8 childhood wounds that emerge when we are adults
Childhood is the vital stage in which we are most sensitive to the influence of the environment and the way in which we relate to people.
Not only is it the time when we begin to understand what the world is like and we build our perception of reality on the foundations of those learning, but our brain develops at such a rapid pace that any small alteration in the way we communicate our neurons can leave a mark ... or emotional wounds that will be reproduced in the years to come .
And is that the impact that the environment has on us when we are children can be a change for better or for worse. The changes for good we already know them: learning to read, move, communicate, perform operations, and everything related to basic education inside and outside the school. But nevertheless, the changes for the worse, that will surface in our adult life, are already more difficult to identify .
The wounds that our childhood leaves in us
The painful experiences that occur during our first years can become a confused blur in our memory, so it is not easy to relate them to the habits and unhealthy behavior patterns of our adulthood .
This list of emotional wounds is a guide to identify those traces that could leave a mark on us years ago.
1. Defensive attitude
The basic form of painful experience is the abuse based on physical or verbal aggressions . People who have suffered beatings or insults during their childhood and / or adolescence tend to be insecure during adulthood, although not necessarily timid. In many cases, a simple gesture with your hand can startle them and cause them to get defensive with a start.
This defensive attitude is not only physically expressed, but also psychologically: these people show a propensity for mistrust, although they do not always express it with hostility but, sometimes, with an educated reserve.
2. Constant insulation
Children who suffer from lack of care can develop serious alterations when they reach adulthood, especially if their parents do not provide them with the necessary care. As it began to be seen through the studies of the psychologists John Bowlby and Harry Harlow, Isolation during childhood is related to serious affective and relational problems in adulthood , as well as sexual dysfunctions.
3. Anxiety and fear of others
If the isolation occurs in a more moderate way, its consequences in adulthood can come in the form of difficulties in social skills and intense anxiety when dealing with strangers or talking to an audience of many people.
4. Fear of commitment
The fact of having established strong affective bonds that were then truncated suddenly it can lead to the appearance of a fear of engaging in other loving ties . The psychological mechanism that explains this is the strong pain that comes from remembering what it is to feel a strong affection for someone and spend a lot of time with this person: you can not simply evoke those pleasant experiences that were spent in company without going through the influence of the memories about the loss of that bond.
Philophobia, or extreme fear of falling in love, is an example of this phenomenon.
5. Fear of rejection
Negligence, abuse or school bullying can make us predisposed to self-exclusion from informal social circles. Being accustomed to rejection from ages when we do not have the tools to understand that the fault is not ours makes us stop fighting to demand a dignified treatment, and the fear of rejection does not even expose us to receive the evaluations of the the rest. Simply, we are dedicated to spending a lot of time alone .
6. Contempt for others
The emotional wounds received during childhood can cause us to incorporate classical behaviors of sociopathy into our way of behaving. As you have the feeling that others have behaved like predators when we were vulnerable, we went on to incorporate into our thinking scheme the idea that life is an open war against others . In this way, the others become potential threats or potential ways to achieve the desired goals.
7. Dependence
Having been overprotected by parents or guardians makes us get used to having everything we want and that, when we reach adult life, we live in an eternal state of frustration. The most negative of this is that, to escape this frustration, a new protective figure is sought, instead of struggling to learn the necessary behaviors to gain autonomy over one's life.
It is a kind of behavior typical of people who have been accustomed to being capricious and demanding things from others.
8. The satisfied slave syndrome
Having been subjected to situations of exploitation during childhood, even if this consists of being forced to spend most of the day studying as a result of the parents 'or guardians' demands, it shows a predisposition to be exploited in adult life. It is understood in this way that the value of oneself as a person selling their labor power is very low, and that this must be compensated through long periods of daily work.
In a context with a lot of unemployment, this can lead to professional stagnation , since it tends to accept all the precarious jobs that are offered.
In addition, one goes on to feel gratitude for the people who benefit from this exploitation, something that can be called satisfied slave syndrome.
