This is an extremely delicate subject so I will say now that there may be triggers here for some.
Many of us have suffered some sort of childhood trauma. Many of us have had beautiful, loving and supportive childhoods. The latter group will have a hard time understanding those of us who experienced trauma. We missed out on a lot of things that most kids grow up with. Love, encouragement, nurturing, support, motivation. All the good things. Our childhood may have been filled with abuse, violence, neglect or any other less than favourable conditions.
So why is it that some of us can come out of that smiling and smelling like roses while the rest of us grow up with a chip on our shoulder? A thorn in our side? The monkey on our back? Here is a small list of some of the reasons why it is harder for some than it is for others.
1. Trusting is hard.
We don't trust anyone. The people who were supposed to love us, our family, has hurt and betrayed us in ways that we can't even imagine. How then, are we supposed to trust anyone else when we can't even trust our own family? We live with that mistrust for a long time. We end up attracting people into our lives that continue that pattern of abuse or neglect. It's a vicious cycle.
2. We never knew family love.
The love that our friends down the street have in their family, we have never known. There will always be that angst, that sadness, that frustration and even almost jealousy. As children, we desperately craved that love and now that we are adults we see that love in other families and it makes us even sadder. To think we missed out on all that love is hard to swallow at times.
3. We didn't deserve that treatment.
We will spend the rest of our lives feeling angry because we were helpless victims in a horrible situation. Why did that happen to us? Why me? What did I do to deserve that? We will constantly question ourselves and wonder if we are good enough for real love from another person. We will always be angry because we were treated badly and didn't deserve it.
4. Why did that have to happen to me?
We spend a lot of our time trying to understand why all that happened to us. Was it our parents? Was it the depression? What was it and why me? We will never know and never understand and because of that, we will forever live with the hurt that we had to endure something that is unexplainable.
5. We are jealous of our friends and the relationships they have with their family.
Not only are we jealous but we don't really feel comfortable around them either. So much love and happiness and support. It's all very foreign to us. Is that how families are supposed to act with each other? It makes us angry that we were robbed of all that. All that love. We desperately want to fit in and feel joy within this family but we struggle and we don't, and it saddens us.
6. We constantly question our own ability as a parent.
Am I doing the right thing? Am I making my child/children feel loved? Am I a good parent? We watch our every step and sometimes we slip and resort back to situations that we were accustomed to as children. Because of this, our children suffer. We don't want to hurt them and we don't mean to. We are doing the best we can, but it is a daily struggle. An ongoing battle.
Anyone who has ever suffered any kind of childhood trauma can relate to these feelings of sadness and frustration. There are several ways to heal from our past and I always encourage people to seek counselling of any kind to help deal with these situations. Freeing ourselves from childhood pain is not an easy thing to do but it's not impossible. It takes time, dedication and persistence. Find a group in your area or a professional to help you deal with this if you are still struggling. Nobody should have to live forever in hate and anger.
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