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Childhood can be a very strange time, since one has all their senses but not a good frame of reference for things. The result is that new settings, be it a foreign country or just visiting a friend’s home for the first time. So it shouldn’t be surprising that upon getting to adulthood, people often see their entire childhood in a new light.
Someone asked “What’s a “normal” childhood experience you later realized was actually traumatic?” and people shared their experiences. Be warned, some of these get a bit dark. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to add your own thoughts in the comments below.
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#1
Never receiving any hugs from my parents. Or valuable advice. Not even when I cried/was hurt physically. Comfort was quite absent, too. I only realized few years ago when I saw an 17 year old teenager leaning against his dad and telling him about his struggles about an upcoming big decision.
Never have had that level of support and comfort and it still makes my eyes water when I think about it in weak moments. .
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#3
"Talking back". Turns out they just wanted me to be silent and have no opinion or feelings. My mother and stepfather used to constantly say how I was mouthy and constant talked back- well yeah, how else am I supposed to communicate? Smoke signals?
#5
I wasn't really allowed to complain or express frustration with my experiences because someone in my family had had it worse when they were my age.
#6
Being told ‘stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about’—like, oh cool, emotional suppression unlocked at age 5.
#7
Getting teased and/or made fun or for liking certain things as a young child.
My older sister often teased me for the tv shows i liked to watch and made fun of my drawings when i created my own pokemon for example.
Same thing in school.
I still remember every single instance in of it in detail. To this day i dont like to share my passions with people and supress strong displays if positive emotions around others.
#8
Always getting ‘constructive criticism’ instead of praise. Draw a picture? “That looks weird, you should fix the eyes on that.” Make a painting? “You chose weird colors. I wouldn’t have done it like that.” Get a 95% on a school project? “Why didn’t you get 100%?” It created people-pleasing tendencies which led to never feeling like anything I do is ENOUGH. I’m grown and married to a man who thinks sunshine radiates from my pores, but still feel often that my best isn’t great.
#9
Being told to eat everything on my plate, regardless of whether I was still hungry or not. I now have no idea when I’m full unless I’m over full.
#10
Being a parent's therapist. You shouldn't be talking someone out of s*****e when you're 12.
#11
Being made fun of when you go to parent with an uncomfortable situation. I was at a sleepover and another girl wanted to “play house” by laying on top of me. I was so uncomfortable I wanted to go home and afterwards my mom made fun of me for it. Guess who never went to their mom with feelings again.
#13
Thinking that I’m inherently a mean, evil, broken person at age like….8 or 9.
When I watched inside out 2 it honestly shocked me that Riley thought she was inherently a good person lol.
#15
Every time I had knee pain and told my mom I wanted to go to the doctor I always got “you think that’s bad? You wanna hear about all of my problems?!”
That was until my cartridge broke off and it was floating around under my skin by the time I was in high school.
#16
Being told we have no where to live at the end of the month. Everything being hand-me-downs and smelling like other people, you never feel settled, like you’re in a strangers house, bed and clothes.
Poverty, real poverty in general. Don’t have kids if you can’t afford a great life for them.
#18
Being ‘spanked’ with a leather belt doubled over.
I had broke yard sticks and wooden spoons so.. they ‘had’ to find something g else.
I don’t even remember what I did wrong?!… I know I was a ‘bad kid’ but I honestly don’t remember doing bad things. 🤷🏻♀️.
#19
Pretty much my entire childhood, it wasn't normal to be at the pub till close on a school night with the local alcoholics helping me with my homework,
It wasn't normal to be kicked out of the pub and be taking to the complete strangers house so it they could carry on drinking.
It wasn't normal to beg your mum while crying to turn the music down so you could get some sleep.
It wasnt normal for the kids at school to push you down the stairs or follow you home throwing rocks and rubbish at you.
That most kids didn't get themselves up for school, skipping breakfast cuz you couldn't reach the cereal, then carefully pick your way past the needles, glass and human s**t to get out of the estate so you could get there.
