Thoughts that Everyone Who Had Negative Experiences in Childhood Should Get Rid of

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 61% of adults experienced at least one negative experience in their childhood (Advertise Childhood Experience), and 16% reported experiencing four or more trials. Childhood trauma can occur in several forms, usually including failure to meet emotional, social, or psychological needs and physical needs for food, shelter, water, safety, and warmth, and experiences parental divorce, physical, emotional, psychological, or sexual abuse, witnessing violence, alcoholism, drugs, or other addictions, poverty, or lack of established rules and limits.

This list is not exhaustive. Other forms of less common documented child abuse include war, natural disasters, or gang violence. Going through four or more negative experiences in childhood (ACE) increases the risk of emotional, psychological, and physical disorders and illnesses.

For example, low empathy, low emotional intelligence, and personality or mood disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Severe Depression, or Bipolar Disorder.

In addition, it has been reported that physical illness is severely commensurate with exposure to multiple adverse childhood experiences (ACE), including asthma, hypertension, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Knowing these facts increases the importance of making sure that our childhood affects our lives as adults. While it is difficult to reach a stage where we accept that abuse in adult relationships  -narcissistic abuse- is not love, we must look closely at how childhood's negative experiences have paved the way for us to engage in toxic relationships.

Negative Thoughts to Get Rid of:

Here are 4 things that everyone who had negative childhood experiences should get rid of:

1. Getting rid of the idea that people need to be satisfied:

The truth is that some people will impose their opinion, from parents and caregivers who may have abused you, to your ex-partner who left you because of their problems. The harsh reality is that there is no rationale for their views, as they are based on misinformation. Others may base their opinion on uncertain information or on herd mentality.

The truth is that people reject what they don't understand or what they see as threatening. If they arrange their lives in such a way that they avoid those who have had different experiences from theirs, you should stay away from them. You don't owe them an explanation or an apology, and you don't have to make space for them in your life. The sooner we get rid of the thought that we should please others, the sooner we begin to recover.

2. Getting rid of the idea that you deserve what happened to you:

No one deserves it, not even the parents who lived their lives raising us in negative ways that led to torture, imprisonment, or detention. When we free ourselves from thinking we deserve their abusive treatment, it frees us. The emotional scars that we carry with us long after the physical scars have faded make us mistakenly believe that we caused or deserved their abusive treatment of us.

The harsh truth is that intergenerational trauma is repeated and passed from generation to generation because the older generation has learned that abuse is normal, while the younger generation accepted the idea that the abuse was their fault, or that this is the way things work. After we slow down and understand this mistake, it becomes easier to free ourselves from the mistaken beliefs through which we believe we deserve to be offended in one way or another.

3. Getting rid of the idea that you can't heal:

The reason we believe that we cannot recover from our pain is that we have borne this burden on ourselves without it being our responsibility, but our parents' and caregivers' burden and responsibility. Our choices directly result from what we learned in our early childhood about attachment styles and our beliefs about whether people are good in their nature, how we see ourselves, and how we participate in our world.

They teach us the way they see the world. Many survivors of abuse end up living their lives in two ways, either betraying themselves by believing that their opinions, feelings, and experiences are illogical and as a result, they become vulnerable to more abuse. These are the people who find themselves in one toxic romance or friendship after another and often wonder why and the answer is that's because they haven't learned to value themselves and their sense of self.

As for the second type, they are those who abandon everyone around them and hold deeply to the misconceptions and misinformation they have learned, feel often bored, anxious, disappointed, and move from one relationship or situation to another. Also, they are never happy and never see that they hold on to lies that make them unhappy and disappointed, and the result is they also end up abandoning their sense of self and taking the identity of those who abused them with lies.

However, there is a third option. This option contains many obstacles, blocks, and risks, and there is a great fear of getting lost on the road. This option will have side effects if we decide to take it, as it means taking risks, confronting our experiences directly, and standing up to them. So, some of them don't choose this path, but what's important is that nobody tells us that it is empowering, growing, and healing us.

4. Getting rid of the idea of distracting yourself:

The hard truth is that we distract ourselves from healing because it numbs our feelings and overwhelms our pain, and then another unavoidable crisis occurs. When We move onto another distraction, this is how the course of self-anesthesia begins. Whether based on self-treatment, technology addiction, toys, shopping, work addiction, or perfection, anything that draws our attention long enough to distract us from our pain is what we are trying to reach.

In conclusion: 

We live in a world full of distractions. It is a quick solution for anyone who does not want to heal, is afraid of healing pains, or is ashamed to judge them for wanting to heal. Being away from distractions requires inner strength because they will tempt us and we will have to resist drifting back into them.. Those who genuinely care about us will support us in the face of our pain and get rid of everything that distracts us.

The truth is that pain, anger, anxiety, and negative self-talk are all there to wake us up, so why do you think depression, anxiety, and addictive behavior are recurrent behaviors? Because they appear as signals of untreated pain. Distractions are just temporary solutions, and as with any temporary solutions, they are either replaced by other or radical solutions so that we can heal.