How Your Childhood Messed You Up

              I often sit across from patients who are incredibly hard on themselves and have no idea what they’re capable of. As a therapist, my first step is not to convince him otherwise but to understand where this came from. The answer is often childhood.

              Whether you had an idyllic childhood or a traumatic one, we all get a little messed up in our childhood. Of course, to varying degrees. If your father was a violent alcoholic, you might have grown up walking on eggshells in the home to not upset him. This is a recipe for anxiety in adulthood. If you were bullied in school for being overweight, you might have developed a complex around body image and have a difficult relationship with food. If you were molested in childhood, you may have developed an early view of yourself not being worthy of protection not to mention the impact on your sexual development.

              The idea that we carry unhelpful beliefs from childhood into adulthood includes those who were loved and well cared for. Many young adults had helicopter parents who did everything for them. They are now anxious to even make a phone call to set up a doctor’s appointment. Possibly you had an over-protective parent that wanted to shield you from any harm. In adulthood, small adversity might cause significant distress turning you into a complainer. There are those whose political or religious beliefs have diverged from their parents’ in teenage and adult years leading to familial strife and potentially a more radical view due to the rebellion that comes from being told to think a certain way. Or growing up in the suburbs has not prepared you to interact with others from different paths of life. This could result in fear or judgment of those that are different from you.

              Childhood is when we first develop our sense of the world, ourselves, and others. Is this world a safe place or am I on my own? Am I likeable or an outcast? Are others generally good or bad? Children are unable to see the larger picture and so develop fixed beliefs about themselves, other people, and the world based on their environments. One trauma could lead a youngster to believe that the world is scary and she is vulnerable to bad things happening. No one has a perfect introduction or education to life.

              This is where therapy comes in. As an adult we can see the bigger picture. We learn that there are multiple shades of gray and varying beliefs on many subjects. This allows us to change our beliefs and grow. However, our first fixed beliefs can come up automatically and work against us in this life. We might have to relearn to love ourselves. Trusting others might be a foreign risk that is challenging for us to allow.

We also might be foreclosed on certain topics without even knowing it. If you had no examples of people in your community or family who went to college, you may never even consider this an option. When men give you attention based on your physical features, that may feel like love and validation. If unprepared for discomfort, minor difficulties in adulthood can handicap you.

Allow me to share an example of what this could look like in therapy. Imagine a young boy who was born out of wedlock to teenage parents that didn’t want him. They resented his existence as it interfered with the progression of their young lives. Both parents told him that he was no good and a waste of space. He annoyed his parents. They would pick on him and spent little-to-no time helping him along his development in life. This boy became a teenager who believed that he was unlovable and not worth much. He did not graduate High School. He took a menial job. He entered relationships in which he was treated poorly as he didn’t think he could do any better. He comes to therapy depressed and hating himself and his life. The therapist is ultimately going to ask him how he has come to hate himself. They will track back to childhood and he will have to start questioning if this belief about himself was wrong. These beliefs he was given have affected how he interacts with the world but also how he feels. The therapist will guide him to start catching when he is engaging in self-talk related to these previous schemas of himself and challenge them. This is called cognitive restructuring.

So yes, when you go to a therapist in your 50’s and want to talk about your relationship with your wife, your therapist will ask about your childhood. She will ask about your parents’ relationship to one another as this was your first model. She will dig into prior relationships you had. She might inquire about your husband’s upbringing as well as you both bring your childhood distortions to the relationship.

Your therapist knows that you are a product of your childhood. Your therapist is listening for your hard-wired beliefs and is ready to ask how you got to this conclusion. He will challenge you to think differently or to consider what if you were wrong this whole time?

Feel better, y’all!