#20
Unintentionally traumatic: "They're just bullying you because they're jealous of how smart/pretty you are!"
Oh cool, make me feel ashamed of my positive traits AND it's my fault for getting bullied for existing. Win-win!
#21
Having my hair chopped off because I wasn’t taking care of it to my mother’s standards.
I was 6, and had very long, very curly hair. Of course I struggled to take care of it!
#22
My mom yelling at me when I was hurt or sick instead of being nurturing. She has bad anxiety and doesn't handle stressful situations well. This has lead me to crave a ton of sympathy/attention when I'm sick as an adult.
#23
Anytime I brought up something my mom did that I didn’t like or was uncomfortable with I was told that never happened. In fact she still does it. It’s really messed with my memory because now I have a hard time remembering what actually happened and what I was told happened and what I was told didn’t happen. They are all sorta mixed up in there.
#25
I wouldn't say I'm traumatized from it, but I realized I'm a people pleaser because my father never showed me that he was proud of me when I was younger. His attitude towards my achievements would lead me to believe they were expectations more than things to be proud of.
It was an internal conflict I struggled with throughout my teen years and into my early 20's, but I'm glad to say I've been working on it since recognizing the root cause of my people pleasing.
#27
Being told we (mom dad and I)can't leave my uncle's house when we were about to leave from a family dinner until I gave my uncle a kiss on the cheek.
#28
Having emotionally volitile parents does a ton of damage. When kids can't predict the moods of their parents it leads to heightened threat scanning behaviour and people pleasing. These tendencies cause tons of self esteem and burnout issues later in adulthood.
Parents, from a therapist, I beg you to be more emotionally consistent with your kids. And stop being children yourselves about this stuff. Ive had grown a*s adults in my room jealous of and angry at their own children because the kids take attention away from them with their partner. It's a mess. And have some boundaries. Your kids are not your therapist.
#29
Being told that a boy trying to kiss/touch me in school & making me very uncomfortable/scared was just because he had a crush on me.
#30
My mom would go into these insane cleaning frenzies where you got yelled at if you didn't suddenly start cleaning along with her. As soon as you heard the vacuum, you knew she was gonna be in a terrible mood. Day ruined for sure.
Whenever my partner vacuums, I get really upset no matter how many times she tells me she's not mad.
#31
I don’t know if traumatized is the right word, but the way nobody expected anything good out of me. Growing up I was always told “you’re not ready” or “how are YOU going to be able to handle that” especially when it came to big dreams or life milestones (telling everyone I’d never be ready to drive or I’d never be able to keep a job yet they’re the only ones who kept me from those things) it really did a hit on my self esteem and it’s still nearly impossible to do things that feel too “big”.
#33
Falling asleep under my bed instead of in it because it was safer down there, and I wasn't allowed to wake my parents up if I was scared.
#34
Really mild, but my pulse still shoots up whenever I hear my mother walk or breathe heavily, since that's what she did before what we kids called a "cleaning rampage", in which she angrily and bitterly cleaned my two little sisters' messes while blaming me and my big sister for it. I used to dig through the trash to retrieve the things of mine she threw away because she hated "junk" and "I wouldn't even notice". I thought I was a bad, messy kid. Nope, turns out she had impossible standards for cleanliness with four little kids running around and she's so much happier now that she's accepted she cannot maintain that.
#35
Waking up to find my guinea pig gone one morning after I wasn’t able to understand some of her behavior and started complaining. My father likely put her out in the woods and let her become food for a predator. I didn’t say anything because I knew it wouldn’t have mattered to my dad.
Later I always felt such guilt and thought that if I just kept my mouth shut she wouldn’t have had that done to her.
#36
My mom taking me to a juvenile detention center at age 12 or so and having the warden threaten to lock me up because I wouldn't do my homework. It wasn't until I told a friend that story and saw her reaction that I realized lol.
#38
Being raised where any first attempts at doing anything should not have any imperfections or problems (while not having a source to learn from).
