There is an underappreciation for the long-term harm that a difficult childhood has on a person. It’s common for people to brush off traumatic childhood experiences as somehow not relevant to their present state, because “that happened in the past.”
It’s something I’ve personally seen over and over. “Oh, you blame your parents for your problems? Grow up.” And it’s the strangest thing because trauma during those formative years shapes the child’s brain and behaviors. It literally changes the brain. And as such, an emotionally neglected childhood can cause someone to form unhealthy core beliefs. Beliefs such as these:
1. “I’m not important enough to be worthy of respect or love.”
Let’s take the example of Sarah. Sarah grew up in a household where her parents weren’t the most emotionally available people. Mom is emotionally distant, and Dad is working two jobs, so when he is home, he’s too exhausted to provide Sarah with an appropriate amount of love and affection. She tries to get it from her dad, but he’s not home enough. She turns to her mom, and her mom isn’t able to provide that emotional bandwidth because of her own trauma.
Trauma experts advise that as an adult, she will likely suffer from unstable relationships and self-esteem issues because she was not taught how to be loved and respected. That, in turn, may cause her to accept bad behavior in her future relationships, romantic or not. The underlying core belief is that she’s not important, so she needs to make herself important enough to be loved or respected, rather than it being freely given.
The way to challenge this kind of thinking is an understanding that love is not something you earn. Mentally healthy and emotionally available people just give love to the people that they care about because love is not a transaction. Love becomes manipulation once it becomes a transaction. Sarah’s people-pleasing and allowing other people to treat her badly won’t earn her love. All it will earn her is people taking advantage of her.
2. “They’ll stop loving me if I make a mistake.”
Then there’s someone like Mike, who grows up in an environment where he doesn’t get to spend much time with his mom because his dad has custody. His dad is a hard man and expects Mike to “act like a man” even at a young age. He doesn’t get praise for his efforts, and he only gets love and acceptance when he’s doing things right. However, when he makes mistakes, his father withholds his love and affection from Mike.
Mike comes to learn that making a mistake will lead to punishment, and so it encourages Mike to get better at lying and hiding the truth. As the Society for Research in Child Development demonstrates, children in punitive environments will learn to lie to avoid punishment. Children like Mike fall into that pattern for years, until the point where lying and manipulation just become natural habits anytime something goes wrong. But it doesn’t stop there. Eventually, Mike just starts lying about other things in his life because it’s the way he learned to gain approval.
The hard lesson that Mike will have to learn is that his father’s demands were unreasonable. Mistakes happen, and the way mistakes are handled matters most. Instead of looking at a mistake as an end, Mike could instead look at the situation as a chance to strengthen a bond. Coming together with a person you wronged to apologize and fix your mistake builds trust and intimacy. Not that he should hope to make mistakes, but they can also be looked at as an opportunity for growth.
3. “I’m not entitled to gentleness or comfort.”
Harsh parents may accidentally teach their children that rest and relaxation are a reward to be earned, rather than a right. Consider Mike’s dad, who works two jobs to get by and doesn’t make any time for himself, even when he’s sick or injured. There’s a job to be done, and his patriarchal programming tells him that he cannot rest so long as he has a job to be done or money to earn.
As Mike watches his dad, he learns to mimic the behavior. There’s always more work to be done around the house or on the job, so work until you can’t work anymore. Then maybe take a little break once in a while. Mike’s dad finds that rest and relaxation in the bottle, numbing himself so he can keep grinding.
I’ve always hated the phrase, “they work like a machine,” because it implies the person just goes nonstop, consistently. However, if you’ve ever worked with machines, you’d know they need to be turned off and maintained once in a while, or they will fail spectacularly.
People are not that much different. Everyone deserves some gentleness and comfort when they need it. And if Mike wants to push back against that mentality, an easy way to do so is to schedule some regular self-care. Find just a few hours every week to do something fun, or just relax and kick back.
4. “I don’t matter to anyone.”
In Sarah’s situation, she may have found that her mom and dad don’t prioritize her at all. They don’t want to spend their time with her, make an effort to give her attention, or try to attend any of her events. They don’t celebrate her successes, but they admonish her when she makes mistakes. She internalizes the lesson that she is not important enough to be cared about by her own parents, so why would anyone else care?
She may find herself in unhealthy relationships and friendships where she’s taken advantage of, reaffirming the belief that she’s not worthy. If she finds herself in some healthy relationships, she will need to look for signs that she does matter. There will be times when other people will prioritize her needs, and that is a demonstration from others that she does matter. However, her worth should not be defined by the actions of others. She will need to build her self-esteem and self-worth independently of others, so that she knows she is deserving of consideration.
5. “I shouldn’t upset anyone by taking up space or expressing my needs.”
A child who grows up in an environment similar to Sarah’s will often find that their expression of needs is met with anger or indifference. That creates the feeling that Sarah is an inconvenience, and since she is just a child, she may not realize that it’s okay to take up space. As a child, she had no power in the situation. But when she grows up into an adult, she deserves her own space and to have her needs addressed. That’s how healthy relationships work.
One small way that she can push back against this method of thinking is to express at least one preference per day. For example, if she’s asked what she wants to eat, she should express a preference instead of telling the other person they should choose. Sarah may believe that making herself smaller will earn her love, but it won’t. All it does is encourage others to take advantage of her.
6. “I need to earn love to be loved.”
In both Mike’s and Sarah’s situations, they are being taught that any love or affection they receive must be earned. The way this translates into adulthood is through people-pleasing behavior that is often unhealthy, which can lead to others taking advantage of you. Neither Mike nor Sarah is likely to have healthy boundaries, because they were taught that they needed to sacrifice to be loved and cared about. But, as I said previously, love is something freely given, not something you earn.
The kind of people that make you earn it are the kind of people you don’t want to be around. Look at your relationships around you, and consider how many of those people you think would stick around if you stopped doing things for them. The answer should be that they would all stick around because they value you as a person. But if you’re anything like Mike or Sarah, that’s likely not the case.
Instead of those unhealthy relationships, think about the ones that felt more about connection than duty and service. Remind yourself that this is the kind of connection you want to be looking for, and don’t settle for less.
In Closing…
Not to put too fine a point on it, but challenging and fixing unhealthy core beliefs like these is not a small or easy task. These small things can help, but they are an adhesive strip over a hemorrhaging wound. To truly get in, fix these perceptions, and change them, you will likely need to dive into talk therapy to address the trauma.
These are all things you can improve on, but it’s not an easy task to figure out on your own. With the right support, you can learn what healthy relationships should look like and create them in the future.
