who came from a family who were in survival mode for a long time and where playfulness did not exist. In these moments, the impact this has on our own behaviour is that we struggle to be light-hearted and are often on guard. Spontaneity and joy are important in our adult lives also. Who do you feel safe enough around to start bringing in some spontaneity into your life?
No repair. When we are hurt, we need people to repair that communication breakdown. Repair is when accountability is taken, apologies are made, and there is a direct acknowledgement of what will be different in the future. Without repair, we don’t know how to have healthy relationships. So if we grew up in a household where repair did not take place, we can struggle to make meaningful adult relationships in our lives.
Emotional neglect. We’re emotional beings first before we are anything else. If we grew up in a household where our emotional needs were not acknowledged or met, we start to believe that we do not matter. We then start to feel responsible for the emotional needs of others and so we try to fix the emotional state of others, and/or we try to fight harder to get our emotional needs met and we try to control situations to ensure this happens. What happens in these situations though is that people often pull away and we end up in dysfunctional relationships ourselves.
No space to be a child. Did one or both of your parents rely on you as a kid? Did you hear about things you likely shouldn’t have? When we are parentified as a child (i.e., made to fill the role of a parent/partner), we begin to lack the ability to develop our own identity. This is because we are focused on adult issues that we are never capable of fixing because we have not been able to develop our own sense of self. We end up parroting and modeling the behaviour of the parent who is parentifying us as opposed to being our true selves.
Learned helplessness: When we aren’t taught how to solve problems, find solutions, or aren’t given the ability to leave dysfunctional situations, the result is a learned helplessness. We can lack problem solving skills and personal agency.
Lack of accountability. A lot of the time in unhealthy family relationships, we can learn to blame others for our problems. When we don’t witness the adults in our lives taking responsibility for their actions, we struggle to learn the resilience needed to face the challenges of life.
No room for mistakes. We need to make mistakes to learn and grow. If there are no room for mistakes, we can’t grow, develop logic, or discover what our own likes and dislikes are. If perfection is expected, it fosters procrastination and chronic fear of criticism.
Some of these examples will be relatable to you, and some won’t. If you need support to work out how to work through these triggers give our team a call on (03) 9882 8874 to book an appointment.
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This blog was written and prepared by Dr Celin Gelgec – Clinic Director and Clinical Psychologist at Melbourne Wellbeing Group.