Always expected to be on-call to fix anything and everything (again without a source to learn from) that's thrown at me. Oh, and at the same time being refused help every time I asked for it.
The whole "children should be seen but not heard" and "we are raising adults, not kids".
End result: only 2 of the 8 kids have ever interact with parents anymore. Lol.
#39
When my father was angered by my brother and my behavior he would take his leather belt and whip us across the back of our legs. I also got my ears and hair pulled by him a lot as a child. he was a real d**k. Now he sits at home by himself because no one wants to socialize with him.
#41
My father breaking my things as a punishment. It happened two times that I can really remember- when I was 4/5 and when I was 7/8. The first time it was my favorite VHS, Oliver & Company. I watched every day at least once. He tore the film out right in front of me and threw it at the ground.
The second time was a metal/aluminum floor tray I had had for years. I ate all my meals on it, played with play doh on it, and I loved it. He broke it and bent it in front of me and made me throw it in the dumpster after.
A couple years ago, my son had accidentally knocked over a small ceramic decorative statue I had bought in high school and had for 10+ years and broke it. I wasn’t mad at him but it made me very upset and I cried and felt panicked. My husband didn’t understand and I didn’t either until in that moment I felt how I felt as a child when my father broke my things.
I am very precious about my things and knickknacks. My husband now spends his time meticulously fixing anything that gets c*****d or broken of mine and is very careful and precious with my things. It’s been very healing to feel that kind of consideration.
#42
I was in college when I realized a father/ daughter relationship didn't have to toxic and sad.
One of my friends from college told me her dad was picking her up for the weekend. I lived in a nearby town and asked if I could get a ride. They agreed.
On the ride home... my friend and her dad were talking... just having normal conversation.. about anything. That's when it hit me that what me and my dad had wasn't normal at all.
Convo with my dad was him yelling/ screaming/ berating me... or just silence. Never.. ever.. just normal conversation.
#43
Not wanting to wake my dad up from his naps.
Learning to tell people’s footsteps apart from one another.
Being super sensitive to other’s emotions or perceived feelings, and tanking your own mood because of it.
Being rejection sensitive is another one i got.
Also a huge trigger for me is being prevented from leaving and/or grabbed. Really kicks in the fight/flight response for me something crazy.
Growing up is realizing that you take on s**t from having emotionally immature parents, especially when one of them has relied on you heavily to emotionally regulate them despite being a literal child.
Thanks dad lol.
#44
My father leaving a hand print on my face. My father hitting me 3 times with a belt, or wooden paddle, just out of suspicion.
#45
There is a difference between normal sibling fighting and abuse. Always thought the things that happened to me was normal sibling stuff, would even tell friends they were the weird ones when their experience was different.
Went to therapy, told a little story. My therapist said “that’s called t*****e.”.
#46
My only childhood best friend not really caring about me (although she pretended to). It seemed normal to me, but has caused me a lot of trust issues in my life. Maybe not traumatic, but it has affected me a lot.
#47
Being Gen X in the era of missing children's faces being plastered on milk cartons.
Think about it...
Here we were; the generation raised by the Boomers and told to go outside until the the street lights came on at dusk.
So we all filed out into the wide world for the majority of the day when there was no school.
But before that, we'd eat our morning bowl of cereal being forced to stare at the faces of those that didn't make it back home.
The utter fuggin' morbidity...
#48
My mother locked me and my sister out of the house sometimes in the summer if she was in one of her "moods". If we had to pee, we were afraid to knock on the door to ask if we could go to the bathroom. As a kid, that's just how it was. As an adult, we just realized, WTF???
#49
My father passed when I was like 4 or 5 then my older brother passed on when I was like 6 or 7 back then I just knew people died and it's normal, but looking back coming to terms with the inevitability of death that young might have not been normal.
#50
I thought everyone got asked out at the punchline to a joke they weren’t in on at least once in their childhood. turns out no one i know had it happen at all, just me, and I lost count how many times.
