Childhood Wounds That YOU Are Still Suffering From as an Adult!

Anything that hurts for a long time comes to no good. A childhood full of privation continues to have an effect on our adult life. It is like building a house on quicksand, a bad foundation for the rest of life. Some things we may understand, some we would rather forget and repress. However, injuries inflicted on us in childhood never go away completely without collateral damage. Some people may learn to ignore them better than others. Something remains, however, if as children we were not loved, seen, rejected or perhaps even deliberately abused, physically or emotionally. A lack of trust in ourselves will remain, but also a lack of trust in others. We will struggle with our feelings for a long time, often finding no other way than to give in to them unchecked and let them take control. Needless to say, such behaviors will not make it easier for us to form bonds with others down the road. The following five behaviors that we now present for this article are clear signals that childhood wounds are present that have not yet healed.

1. Overcompensating for your ego

Unfortunately, those who were helplessly exposed to narcissistic forms of play as a child often acquire these traits themselves later on. Psychologists are here to point out, of course, the role model effect, on the other hand, one’s own ego urgently needs confirmation, and retroactively for the time when there was nothing of the sort. As an adult, one then often behaves just as destructively as one's parents did in childhood. The addiction to attention and admiration is boundless, the feeling of being something very special can develop into a pronounced narcissistic personality disorder. Such people see the exercise of power and control over others as the only chance to ever be happy. The feeling of inferiority from childhood days is later compensated for by indulging in a frenzy of delusions of grandeur, self-overestimation and egocentrism. Hurt children become hurt adults. However, to take them off the hook for this destructive behavior would be wrong. It is possible that they do not know how to maintain relationships any other way. However, after a certain age, everyone can make the decision for themselves to want to do better.

2. Destructive behaviors

Obsessive-compulsive disorder, pathological eating behavior, a tendency to self-harm, and emotional coldness are just some of the negative effects that childhood injuries can bring. Those who never really learned to allow and properly process emotions will continue to struggle with them into adulthood. Then, when quick-fix solutions present themselves that offer quick relief from frustration, anger, fear and pain, they are welcome, but sometimes, unfortunately, they can become habit. Obsessive-compulsive or eating disorders, for example, provide sufferers with a sense of ease and improvement in an instant, only to be followed shortly thereafter by feelings of shame and guilt. This often leads to a vicious circle that cannot be broken without professional help. However, they do not only make life difficult for the affected persons themselves, any kind of relationship is immediately nipped in the bud as a result and presents the better halves with enormous challenges. Every form of autoaggression is always indirectly directed against the people in our environment, whom we should actually love and respect. If we can't do that with ourselves, leading a life together with someone else will become even more rocky and arduous.

3. Emotional outbursts

This point also arises from a childhood learning deficit. Suppressing feelings or channeling them in the wrong way can lead to being overwhelmed with any kind of emotion later in life. This results in a feeling of helplessness, which often leads to spontaneous and unfiltered expression of emotions, which can be frustration, anger or rage, but also sadness and even exuberance. The insecurity in dealing with other people also not infrequently results in automatic negative prejudices and the feeling of being treated unfairly and disadvantaged from the outset. All these points lead to the fact that the emotional life resembles a roller coaster that follows no controllable course. Sad detail on the side: If we react like this and every emotion immediately determines our actions, we thereby become all the more people who, viewed objectively, are less lovable than others who go through life more friendly and well adjusted. You don't have to approve or excuse this bad and rude behavior, but sometimes behind a rude, uncouth jerk or a hysterical drama queen there is a small, hurt and deeply sad child.

4. Negative self-image

Probably the greatest damage that childhood trauma can do is the negative self-image that these children carry with them. Those who had to fight for love or miss it from an early age cannot feel lovable and accepted. Later in life, such people are easy prey for toxic people, manipulators and abusive relationships, because unfortunately they have never known it any other way. Those who were once the victims of dysfunctional family constructs will unfortunately often find themselves in these toxic types of relationships again and again. Lack of self-confidence and a thoroughly negative image of one's own personality is not something that can be magically shaken off overnight. Anyone who wants to escape this negative spiral in the long run needs help. Some people meet the right people at some point in their lives, who may not be able to heal all the wounds from childhood, but they at least help to ease the pain a little. Those who cannot do without it should consider professional help.

5. Fear of intimacy

Educational problems, mistrust, and the constant fear of not being good enough for partners are just a few of the concerns adults carry with them if they didn't experience enough love as a child. Above all, intimacy requires trust. This is difficult if one has had mainly negative experiences with people up to now. Children are often victims of emotional blackmail when parents use their love like a reward or abuse it as a disciplinary measure according to the carrot and stick principle. Such experiences at a young age lead one to always view interpersonal encounters with suspicion. After all, one has learned that they are loved only under certain conditions of conformity and therefore behaves exactly as the other person wants. Reducing this mistrust will be a long-term project, but with small steps this problem can be solved. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Today’s Conclusion:

Childhood is never over. Good for all those who had a good childhood, bad for all those who still suffer from it as adults and cannot escape the long shadows. At a certain level of suffering, it is advisable to seek professional help. Much of what happened in our childhood we could not categorize at the time, and even in retrospect it is difficult to always make sense of it. An objective, third person can bring some light into the darkness. It may not change anything in retrospect, but the chances for the future are much better. That's it for today.