How To Deal With Childhood Trauma?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

You understand all the problems that are in your life, you realize how they appeared, but nothing comes from this understanding. Common situation? Why does this happen? What it is? How to get out of this situation?

So, you understand your childhood traumas (you cannot build relationships with men due to the fact that dad was not like that; you have no social realization due to the fact that dad did not have it, you were not able to reunite with him, you did not talked, he was a non-native person for you; the family was not in a supportive environment; unpleasant relationships with mom, etc.), but with feelings of confusion. In fact, for you, close relationships have become pain, disappointment, fear, and you are clearly aware of this moment, but your feelings remained somewhere far away in the place where you received psychological trauma, where dad drank, and mom suffered nearby (at the same time all the blame was on you), in those abusive relationships where your personal boundaries were constantly violated. It is there that you are stuck - your thoughts are concentrated at the age of 25-30 (in general, this is not so important - at least 80 years old), in your consciousness you are an adult and formed personality, but with your feelings you are stuck in the life period where you were received trauma (2-3 years, some a little later, some a little earlier). Often, the most difficult childhood injuries occur before the age of 7 years. Especially if you remember your childhood very badly. This means that there was a lot of things that frustrated you, you didn’t like - you were offended, angry, you were in pain, they didn’t pay attention to you, didn’t provide enough support. And all this remains with you now. Events did not just happen at 2, 3, 5, 7 years - they accompany you now, you still feel offended, upset, frustrated, angry, abandoned, lonely, you feel sadness and lack of support.

The essence of the study of all childhood traumas lies not only in their understanding (“Yes, I understand that there was not enough emotional contact with my mother. will change.

How can the situation be changed? The key factor that can influence everything is new experience. If you are a traumatic person, you need to gain new experience in a place where your injury will be bypassed. People are like animals - the poor get poorer, the rich get richer, and the traumatized get even more traumatized. People around you feel where it hurts you, and for some reason it is there that they want to press, having done something unpleasant. All this happens on an unconscious level, instinctively, without any anger. Conventionally, if you are afraid that you will be betrayed and abandoned, an unconscious idea of betrayal arises at the other end of the "wire" ("Well, I'll betray this person! I will put my interests first"), and for some reason you are excluded from this contact … With your trauma, you unconsciously broadcast some kind of emotion and attitude towards yourself, and in order to work through this moment, you need to get a new experience.

If we talk directly about the trauma (I will be abandoned and betrayed), we need experience with another person who will not abandon and betray. It can take 1-2 years to build trust and confidence. In the context of the question, we are talking about therapy, because this is a safe environment and space where you have the opportunity to gain deep new experiences on a sensitive level, not with your head. Undoubtedly, with your head you integrate and realize, but the main thing for you is to feel how it is never to be a devotee, accepted with unconditional love; how it is to have a strong, pleasant and kind relationship; how is it when you are not judged for the steps you want to take; like this when you say “No” to a person, and he replies that you have every right to such a decision.

Everything that was laid down in your childhood is so deeply rooted that from the outside you may not even notice where your limitations and beliefs are. However, the trauma is there, and it makes your life worse over time. You can get new experience, new knowledge about yourself, build a new life only in therapy. You can work on something with yourself, cry, but the pain from this will only intensify - you need another person. The more you focus, the worse it gets, especially in areas of injury. Conversely, when you share with someone, you have a chance to let it go.

How is childhood trauma treated in therapy? For example, something happened here and now, you come to therapy and talk about it (we broke up with a boyfriend / girlfriend, etc.), your emotional state can go off scale (you cry, swear, your soul is torn). When all this has just happened, the therapist will not try to get to your trauma by giving you one or two sessions of comfort. Then the study of the trauma begins - why and how it happened, for what reason there was some kind of overreaction. It is normal to suffer a little, but if a year, five, ten years have passed, and the suffering does not let you go, you need to find the cause of such excessive pain and childhood trauma. Your reaction is incommensurate with this situation - conventionally, there could be so many emotions, but in reality, much more. And all this is from childhood trauma, so you need to immerse yourself in it. Imagine that the therapist takes you by the hands and leads you into that terrible situation when, for example, your mother left you with your grandmother at the age of one year. You were hurt, lonely and scared that your mother would not return - all these feelings are experienced in the initial situation.

How do injuries work? They turn off memory in the place where it hurt, and we cannot always remember the root case. How are memories revived in therapy? First, the pain comes to mind at 18, then at 11 it can come back to mind, then at 7, 5 years, then at 4 years old, and only after that can you try to get to the bottom of the deepest trauma, descend into the toughest, difficult, terrible experiences (vital, very instinctive and affective feelings - if it is fear, then you actually feel horror; if it is pain, then it is excessive). It is quite difficult to descend into such experiences on your own, but it is possible. When these feelings are somehow lived through, you gave them will and place, it is important that the other person noticed them. In therapy, it works like this - the therapist lets you know that he has noticed the pain he is experiencing, felt lonely, and shares your feelings. And this moment is very important! The next stage is to send support and resources to childhood ("How would you like to be helped at this moment? Who could help? How could they help?"). If a person has ideas - this is great, if not - the therapist offers his support (“I would have been there, scolded my dad, kicked him out, talk to my mother. you needed it then, but no one noticed it! "). It is very important here that the experiences are noticed, and even an attempt to help a person, expressed verbally, gives a large percentage of healing. Why is that? As a child, we did not feel as much pain from a fall and a broken knee as from the fact that my mother was cursing or did not notice anything at all.

In therapy, it is imperative to live all the feelings, not to push them away, not to try to "disown". And the moment all this happens to you, the trauma will begin to slowly recede. It may not be right away, and you will need to do several laps (if the injury was quite painful). I will give an example from my own therapy, when I cried in pain, and the situation came to mind for about a year. At the age of 6-7, I already understood what money is. I remember well my experience when my mother and I went to a toy store, and she said that I could choose any for myself. For me it was a painful place - "Finally, I will get something!"Now children understand what money is, but in fact they shouldn't understand it, shouldn't ask a parent: “What, do you really have?”. Children need to feel that they are being given. That is why, if the work in the area of injury moves in a spiral, this is normal! Different aspects are being worked out at each moment.

Be sure to work through your childhood traumas, they take away your energy, strength, a normal future, a normal life. Try to use any methods available to you to do this - only in this way you can breathe deeply, live and manifest fully.