5 poorly healed wounds from childhood that carry into adulthood

The childhood emotional wounds They predict, in most cases, what our quality of life will be like when we are adults. They are like psychic injuries, like loose and poorly healed fragments that prevent us from leading a full existence and even facing the small problems of daily life with greater ease and resistance.

The signs of these psychological wounds are usually evident in infinite ways. Anxiety, obsessive thoughts, greater vulnerability to certain disorders, sleep problems, defensive attitude…

It is not easy to deal with a traumatic past, however, it is even more so when those marks originated at an early age.. In that first stage of a child’s life where he or she still lacks personal strategies to manage and understand certain dimensions.

Thus, in some way, it is very common that there are always painful experiences or emotional wounds from childhood that will end up leaving a very evident mark on our personality.

Why and how do emotional wounds arise?

Sometimes, emotional wounds appear thanks to a really traumatic childhood past. In this case, the caregivers or main emotional references of the child are abusive, negligent or absent.

Instead, In other cases, the emotional wound originates from a distorted interpretation of reality by the child.. We must be aware that children do not have a sufficiently developed psychic apparatus that allows them to interpret their impressions and sensations adequately. Therefore, a simple carelessness on the part of the parents can lead to a catastrophic interpretation on the part of the infant.

Thus, Emotional wounds originate from one or several negative experiences (or interpreted as such) experienced in childhood.. These experiences leave an emotional mark that, in one way or another, ends up having an impact on the adult’s behavior.

That said, let’s see below what are our emotional wounds that persist into adulthood.

7 emotional wounds from childhood

The emotional wounds that usually affect adulthood are the following:

1. Fear of abandonment

Loneliness is the worst enemy of those who experienced abandonment in their childhood. Therefore, it is common for adults to experience a constant fear of experiencing this lack again. Hence, for example, a high anxiety about being abandoned by a partner, obsessive thoughts and even poorly adjusted behaviors appear due to the high fear of experiencing that suffering once again.

What’s more, studies like the one carried out by Dr. Sharlene Wolchik of the University of Arizona and published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology They explain to us that it is precisely the fear of being abandoned, which in most cases causes couple breakups. These are situations where you only experience anguish and continued fear, something that generates a high level of dependency and pressure on the other person. They are very complex situations to handle in many cases.

The wound caused by abandonment is not easy to heal, we know it. Thus, you yourself will be aware that it has begun to heal when the fear of moments of loneliness disappears, and a positive and hopeful inner dialogue begins to flow.

2. Fear of rejection

The fear of rejection is one of the deepest emotional wounds of childhood, since It implies the rejection of our interior. With interior we refer to our experiences, our thoughts and our feelings.

The person who suffers from fear of rejection does not feel worthy of affection or understanding and isolates himself in his inner emptiness.. It is likely that, if we have suffered this in our childhood, we are runaway people. So we must work on our fears, our internal fears and those situations that cause us panic.

If this is your case, take care of your place, take risks and make decisions for yourself. You will be less and less bothered when people walk away and you will not take it personally if they forget about you at some point.

3. Humiliation, another emotional wound

This wound is generated when we feel that others disapprove and criticize us. We can generate these problems in our children by telling them that they are clumsy, bad or annoying, as well as airing their problems in front of others; This destroys children’s self-esteem.

Childhood emotional wounds related to humiliation frequently generate a dependent personality. Furthermore, we may have learned to be “tyrants” and selfish as a defense mechanism, and even to humiliate others as a protective shield.

Having suffered these types of experiences requires that we work on our independenceour freedom, the understanding of our needs and fears, as well as our priorities.

4. Betrayal or fear of trusting

The fear of trusting others arises when the child has felt betrayed by one of his parents. Dimensions such as breaking promises, not protecting, lying or not being there when a father or mother is most needed cause deep wounds. In many cases, that feeling of emptiness and hopelessness transforms into other dimensions: distrust, frustration, anger, envy of what others have, low self-esteem…

Having suffered betrayal in childhood creates controlling people and they want to have everything tied up and tied up. If you have suffered from these problems in childhood, it is likely that you feel the need to exercise a certain amount of control over others, which is often justified by a strong character.

These people usually confirm their mistakes by the way they act. Healing the emotional wounds of betrayal requires patiencetolerance and knowing how to live, as well as learning to be alone and delegate responsibilities.

5. Injustice

Injustice as an emotional wound It originates from an environment in which primary caregivers are cold and authoritarian. In childhood, excessive demands that exceed limits will generate feelings of inefficiency and uselessness, both in childhood and in adulthood. An expert author on this topic is undoubtedly Yong Zhao, a respected educational scholar.

According to Zhao, as he explains to us in one of his works, authoritarianism at home and in education itself affects both the psychological and emotional development, as well as the potential and performance of the children themselves. When our rights are vetoed and we do not receive support, consideration and valid and significant emotional closeness, serious psychological wounds undoubtedly appear..

The direct consequences of injustice in the behavior of those who suffer from it will be rigiditylow self-esteem, the need for perfectionism, as well as the inability to make decisions with confidence.

In these cases, it is important work on self-esteem, self-concept, as well as mental rigiditygenerating the greatest possible flexibility and allowing yourself to trust others.

6. Fear of commitment

The fear of commitment is another emotional wound that develops in childhood. In these cases, it is quite common that The child has established a strong bond with someone and, suddenly, it was interrupted.

This fact usually causes a fear of creating romantic ties in the future. Well, at a relatively unconscious level, They avoid reliving the pain that that abrupt separation caused them. Therefore, not connecting emotionally with others is a way to protect yourself from grieving the breakup.

7. Contempt for others

Emotional wounds from childhood can also cause us to adopt antisocial behavior. In this case, It is likely that the infant has been abused or violated by his or her emotional references.. Consequently, he feels that others are predators whose only goal is to defeat them or hurt them back.

Thus, we incorporate into our way of thinking the idea that life is an open war against others; where others become threats or are reduced to possible means to achieve the objectives sought.

Now that we know the emotional wounds of childhood that can affect our well-being, our health and our ability to develop as people, we can begin to heal them.

You might be interested…