I am 34 and over the past year, I have been realizing that yes, I had a bad childhood. My whole life I told every therapist that I had a great childhood, it was fine. It was not. I had a very emotionally immature father who was Authoratarian and had an explosive temper. Spankings, punishments, yelling, screaming, throwing things, he put his hands around my throat once..... I see the damage it's done to me. I've struggled, my whole life. I barely passed college and it took me 9 years to complete because my mental health was horrible but my parents "didn't believe in mental health", so I just hated myself. Now though, I can breathe, I am a good person, and I am undoing all the learned behaviors that I learned from my parents, bc my mom wasn't much better but was a little better. I remember her saying things to me as a kid like "if you are going to cry, i'll give you a reason to cry" or "if i say it's raining cats and dogs, it's fucking raining cats and dogs, you hear me" but she was more of a low voice vs yelling. But when everything was going okay, it was decently good. i have good childhood moments, but I have a lot that was and even more that I just do not remember at all. It sucks. I am still mourning the life I COULD have had if I had supportive, loving parents that maybe weren't perfect, but they learned and grew as parents. I didn't deserve what they put me through. It turned me into a people pleaser with no boundaries, no backbone, and who hated herself for 33 years. NO MORE! And if I do have kids, I know that I will have a healed heart and head on my shoulders and ready to be a better parents, an emotionally available parent with a secure style and all the empathy and love and support.
Shame is an abuse we are taught to inflict on ourselves and can become infectious to the point where you build your identity off of your shame and i agree the way out of the shame/guilt loop is through cultivating self compassion. alot easier said than done. keeping shameful secrets insulates us from support. great chat Brooks ❤
