Adults with Troubled Childhoods

Who is an adult with a troubled childhood? Any adult who suffers with emotional or physical symptoms as a result of physical, sexual or emotional abuse as a child, or, as a result of physical or emotional neglect or abandonment is an adult with a troubled childhood. Abuse is an active process where one person with greater power hurts the body, mind and spirit of another person with lesser power. Physical and emotional neglect occurs when the needs of the child go unmet; the child's body may go hungry or unwashed and/or their emotions may go unnoticed. Abandonment occurs when the child is left alone at a young age, unable to survive, or barely able to survive for periods of time.

Healthy vs. unhealthy family systems:

A healthy emotional family is one in which the needs of all the family members are taken into consideration by the leader(s) of the family unit (i.e. the parents). The parents or parental substitutes show the child by their own behaviors what is acceptable and what is not. In a healthy family, the parents think highly of themselves and highly of their children. They treat themselves and their children with courtesy and respect, and, when they make a mistake, admit it and apologize. They do not hold themselves, or their children, up to unattainable standards of perfection. Most importantly, feelings are highly valued. If someone is sad, scared, or angry they are allowed, and even encouraged to express feelings without fear of abandonment or punishment. In a healthy family there is a high level of empathy (Also See FAQs). In such a family, when someone expresses a feeling, the others believe them and let them know that they understand and care.

In an unhealthy family system, the parents do not think highly of themselves (although they may appear to by bragging, boasting or doing behavior designed to self-inflate their image) or think highly of their children. As a result, children in such families do not grow up believing themselves to be good, worthwhile or lovable. Their feelings of low self-esteem and/or poor self-image lead to compensatory behaviors in the form of self-destructive behaviors, addictions of all types, and co- dependent relationships where each partner is looking for validation by the other. In unhealthy family systems certain feelings (like fear, sadness or anger) or all feelings are disallowed, leaving the family members emotionally trapped, and having to hide or suppress these emotions, which can surface later on with devastating effects.

Unhealthy families and self-esteem:

Take our self-esteem inventory test. Rate your answer on a scale of 1-4. 1-Always true, 2-Usually true, 3-Sometimes true, 4-Never true. Add up the numbers. You will have a score of somewhere between 10 and 40. In general, the higher number you total, the more likely that you come from an unhealthy family system.

* I like and appreciate who I am
* I value my opinion of myself about others
* I forgive myself as easily as I forgive others
* I believe I am as important as anyone else
* I see problems as challenges
* My mistakes are not a reflection of my worth
* I can ask directly for what I want
* I do not feel responsible for other peoples emotions
* I encourage others to be independent
* I am flexible when faced with problems

Why we have poor self-esteem:

We were not born with poor self-esteem, self-loathing, or being extremely self-critical. We were born unselfconscious. We learn how to think of ourselves and others based on watching and listening to our childhood role models and the way our role models treated us. The messages that we received through body language, facial expression, voice tone, and the words used, plus the behavior exhibited, taught us to feel loved or unloved. Our role models also taught us whether we are cherished or taken for granted, approved of or not, liked, disliked or hated. These, and a whole host of other subtle and not so subtle intellectual and emotional "imprints" on our conscious and unconscious minds, combined with our own unique personality structure, created the person we are today. Coming from an unhealthy family created beliefs that our own lovability and/or our right to simply exist, was conditional on our behavior (which many of us still believe). We learned to feel afraid, insecure, and inadequate, have unrealistic expectations, and to not trust our own feelings, and to defer our judgments about what is good and bad, right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable, to others.

Results of coming from an unhealthy family include:

1. We feel, act, and believe that we are not in control of our lives

2. We feel, act and believe that we are inadequate and incapable of making decisions that are in our own best interest

3. We mistrust our own perceptions, feelings and motivations

4. We believe that we are flawed, that there is something basically wrong with us 5.We believe that we deserve to be punished and carry around a sense of guilt and shame about who we believe we are

The Recovery Process

The recovery process depends on a number of factors, which differ from person to person. People who have experienced severe abuse or neglect early in their lives, in general, have the greatest challenge in recovery. This is true since the earlier our experiences, the less able we are to have a cognitive (intellectual) understanding of what happened to us, what we learned that may be untrue, and how it shaped our beliefs and perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world around us. Those of us who came from the most abusive, or neglectful backgrounds have developed feelings and beliefs that make us very critical, suspicious, untrusting, and generally unhappy. To dismantle these harmful beliefs, and to help create a new set of positive beliefs, although a large task in itself, is only part of what needs to occur. Intellectual understanding alone, if it does create change, usually works too slowly. The other task is to begin to create an emotional change that supports the new intellectual awareness, and to accomplish this, the whole area of emotions, and the body must be included. Recent mind/body research suggests that memory is not simply localized in the brain, but that every cell in our body also contains memory function. To liberate a person from conscious and unconscious memories (unconscious memories are experienced as strong feelings, sometimes as flashbacks) the person must be willing and able to tolerate sensations and feelings in their bodies long enough to work with them. This involves learning how to grieve our loses, which can free our energy, and open us to taking in new experiences. Fear of grieving is perhaps one of the greatest obstacles in recovery, since it involves trusting that there is a purpose in entering our pain, and believing that there will be an end to the pain, once it has been entered.

Since adults who have had troubled childhoods have been injured in their ability to trust, and have learned early on that there is no end to their pain (which is often true as a child) they find it difficult or impossible to either start this deep level of recovery, or if they do start, to see it through to completion. As a result, many people who struggled with troubled childhoods never achieve the freedom that is possible and spend their lives looking for the "magic pill" that modern science often seems to promise. On the opposite end of the spectrum are those survivors who, due to their persistence, determination, and love of truth, choose to enter fully the process of recovery, and are able to reap the benefits which enriches not only themselves, but also everyone whose lives they touch. The promise of experiencing one's life more passionately, fully, and joyously can seem like a pipe dream to someone who has literally and figuratively been beaten down most of their lives, but to those who believe and persist, in their recovery a new dream can emerge causing a new reality to unfold. As always, a person's will and determination are the most important qualities leading to success.