How A Messed Up Childhood Affects You In Adulthood

It's a humbling situation, but much about who we are as adults can be traced back to things that happened to us before our 12th birthday. Part of learning to be an adulthood means making sense of the events of our childhood. We need to spot how our past might be trying to interfere with our chances in the present.

FURTHER READING

“We are, all of us, beautifully crazy or, to put it in gentler terms, fascinatingly unbalanced. Our childhoods, even the apparently benign ones, leave us no option but to be anything else.
As a result of these childhoods, we tend, over most issues, to list – like a sailing yacht in high wind – far too much in one direction or another. We are too timid, or too assertive; too rigid or too accommodating; too focused on material success or excessively lackadaisical. We are obsessively eager around sex or painfully wary and nervous in the face of our own erotic impulses. We are dreamily naive or sourly down to earth; we recoil from risk or embrace it recklessly; we have emerged into adult life determined never to rely on anyone or as desperate for another to complete us; we are overly intellectual or unduly resistant to ideas. The encyclopedia of emotional imbalances is a volume without end. What is certain is that these imbalances come at a huge cost, rendering us less able to exploit our talents and opportunities, less able to lead satisfying lives and a great deal less fun to be around…”

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CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with:

Directed by: Hannah & Martha

Design: Hannah McNally

Animation Team: Flora Caulton, Emily Downe, Martha Halliday, Hannah McNally, Kathrin Steinbacher

[enigmathegrayman]

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
-Fredrick Douglass

[caplin]

Hugs to everyone who's misunderstood, misguided and mistreated
* *group virtual hug* *

[militantpacifist]

I wish it would be a law around the world to have a license to be a parent so they could go through scrutinizing tests to have a child/children because some people are not competent enough, by neither being intelligent enough or having enough financial resources, to have any children.

[haydenpenniston]

What's worse is when you went through various traumas as a child but still to this day you are denied the fact you were abused cuz they refuse to accept it was abuse and even deny some of the things happening.

[nismozxr]

Parenting is the hardest most important job in the world that shapes the members of our society yet we dismiss it as trivial.

[goldminutes]

“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”
- Mitch Albom

[SlobZombie]

Broken homes make broken kids, broken kids make broken adults, broken adults make a broken world. Vicious Circle.

Just by researching this topic, we are a million steps ahead of our broken parents. Rewire your brain, feed the good wolf, and pass on the knowledge and wisdom .

[applecheeks]

"We should, where we can, dare to leave home." That really hit me.

[hamzasaleem]

Our parents screw us up for the first 16 years of our lives, and we spend the rest of it trying to fix the damage they've done 😂

[brianb]

"That the hurt was essentially undeserved." I've needed that sentence for decades.

[cemily]

growing up as an asian, parents just dont give a f about this kind of thing

[iwyosfc]

"We run away from lovers that love us too much", that hits too close to home.

[aeris...]

you cant mess up a childhood if you dont have kids

[TeulingsTube]

My sister ran away from our abusive father aged 16 (I was 10). When I was 11 my parents divorced and at 12 I was our fathers next victim. A year later I fell into foster care and on my 14th birthday my uncle committed suicide. When I was 15 I was severely underweight (50kg). About a year later I saved my mother's life who in a psychosis tried to kill herself. I finally decided to run away from my parents age 17. Between that time and my 21st birthday I would move 8 times. In two weeks I'm going to 'celebrate' my 22nd birthday. My life is a struggle every single day, but I'm now finally strong enough to stop thinking about suicide or even have depressive thoughts.

[mahendra]

I used to think that I'm a messed up adult and (most of) everyone else are normal people.
And then I looked at my workplace : an overly-submissive manager, an overly-dominating manager, no-opinion-allowed manager, a toxic positivity colleague, an overly competitive colleague, you name it. That got me to believe that EVERYONE is messed up, there's no such thing as normal people.

[amishgon]

Hugs to everyone who was abused as a child. It took me more than 20 years after leaving my parents' house to get over my fear of life, of people, of everything, to get over my constant depression. I have been in therapy for 5 years now, and am happier than ever before. Unfortunately, life is almost finished, too, and I feel like I never really lived.

[mrs.stewart]

More parents need to admit their wrong doings, acknowledge their destructive actions, change their behavior and apologize to their children sooner than later. We could lift the burden of shame and confusion for so many kids by letting them know from our own mouths that they aren't the reason for our poor parenting choices. This will not undo the damage, but it just may start the process of helping the wounds to heal.

[AbsurdExistentialist]

We inherit our parents' trauma, but never fully understand it. And as we navigate through this existential labyrinth that is life, we unwittingly become the heroes our parents needed.

[incrediblylucid]

My therapist says that with my childhood I did not stand much of a chance for a “normal” outcome. I have been abused, molested, and raped. While I try not to let these things define me, I know they have had major affect on who I turned out to be. I dream of a life without the constant battle of anxiety, depression, and PTSD. I try to remember that everyone has some inner battle, and to be grateful that I live in a time and place where I can get resources to combat these issues. It saddens me to think there are still places in this world where these things are hidden away (I come from an emotionally unavailable family, so in some sense I can relate) or the trauma survivor is to blame, and even cast from society, or killed. I pray to find some balance and stability in this lifetime so I can use my experiences to relate to and empathize with other hurting people. I strive to be the person who wears their sorrows like jewels and comes out stronger. Blessings to all.

[alaa]

a moment of silence for our horrible childhoods where we got hurt and abused instead of being innocent and unbothered