Overcoming a difficult past

Very few people emerge unscathed from their childhood. Even when parents have the best of intentions they are still human, with all the flaws, weaknesses and blind spots that entails. They may favour one sibling over another, which can be devastating for the less-favoured child. They may be too strict, being overly critical or harsh; or not strict enough, with no boundaries or rules for children to live by.

One of your parents may have been alcoholic or drug-addicted; or suffering from a serious mental health problem when you needed them most. There might have been financial crises throughout your childhood, with all the stress and insecurity that implies. A family member may have been abusive, physically or emotionally. Or perhaps one parent may have been absent at a key time in your life.

If you were unlucky enough to carry any of these burdens as a child, you may well have deep wounds that remain well into adulthood. Some people never heal these wounds, soldiering on as best they can – but I strongly believe that no-one needs to suffer in silence. Whatever happened to you as a child was not your fault, whatever people may have said or however you made sense of a situation that just didn't make any sense, especially to a child.

There are various approaches to healing childhood wounds, but I believe that however painful our life experiences may be, what perpetuates that pain when we are older is the way we think about them – and especially the beliefs we then developed about ourselves, other people and the world in general. This is not to downplay the importance of your painful experiences in any way – but we can't change the past, so it's more helpful to focus on the things we can change, now and in the future.

Let me give you an example: if your father left home when you were young and, for whatever reason, decided to break off all contact, you may well have trouble forming relationships, especially with men. You might be angry or depressed, and have great difficulty with authority figures. To some extent, this is because you are re-enacting childhood experiences as an adult – certain people or situations touching a painful nerve linked to that absent father.

But, sadly, many children in this situation blame themselves. They think, 'There must have been something wrong with me for my dad to leave.' This idea that 'there is something bad about me, deep down' becomes a core belief – something we believe very strongly to be true and that informs everything we think, feel and do.

So, as an adult, it's not that absent father causing the problems – it's the fact that we still believe something untrue and unfair about ourselves that 'disturbs' us over and over again. The good news is that these core beliefs can be changed. This helps us let go of the past and start living our lives in a completely different way – free from self-attacking and self-blame, which do us no good at all.

Best wishes,

Dan

Tags: Addiction, Anger management, CBT, Core beliefs, Depression, Mental wellbeing