amandao

Many of us grew up playing the game of tag, where someone is ”It,” and everyone else must run from them to avoid being tagged. There is usually a safe zone in the game, where the kids can go to rest when they are tired of running. This simple childhood game is also a profound picture of how many of us are running from the effects of trauma. A common experience of people who experienced childhood trauma is believing that adulthood will be a ”safe zone” where we can rest safely from the trauma that chased us in childhood. We hope that if we can put enough time and distance between us and our past, we will have an easy, uncomplicated life. That we can leave it there and move on. Unfortunately, when we start developing meaningful relationships and friendships, we see a different reality. We begin to realize that somewhere along the way, trauma must have ”tagged” us. Life and relationships are a lot more complicated than we realized. We carry our past inside of us in the form of buried memories, lurking emotional responses, ignored physical sensations, or a combination of all the above. It sometimes takes a person or a memory from our past to remind us of who we are and what we went through. It sounds like a contradiction, but often the only way to move forward in life is for us first to confront our past. The Unexpected Effects of Trauma in Relationships Many of us have gaslit ourselves and our loved ones into believing that we are ”fine.” It is our automatic response to anyone who asks how we are doing. Most of the time, it is all we have allowed ourselves to say due to the truth being too hard to [...]

A common misconception is that the things we experienced as children can affect us as adults. However, that is exactly the case for so many. From a child’s perspective, neglect does not always feel harmful when it is happening, and they might not show signs of being affected by their environment. Neglect does not leave literal scars, but it shapes our belief systems. It is only decades later that childhood emotional neglect begins affecting us, leaving us unsure of what to do about it. Latchkey Love In the 1970s and ’80s, a new term emerged to describe many children of the generation. “Latchkey kids” were children as young as eight or nine, whose hard-working parents entrusted them with the front door key on a chain around their necks. The parents would often leave for work before their children started school and return from work late in the evening. Latchkey kids would sometimes make their breakfast, go to school alone or with siblings, and return to an empty house after school. This lifestyle might have been by necessity rather than choice, but the key around each little neck was a symbol of both independence and possible emotional neglect. The times might have changed, and schools might require a lot more involvement from parents now, but that does not mean kids born in later generations did not experience emotional neglect. Latchkey kids are, in a way, the perfect example of emotional neglect because of how normalized neglect often is. When you are a child, you have a limited frame of reference for what is normal. We grow up believing that our family system is common to those around us, and we typically do not question it. It is only as you age that you start to realize that other families did or do things differently, and that maybe things at home are not quite right. Where abuse [...]