Trigger warning: parental neglect
The brutal truth of this article is for me. I was a crap person, I found relationships too hard. People meant pain. Too many unsafe experiences meant I could never relax, so I just avoided the whole messiness, kept my head down and told myself I was a lone wolf, until I couldn’t take the deep loneliness of never being understood and the self-denial it had created.
Here’s a quick disclaimer: m name is Haika Shah. I am not a licensed therapist, just a person who was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) at the beginning of 2021, after a lifetime of interpersonal struggles. Now, I am striving and thriving toward functional recovery.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, childhood trauma is defined as: “The experience of an event by a child that is emotionally painful or distressful, which often results in lasting mental and physical effects.”
Childhood trauma is not only limited to what your parents did to you. Its unsafe neighbours and bullying. toxic teachers, lack of resources, financial status and much more. It can affect us in ways that are tricky to spot.
Childhood Trauma Can Have A Long-Lasting Impact
Here’s a list of how I have been personally affected by this: never feeling good enough, difficulty in managing emotions, seasonal self-isolation, struggling to form deep connections, and lacking self-identity… But, the ways it can affect us aren’t limited to this.
Sometimes, parents do a number on us in those crucial formative years. Abuse, neglect, volatile families, and psychological violence. It leaves us deeply yearning for connection, but also deeply fearful of it.
Several populations suffer from the fear of abandonment, which is different in different people, but it comes back to the deep trauma somewhere along with the childhood.
Parents generally have a habit of comparing their children to others and in case you feel you’re motivating them, remember, the comparison isn’t provocation, it’s an embarrassment. The comparison highlights the weakness. The child is bound to lose his self-esteem. The shame is deeply buried and endured constantly during pivotal ages.
What Children Actually Need From Their Parents
We obsess over gender-specific roles. We believe the fathers are only bread earners, sure they are! But, they’re also fathers. So, the father is usually absent either emotionally or physically. The ones around, give superficial attention, leaving a void inside of us.
And, I don’t know how many among you will agree with this, but we are a fatherless generation. For females, we are conditioned to believe that the worth of women is determined by the amount of household work they do and how they become doormats to please their families.
The conditioning runs so deep that even if no one is watching them, they will still do an unrealistic amount of work. The purpose of bringing this up is that parents or caregivers are essential for shaping a child’s personality and ideology.
So, we should be careful of what example we are setting for them. We, as parents, need to understand our responsibilities. Coming to parenting, here’s what your kid needs: your time, cuddles, hugs and smiles… Connection before correction, appreciation, running around the gardens and experiencing sitting on swings together.
Break The Cycle Of Inter-Generational Trauma
Listen to them, their silly stories. Ask them how they feel; how their day was; use positive words. They are children, create a safe space for them. You as parents owe them a good life.
And for the survivors, examine your triggers and what emotions they evoke. What is the behavioural response to your emotions? Take the power back. Make an emotion-focused plan to cope, and communicate boundaries. Do self-care.
Let’s break the inter-generational trauma, let’s not raise more insecure children. Fight the battles within for the parts that want to be healed, and forgive your parents as they only project what they couldn’t heal from.
After everything, my objective is not to try and persuade the readers to take a stand on this issue, but I want you all people to remember the key message and educate yourselves on a very important concern.
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written by Haika Shah