The things we learn in childhood lay the foundation for how the rest of our lives are going to unfold. This is why kids who were raised with encouragement grow up to have strong self-esteem, or those raised speaking several languages turn out to be polyglots.
For many, however, the lessons they learned through their childhood experiences teach them that they can never rely on other people for anything. The experiences listed below are some of the most common ones that forever shatter illusions that others can ever be trusted or counted upon.
1. When adults failed to protect you when you needed them the most.
People who were mistreated, neglected, or who experienced serious traumas in childhood all remember the moment when they realized that nobody was going to step up and protect them.
For some, it was when their teacher refused to stop the class bully from hurting or tormenting them. And for others, it was when they told their parents that someone was behaving inappropriately towards them (or worse), and not only did they do nothing about it — they dismissed it or even punished the child for lying.
An experience like this makes a child feel utterly alone in the world and teaches them that they could never rely on anyone for anything. After all, if the people who were tasked to take care of and protect them failed them completely, everyone else would likely do the same, if not worse.
2. Being left waiting when someone was supposed to be there for you.
This might be literal, such as parents not coming to pick them up or let them into the house when school got out early one day, or figurative, like if a parent or caregiver promised to do something important for them, abandoned that task, and then berated them for making a fuss when they got upset about it.
Few things are as dispiriting and humiliating as sitting outside, alone, in the rain or cold, because the person who was supposed to show up and be there for you couldn’t be bothered to make you a priority. An experience like this teaches a child the valuable lesson that they have to rely on themselves for anything they need in the future, because they can’t trust anyone else to keep their commitments.
3. Not being listened to in a medical situation.
I read an exchange on social media recently in which people were recounting tales of when they tried to tell their parents and healthcare providers that they were either sick or in pain, and ended up being ignored or “just seeking attention.” That is, until they were rushed to the emergency room with sepsis, internal bleeding, or worse.
Most of the people who posted these things shared the same feeling of losing faith in their caregivers forever because instead of being listened to and believed, they were brushed off as making a big deal out of nothing.
Children may be small in stature, but they deserve to be taken seriously when they try to communicate their distress. Experiencing things like this in one’s early years can damage trust in care providers forever, especially since similar things tend to happen in one’s elder years as well.
4. Having your trust betrayed when you opened up to someone.
It’s a truly terrible experience when someone close to you encourages you to open up and trust them about whatever is bothering or hurting you (with the promise that they’ll keep it a secret), only to have that trust betrayed.
For example, people may have told their school counsellors or therapists things about their home lives, and were later punished by their parents for doing so. Instead of maintaining patient confidentiality, their therapists told their families what had been said, resulting in even greater stress and trauma.
This kind of betrayal can also come from friends, teachers, spiritual leaders, and family members themselves. In fact, many individuals who learned never to rely on others are those who were betrayed by their own immediate family members. They were reassured that said family members wouldn’t be mad, nor betray their trust if the child told them in secret how they really feel — especially about their other parent or sibling — only to be punished by that individual later once their secret had been shared.
5. Being hurt or humiliated when vulnerable for other people’s amusement.
There are many ways that this might have happened in childhood. For example, in that “trust fall” exercise in gym class, the person who promised to catch them might have dropped them to make others laugh. Alternatively, they might have been looking forward to their birthday celebration only for their family to “prank” them by serving food they hated and giving them empty boxes that had been wrapped up nicely. Because that’s funny, right?
Kids don’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with this kind of thing. All they know is that their hopes and joy were dashed by their family, and everyone thought it was hilarious. As a result, they may refuse to celebrate their birthday in adulthood because they can’t trust others not to humiliate or disappoint them again.
6. Having been unjustly blamed and/or punished for something they didn’t do, while those who knew the truth remained silent.
The only thing worse than being blamed and punished for something you’re innocent of having done is when other people know the truth of the situation and choose to remain quiet about it.
Sometimes they do this to protect themselves from harm, including if there’s a possibility that they’ll get in trouble for “snitching.” Other times, those people allow the punishment to go on because they’re protecting the person who was actually responsible.
Either way, it teaches the one who was punished that others are more than willing to remain silent while they suffer, rather than speaking up to protect them.
7. Parentification.
When a child has to be the adult in the family and essentially “parent” their own parents or caregivers, that teaches them that rather than being able to rely on others, the only person they’ll ever be able to rely on is themselves.
This type of parentification can happen for a number of different reasons, but often occurs when and if parents are struggling with physical or mental health issues, addiction, abuse, or other trials that they may not have confided in their kids about. While it’s understandable that things like this can happen to anyone, it’s not fair to saddle kids with that kind of responsibility at such an early age, either.
8. Being lied to repeatedly.
If you found out that your spouse lied to you about something important, you’d likely have difficulty trusting their word again. But for some reason, many adults think that lying to their kids isn’t just expected, but that their children should continue to trust them without hesitation, even after they’ve found out that they’d been lied to. Horribly. And repeatedly.
Children aren’t stupid, and if the people who were tasked to care about them choose to lie to them again and again, they often lose trust in others permanently. After all, every time they’ve trusted or relied upon someone in the past, their trust has been betrayed. As such, they may hesitate to ever trust again, and with good cause.
9. When someone they looked up to and respected held double standards.
Many of us grew up with caregivers who held high standards about certain types of behavior. For example, a parent who insists that a person’s word is their bond, and that if they break their word, it will never hold value again, or a grandparent who condemns theft as one of the worst sins imaginable.
As you might imagine (or may have experienced firsthand), seeing that person do the very thing that they had lectured you about for hours can break something in you on a fundamental level.
When someone you look up to, love, and respect turns out to be a hypocrite with a “rules for thee but not for me” attitude, it’s difficult to believe that anyone else could ever have the type of decency and integrity that you had assumed your caregivers had embodied before they broke your heart.
Final thoughts…
People are all flawed human beings who are doing our best to muddle through life. Adults generally understand this, but children don’t have the life experience to comprehend the nuances of various situations or the factors that may have contributed to what they perceived as betrayals in their youth.
They may not have recognized that their caregivers were dealing with mental or physical health challenges, abuse, addiction, or financial struggles. As such, if an individual can revisit childhood experiences through the lens of adult awareness, that new perspective may go a long way towards healing views about relying on others again.
