When You're Stuck in Your Childhood: Moving Beyond What You Learned

* * *

So much of how we feel about ourselves pertains to our experiences as children.If you didn't grow up with love and support, odds are you've struggled to offerthose things to yourself and others around you. If the people who were supposedto care for you neglected your emotional or physical needs, you probablyconcluded that your needs weren't important—and that you somehow deserved to beignored.

Ironically, if you grew up in an abusive environment, you may have feltoverwhelming anger toward people who hurt you, only to grow up and adopt theirvoice in your head. That's the paradox of mistreatment: you may feel outragedwhen you recognize you've been wronged, and yet pick up where your abusers leftoff. We often treat ourselves the only way we know how—the way we learnedthrough example from our parents and/or peers.

For those who didn't experience abuse growing up, you likely still formedconclusions about yourself based on your relationship with your parents. Many ofus learned at a young age that love, acceptance, and approval were conditionalon certain behaviors and achievements. But we didn't conclude that our behaviorsweren't good enough; we internalized it to mean that we weren't—that there wassomething innately wrong with us. According to psychotherapist and researcherAlice J. Brown, author of Core Beliefs Psychotherapy, because we're egocentricas children, we assume that when our parents aren't there for us, we're somehowto blame.

As adults, we may understand that we did not deserve to feel bad and that weshouldn't torture ourselves for things other people have done. But sometimesdespite knowing these things, we don't fully believe them. We don't grasp thatwe've always been beautiful, even if we've never been perfect, and that we'venever deserved to feel scared, alone, or ashamed—not when we were kids, and notnow.

It's helpful to understand how our childhood experiences shaped us, but it's notabout placing blame or playing the victim. It's about recognizing that we alllearned to question ourselves, on some level, growing up—even those of us whohad the most attentive parents, since various factors contribute to our beliefsabout ourselves. And we can all learn to love, support, and nurture ourselvesnow, regardless of how we've struggled. We can all challenge our thoughts andbeliefs to cultivate positive feelings about ourselves—flaws and all.

How do we let go of the stories that we've been clinging to for years? How canwe begin to move beyond trauma and pain? How can we release our shame and startrecognizing our worth and beauty? Countless Tiny Buddha contributors haveaddressed these questions on the site, sharing their experiences and insights.Some of those include ...

OPENING YOURSELF UP TO LOVE WHEN YOU DIDN'T GROW UP WITH IT

by Marie

You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love andaffection.

—Buddha

I've always craved love and attention. This is not to say that I accepted lovewillingly—quite the opposite, in fact. If someone decided to like or even loveme they would have to pass through a path of obstacles, being pushed, pulled,and tested at every corner. Only then, upon arrival at the finish line, wouldthey gain my acceptance.

As you can imagine, this eliminated a number of potential friends and partners,and I often found myself lonely and disappointed. The root of my inability toaccept love easily stems from my childhood. My mother was unable to connect withme. She got pregnant during the height of her modeling career. After she gavebirth, her career dried up. She resented the attention that a baby attracted,and, in addition to this, she was highly addicted to narcotics.

Growing up with my mother telling me that she felt no love and was ashamed of memade me desperate to be the perfect daughter. I would go to any length to provemyself worthy, even taking drugs with her as a way of connecting. When I wasfifteen years old, she upped and left with no good-bye, leaving me with mystepdad and an overwhelming sense of failure. If my own mother could not loveme, how and why would anyone else?

After my mother left, I disguised my pain through drugs and control. Drugsprovided an instant, closely bonded social network. I tried to take controlthrough self-harm. My life continued like this for ten years. I hated myself,and I was terrified of letting anyone in. Throughout these years, I did severalstints in rehabilitation centers, where nurses and psychiatrists worked hard onme. I would almost give in and build connections with these people, but when thetime came to leave these institutions I would find myself alone all over again.

I was desperate for a loving relationship and a career. My battles werehindering me from achieving either. Luckily, I had a fantastic education undermy belt, through a childhood spent at top boarding schools. It was just a matterof escaping this vicious cycle that I had spent the majority of my life spinningaround in. I had stopped the drugs, but I was addicted to self-pity. Therapy hadtaught me that I needed to let go and learn to trust. This sounds quite easynow, but back then the very idea was not only terrifying but also impossible.

I always dreaded birthdays and holidays. On my twenty-fifth birthday I woke upwith an annual feeling of dread. I went to the store to buy some cigarettes, andthe lady at the counter asked me for some identification. I handed it over andshe said to me "It's your birthday today. You look so young. Your mother shouldbe very proud of you."

It was such a simple compliment, but for some reason it struck a chord. Afterall my years of therapy, these words from a stranger hit home. I can't reallyexplain it, but I felt a whole hoard of emotions release: anger, regret,understanding, and, finally, relief. I felt...