Childhood trauma is weird, in that, the same trauma doesn't effect kids the same way. Some kids have a very abusive parent and they do not develop trauma symptoms. Another kid could have one sentence screamed (or even said) at them and are traumatized for life.
The blame is on us, who have this idea that there is a certain threshold, beyond which is trauma, and before which is not trauma. We have this mind virus everywhere in academia and society. "USDA recommended daily allowance" on food labels. Medicine dosages that only sorta include weight in their amounts (child vs adult), and not the dozens of actual measurement that should be involved.
And this goes to an even worse belief. Tabula Rasa! The blank slate. The idea that a child is a blank slate, and that they are all identical, and it is only the things after birth that affect them. It is an even worse brain-worm, in that we think we can turn any child into anything, with the correct training.
We are not the same. Physically speaking, it is quite testable that are bodies are not the same. And spiritually speaking, we are very, very different. Any person who deals with children, even babies, know that each one is different. They have a different temperament. They like different things. The want to do different things.
To talk about childhood trauma, we must understand that each child is different, on top of that, we must learn all the causes of trauma if we are to heal it before it happens.
From Parents to children to their children to their children
Hurt people, hurt people.
And what you learned from your parents, you often use on your children. So, in a family group, one in which the members are reincarnated generation after generation, the same trauma is passed down. The family member was already used to the pattern, and the soul reincarnated to work on this pattern. This is karma. Not that you deserved it, but because it is what you have been working on, lifetime after lifetime.
However, now is the time to end the old karma cycle. We have entered a new epoch, a new age. And so, it is also very important to heal the childhood trauma, and stop passing it on. We no longer need it.
To do this, we need to learn to recognize the signs of trauma and heal it, instead of just telling people to muscle through it. Or telling them, that its just life, get over it.
The Scapegoat - Your parents never loved you
A particular and common trauma set up is the "scapegoat". Where all the sins of the family are placed onto one child.
Have you ever encountered a family, where one of the children was always "the fuckup"? Much of our society just accepts this. There is always the runt of the litter. However, this is one of the most insidious of childhood traumas. Because, that child may be the one who is always wrong, or always messing up, but the more you mess up, and get the blame put on you, the more you mess up. It is a destructive cycle. And it is even worse when the family puts ALL the blame on you, making every mess up your fault.
The family gets all their mess ups handled by shoving it onto one child. Everyone else gets to go around with a clean conscious, because, of course, it was that child's fault. If only they weren't such a messed up person.
The more insidious thing is that the child will do their best to not be the fuckup. And try, and try. But, always get blamed. And a child cannot see that they are being blamed wrongly, that it is the parents and other family members that are dumping their shame (they are not taking care of their own mental problems) upon them. So, the scapegoat keeps trying to get the love and attention they need. And they think if they just try hard enough, they can make the parents see that it was not all their fault.
But, that is not the plan. The plan is to make it "all their fault". And this child will have to come to the realization that their parents never really loved them. They would rather have a scapegoat, a dumping ground, a waste bin, for their problems, then a healthy, happy child.
This is just one type of childhood trauma. There are many, many more.
Most of them involve leaving the child confused. Crazy making behavior from the parents. A child cannot work out that the parent might be teasing them. All they see is hot and cold. Sometimes life is one way, and sometimes it is another.
An easy example is a parent that is an alcoholic. Sometimes they are a rage machine, and sometimes they are loving and kind. Fortunately, there are indicators that tell when the parent will be in one mood or the other. But, this leaves a child without a parent for half of their lives. And these children usually learn to be self sufficient very early in their lives. Cooking breakfast by the time they are five.
Things like having a narcissistic or borderline parent have no outward indicators of which parent they will be dealing with. Is it Dr. Jekyll this morning, or Mr. Hyde? All children of a narcissist will become traumatized. Often becoming a narcissist themselves. (this is extreme trauma, where the child's real self is destroyed) Imagine being terrified of doing the wrong thing, and so, become so attentive as to become practically psychic. These people may go on to become someone's prefect secretary, but they are always like a scared rabbit, shaking with fear that they may have done something wrong. A typo in a typed letter could be the end of their lives. A person shouldn't live with such fear in them, but many do. Another traumatized child, living a shortened, fearful life.
What we really need, going forward, is many adults/caretakers in our lives.
The single mother often tries to turn their children against the father. (alienation) Imagine this from the child's perspective. That their father, that they love very much, is wrong, bad. And so, half of them is bad. Half of them should be cut out, ignored, minimized, destroyed. And this is just a normal way of women handling in-group and out-group dynamics. Women need to be taught that this is wrong, but our society just considers it normal. But the trauma it leaves behind is unmistakable.
To fix this, we should not have to have the father leave. He should be no further then the next house over. (a husband flat, like a granny flat, should be built into all future houses)
There even more ideally should be a bunch of parents. So that there are multiple care-givers in the child's life. So that they can go to a particular parent that "gets them" or that can help with the specific issue. (You don't go to the woodworker to help with baking)
Also, in this way, when the "parents" inevitably break up, then the child's life is not changed drastically. Daddy (or mommy) is just in a different location.
Our idea of the nuclear family is a failure. We need to recognize that and abolish it. We need to have small communities, or at least the extended family, to raise our children.
Because the one thing that really helps with trauma is for there to be a place where the child can run away to. To move away from the traumatizing individual. Instead, we (analogy) keep the bully, and the bullied, locked up together.
I believe that one of the biggest awareness discovered through seven years of counseling at one time in my life, was the learned behaviors of parents. Some of us who have experienced childhood traumas are left in emotional bewilderment of why our parents did horrendous things despite even knowing the stories they told but not correlating their abuse to why they abused you. It seems like an obvious simple deduction but for whatever reason it escapes you. Those revelations really turn the tide in how you viewed what your parents did to you. It's not that they hated you, demised you, wish you were never born, or whatever answers you were looking for to explain it, it was taught behaviors from their own parents who inflicted the same pains upon them. My mom she was a denier of all the things she did, I could move past that but my brothers never could. They would at times cause a lot of conflict between themselves over it. She'd call crying they said this or that, and they'd call saying they got her upset because she denied doing the stuff she did. After years of that going on I finally said to her, tell them you are sorry, once you do that, I'll stand behind you, because that's all you can do at this point, otherwise you'll keep calling here and getting just as mad at me for agreeing with them and hang up, and on the other hand, I'll tell them you apologized, that's the best that can be done and you have to move on. Amazingly it worked.
That never admitting to reality is a real hard one to heal from.
Dealing with narcissists or borderlines, you never get a straight answer. It is all gaslighting. Even on their death bed, or yours. You will never get closure.
That said, most people aren't evil geniuses. They are just following the script stuck in their heads. And never think on it. No self reflection. Especially in these areas.
And i hope she stays apologetic, and doesn't take it back, or use it to bait and switch.
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