Each of us has an inner child. If it is traumatized, then we may react strangely or illogically to various external events. How to understand that he needs our help?
No child is able to meet their needs on their own – nor can they cope with trauma, whatever it may be. He simply does not have the necessary emotional tools for this.
As a result, he carries this trauma with him; as the years go by, she begins to influence every area of his life—relationships, health, career. After all, our childish part does not disappear anywhere, it always stays with us. How do you know if your inner child has experienced something similar?
1. You are afraid of being abandoned.
In conjunction with the fear of abandonment, there is usually codependence, a feeling of vulnerability, insecurity, which makes a person desperately cling to others, which in turn prevents them from building healthy relationships. And no evidence of fidelity, no exhortations from a partner can help you stop worrying.
2. Your personal boundaries are either too weak or too rigid (rigid)
Alas, in many families, children are not encouraged to express themselves freely, to speak openly about their feelings. The child is denied respect and personal space, his every step is controlled, and he begins to think that this is how it should be, that this is in the order of things.
It is not surprising that in adulthood such a person is still difficult to talk about his desires and feelings. He either does not protect his personal boundaries in any way, or, on the contrary, builds a wall between himself and the world of gigantic proportions and painfully reacts to any attempts to enter his territory.
In practice, this can be expressed in the fact that in difficult times such a person does not share his pain with loved ones, but simply withdraws from communication, closes in himself.
3. You are embarrassed to openly express emotions such as sadness and anger.
Shame is an incredibly powerful emotion and toxic. It is born in a child when adults offend him, leave him without care, neglect him, use violence against him, and he takes the blame for what is happening on himself: he is sure that everything is due to the fact that he is “bad”.
4. You don’t trust anyone – including yourself.
The fear of experiencing emotional pain again makes us believe that people cannot be trusted, that nothing good can be expected from them.
The saddest thing is that we often stop trusting ourselves, and the reason for this is low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence as a result of the fact that in childhood we were devalued, humiliated, abandoned, systematically told us that we were “too” sensitive or not trying hard enough. So gradually we learned the idea that we were not good enough – and, apparently, we would never become as “should be”.
5. You go out of your way to please others and avoid conflict.
You are terribly afraid of upsetting and disappointing others, because your self-perception directly depends on what they think and say about you. Most likely, even in childhood you depended on other people’s assessments: it was extremely important for you to hear that you were good or good, and you were ready to do everything in your power for those around you.
6. You are addicted
Addiction is always a sign of unresolved trauma: instead of coming face to face with our emotions, we strive with all our might to avoid pain, to drown out feelings, no matter what it takes.
And we usually depend not on the substance or process itself, but on the relief, the possibility of escape, which it gives us. So it’s good to ask yourself:
- What am I trying to avoid?
- What feelings am I suppressing?
- What do I keep denying?
As we grow older, our inner child does not disappear, it continues to live in us, reminding us of all the wounds that we still have not healed. And the first step to healing is to recognize the inner child in ourselves, including all the “objectionable and uncomfortable” feelings and emotions that we have denied for years.