How Was Your Childhood?
Anytime I start with a new client I inevitably ask them how their childhood was. It’s such a cliched question but also a very important one. We create so many of our core beliefs about ourselves, other people, and the world around us from our experiences in childhood. I not only ask about childhood but I ask this question for a couple of reasons that I’ll get to in a second:
“Have you ever experienced something traumatic?”
The first reason is the obvious one in that I want to know if they’ve experienced trauma in their life. The second not-so-obvious reason is that I want to know what they consider trauma to be, and what they think is normal. It’s such a regular occurrence that people will say that they haven’t experienced trauma or Adverse Childhood Experiences(ACEs) but then they start telling me about what it was like for them. They share stories of an alcoholic parent, a mom who was emotionally absent and depressed, a sibling who needed so much attention that they were given next to none, witnessing mom and dad fight and yell at each other regularly, a dad who cheated on their mom, and countless other stories. While this may be obvious to many to be unhealthy, so many of my clients are just so used to this environment that they consider it to be normal. The catch is, that they’re right. It is normal. Normal to them. Normal however is often merely a statistics term and normal doesn’t equal healthy.
Another thing I commonly hear is this “I had a pretty good childhood, I never went without, our family had money to do fun things, both of my parents were together, and I rarely if ever saw them even argue.” People will often point to their financial situation growing up as a reason that they have nothing to complain about. There’s a lot of research on this and while money “can give us security and safety and a sense of control” it’s not the best predictor of happiness and shouldn’t be used as the end goal. The other thing that I hear is that since someone had a privileged childhood, they’re not allowed to have mental health concerns and if they do, something must be wrong with them. After more discussion, I might hear something like:
-My parents expected a lot from me
-My mom/dad was a high performer and was often working
-My mom was my best friend
-I would get in trouble if I didn’t get straight A’s.”
These environments often create beliefs along the lines of:
-I believe mistakes are bad
-I never really had time to be a kid
-I have to be perfect or a high achiever to gain approval
While there are some obvious childhood experiences we can point to that lead to problems later, the not-so-obvious ones are often harder to notice and deal with. I’ve heard multiple times that “My parents had enough money so I didn’t have to work and could devote more time to my studies.” This sounds great in a lot of ways but what it also means is that this person lost out on valuable lessons learned from working a job like time management, work ethic, people skills, and multi-tasking. I used to work as a hiring manager for therapists and if I get two resumes with similar school and training but one resume has much more life and work experience, that would speak volumes.
What does this mean for you as an adult? It could manifest itself in goals not being met, poor relationships, difficulty connecting with others, low motivation, and a myriad of other concerns. For example, if you were punished for bad grades, you may now experience problematic anxiety when completing tasks at work for fear of judgment or punishment. If you were expected to achieve great things, failure could feel like the worst thing in the world. If there was implicit pressure to go into a high-paying field, you might’ve gotten a degree/training in a field you never wanted to be in. When we have these pressures and restrictions, anxiety and depression are often close behind. The good news is that there is something you can do about it.
If there are concerns about your current state of living, it might be time to talk to a licensed professional and see if there are some harmful core beliefs or unresolved issues stemming from your childhood.