The Demons That You Carry Since Your Childhood

Childhood is the most significant stage of life in terms of internalizing values, learning and behaviors. Many psychologists specializing in the study of childhood stages such as Jean Piaget or Erik Eriksson emphasize the importance of a gradual maturation and of going through the different stages in a satisfactory way so as not to get caught up in any of them. Because if this is the case, the demons that you carry since your childhood may be present in your life today.

If we have to point out who are the people who most influence the child, these are going to be his parents or his main caregiver. The vast majority of parents and caregivers love us, want the best for us, and know that it is a difficult task. However, many times wanting is not power.

Not all paternities and maternities occur in an ideal context. There may be an imbalance in the distribution of tasks, a lack of emotional maturity, a crisis in one’s partner or simply for some people this new responsibility overwhelms them or is difficult for them. All this, if you live it when you are a child, can become the demons that you carry since your childhood and that now make your life so difficult and complicated.

In this article we are not going to judge that work, nor do we want anyone to understand it that way. But without a doubt, some upbringings have negatively affected the lives of some children who are now adults. We are going to name a few and relate them to behaviors that may appear in adult life, because sometimes knowledge and introspection is the best weapon to defeat our demons. The demons that you drag from your childhood.

Parents’ attitudes that make their children unable to live fully

The experiences that we live in childhood are decisive in many occasions for our adult life. There are a series of attitudes of parents towards their children that, more than helping them, make them incapable of living fully in the future:

• Overprotection: Parents want to prevent something bad from happening to their children and believe that suppressing their freedom is the key. Their fear is so intense that they need to be controlled, in a “safe area.” The consequences that can appear are shyness, lack of initiative, pathological doubt when starting any activity alone and a continuous search for approval

• Projecting the frustrated desires of their youth onto their children : Some parents yearn for their children to become what they never were, without consulting them. And if they do not turn out to be all the good that was expected of them, they highlight their lack of worth in what they do. The consequences are lack of self-esteem, low tolerance for frustration, and emotional dependence.
• Absence of signs of affection : this attitude is usually one of the most devastating. A child needs contact with his parents, he needs to receive affection or to perceive it. If not, he will assume that coldness is the attitude to take. The consequences will be a desperate search for affection in other people, problems in balancing and expressing their emotions.

• Depressive attitudes in a parent or feeling of worthlessness: seeing in their home how people continually express that their life makes us happy, will cause intense emotional wear and tear on the child. At that age you need a context full of vitality and a pleasant environment.
• Comparisons with other people or siblings : Some parents believe that their teachings apply the same to all the children they have, ignoring their individual differences. The consequences will be a feeling of worthlessness in the child as well as a lack of confidence in their abilities and skills.

• Witness arguments, confrontations or live a divorce of the parents:  all divorces are hard, but when there are children, everything becomes much more complicated. Many couples use “parental alienation” with their children, completely destroying their innocence and making them feel like a problem. The child will have a marked feeling of abandonment and cognitive and emotional confusion.

When those problems that we lived in childhood still hurt

Although many years pass and everything you have experienced seems very distant and forgotten, perhaps you have had to live with the consequences that we have explained. Sometimes, you will keep clear memories of all those situations that made you feel bad and you did not understand and that today you understand but with some sadness and a lot of resignation. They are the demons that you carry since your childhood.

A good way to remove that burden is to do an “emotional catharsis” with the people who lived through this whole situation with you, including your parents, that is, to free yourself from everything you have inside, expressing yourself. The importance of freeing ourselves from the negative, from that burden helps us to walk lighter.

You can better understand their circumstances with yours and if the time comes, not repeat it with your children. Because once is enough, because things can always be done better and because turning the page is the only thing you have to do. Have you identified the demons that you carry since your childhood?

Images courtesy of Yejukoo, Duy Huynh, Dilka Oso