Author: dr. I Putu Candra Sasmita Sutarta, Sp.KJ
English
Indonesian
English
Childhood trauma, a topic that recently many people talk about. It is the thing that people blame when someone is failed to be mentally mature or find difficulties in their adult life. Experts seeing childhood trauma as a result of being abused. But there are people who has no history of being abused turned out also having childhood trauma.
Here is some other factors that also could give you childhood trauma even if you were not being abused:
1. Being left to defend yourself when you needed to feel safe and secure
Living your childhood was good until you start having interactions with another kids, some kids are nice and help you to grow or grow together but some kids are mean or even bullies. When the kids could not defense themselves they tend to seek for help. They don’t actually seeking help to fight back, they only seeking for safety and security. Some adults either parents or teachers failed to do the job and the result in the future we could predict as clear as a crystal.
2. Having your feelings invalidated and denied
It doesn’t mean that you need validations for everything but when you are sad and too tired after school activities it would be nice to take a rest or being listened after you have a long day. This is some parents failed to do or even worse they come with toxic behavior, they invalidated your feelings or denied that you didn’t do enough. It’s good to have parents that keep pushing you, but when it is beyond your limit the impact will be awful.
3. Being Forced to self-soothe
It happened for example when you have a rough day and seeking for comfort then the adult figures that you demand to do so just ignored you. So you have to self-soothe and maybe you were escaping from reality and all you did was playing video games. In long-term it is unhealthy.
4. Having to hide your “true-self”
Many kids grew up having problems like this, in order to be fit in their society the kids have to behave as the society expects them. Hiding your true-self is also mean you are hiding your true value and could be your talents.
5. Having your parents consistently prioritize themselves (or their work)
This could be a problem that most people experienced, the more recent people were born the busier their parents are because the world moves faster. It is inevitable that parents are busy but it will be good if they make time to see the kids growing up or listen to them.
6. Feeling like you have to compete/prove yourself to receive the love and attention
Mostly happened to kids that have siblings who were born within one or two years after they were born. We probably familiar with the term “sibling rivalry” and the word rivalry perfectly fits this situation. Kids compete with their “rival” to receive the love or attention they sought.
It is difficult to be raised in a circumstances that do not support you to be the best part of you and it is even harder to be raised in circumstances that make you psychologically stunted. Please do understand that you are valuable, you have your own talents, and you deserve the love that you needed. It is also our job as future parents to make sure that we give the supportive circumstances to our children to grow well. Thus, be smart and wise before deciding to be a parent.
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