All About You — Day 5: Childhood Triumphs
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[For “Day 4: Childhood Traumas,” click here.]
ALL ABOUT YOU — DAY 5:
CHILDHOOD TRIUMPHS
Last time we learned about the long term effects of childhood traumas. We also learned that it can be a vicious cycle that began—at least for us—with our parents and their bad relationships, marriages, or divorces.
Then, based on our earliest temperaments, key people (parents, siblings, peers, and some strangers) interacted with—and reacted to—us, further shaping our temperaments that developed into our Big 5 Personality Traits.
While it’s true that, all too often, our parents were themselves the victims of their own childhood traumas that originally adversely affected their abilities to choose healthier relationships, lifestyles, and parenting styles, all of which negatively impacted us and our futures, the focus of this series is not about them. It’s “All About You!” They had their chance to stop their vicious cycles of abuse and neglect; and, for whatever reason, they did not or could not stop it completely.
I’m sure my mom was much more nightmarishly abused and neglected by the relatives she was forced to live with when she was suddenly orphaned at age two than anything I suffered at her hands. And, I’m sure my dad witnessed, up close and personal, the unspeakably harsh realities of poverty and war when he was suddenly separated from his family in North Korea and joined the South Korean army when he was still just a teenaged boy. However—and I remain firm in this belief—none of that excuses their cruelty to each other, to me, and to my sisters.
Now, it’s up to each of us to make sure that we bring our own family’s vicious cycle of abuse and/or neglect finally to an end within our own lifetimes. Let’s not infect the next generation with all the pain that we went through. And, whenever the spirit moves you, let’s help others who are stuck in their own vicious cycles, too.
STEPS TO OVERCOME CHILDHOOD TRAUMAS
1. Acknowledge the Childhood Traumas: The first step to overcoming childhood trauma is to acknowledge that it happened—at least to yourself. If you have a trusted friend who won’t judge you or disagree with you, but is compassionate enough to mostly just listen to you with sympathy, if not empathy, then be grateful for that and try opening up to him/her a little about your painful past. If it feels better for you after you have shared a little, consider sharing a little more.
If you don’t have anyone like this in your life, there are many different 12-Step Programs in every city that might be helpful to you:
(1) Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA or ACOA)
(2) Al-Anon/Alateen for friends and family of alcoholics
(3) Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)
(4) Clutterers Anonymous (CA)
(5) Co-Anon for friends and family of addicts
(6) Cocaine Anonymous (CA)
(7) Codependents anonymous (CoDA)
(8) COSA (Codependents of Sex Addicts)
(9) COSLAA (Cosex and Love Addicts Anonymous)
(10) Crystal Meth Anonymous (CMA)
(11) Debtors Anonymous (DA)
(12) Emotions Anonymous (EA)
(13) Emotional Health Anonymous (EHA)
(14) Gamblers Anonymous (GA)
(15) Gam-Anon/Gam-A-Teen for friends and family of problem gamblers
(16) Marijuana Anonymous (MA)
(17) Narcotics Anonymous (NA)
(18) Neurotics Anonymous (NAIL)
(19) Nar-Anon for friends and family of addicts
(20) Nicotine Anonymous (NicA)
(21) Overeaters Anonymous (OA)
(22) Online Gamblers Anonymous (OLGA)
(23) Sexaholics Anonymous (SA)
(24) Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA)
(25) Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA)
(26) Smokers Anonymous (SA)
(27) Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA)
(28) Workaholics Anonymous (WA)
You don’t have to participate in the full 12 Steps. I attended one OA meeting, two ACA meetings, and one CoDA meeting, all at different points in my life when I felt the need. That was it. That was all I needed to get a whole lot of insights about my life, my past, my problems, and enough food for thought about how many other people (and how many of them!) had similar or worse backgrounds than I did and were struggling with much bigger or much smaller problems as a result of them. That was all I needed from those meetings. The point I want to stress, however, is that going to at least a few made me feel less alone and ashamed of my problems.
2. Don’t Block Your Feelings; Let Them Flow: The second step is to let yourself be angry at your tormentors/neglectors if your body naturally wants to react that way. Let yourself feel profoundly sad if your body wants to go there. Weep for your childhood self. All the terrible things that never should have happened to any child, let alone anyone as trusting, loving, and wonderful as you! Write about all of this in your diary. (If doing this becomes too frightening or distressing, consider seeking the gentle and wise guidance of a professional therapist. But, always be careful to keep looking till you find one who makes you feel safe and comfortable. A bad therapist is much worse than no therapist at all.) Read books and blogs about it.
3. Never Blame Yourself: The only thoughts and feelings that you should never allow yourself to think or feel—and, whenever you do, you must vigorously fight with all your current skills and abilities of adult rationality, critical thinking, and powers of persuasion—is that you somehow caused or contributed to your own abuse/neglect. Nothing bad that anyone ever did to you while you were a child was ever your fault. You would never do such things to a helpless child, would you?
My parents often “explained” their abusive/neglectful behavior toward me by saying it was for my own good, or that my “bad/stupid/selfish” behavior made them do it. I desperately needed to believe their excuses to feel safe in that crazy environment. I needed to believe that my parents really loved me and would never hurt me that badly ever again unless I truly and fully deserved it. Every savage beating was followed by elaborate apologies, promises, and declarations of forgiveness.
When I finally got old enough to know how to protect myself form their physical, mental, and emotional blows, I preferred to not think about my painful past as much as possible, incorrectly believing that would just give it more strength, power, or influence over my life. I chose to try to forget about it. But, that didn’t work. Trying not to think about it consciously just allowed it to fester in my subconscious mind, which continued to make me feel bad about myself for many more years.
4. Know that You CAN Handle It: Life is hard for everybody. It’s especially hard for adults who were traumatized as children. But, the thing that differentiates the survivors from the perpetual victims in life is our mindsets. If you know that you CAN handle it, you will. You must believe this. Don’t ever let any doubts about it creep into to your head—ever. Stamp them out at the first sign of them sprouting in your mind. Just reject them and replace them immediately with the mantra, “I CAN handle it! I WILL handle it. Somehow, in some way, I will MAKE IT WORK!”
5. Special Gifts of the Unmothered Child: In “Fan Your Inner Flame Till It Burns Bright,” I shared the teachings of Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, Ph.D., in her excellent audio book Warming The Stone Child: Myths & Stories About Abandonment And The Unmothered Child
You might want to read that entire article to familiarize yourself with the concepts of the “unmothered child” and the phenomenon of “collapsing” that happens to unmothered children whenever we sense the slightest bit of rejection and how to meet that challenge. But, for the purpose of this post, I will quote only from the portion of that article which speaks to the special gifts earned by all unmothered children who learn to make the most of their extreme hardships:
Unmothered children who grow their internal mothers to keep their flames burning bright enjoy these special gifts: Enormous courage, tremendous strength, and a near-psychic level of intuition. From a very early age, we had to closely look for any and all clues that our parents would suddenly go off on us, so we became experts at reading people and situations for the earliest signs of real danger approaching. These powerful survival skills—once we get the “collapsing” incidents under control—enable us to back out of most dangerous situations much more quickly than the people who seem to have had happier childhoods. And, here is the best part of all: The greatest healers in the world are unmothered children! They are the teachers, leaders, writers, artists, and musicians who know how to touch us and move us with healing, soothing, beautiful words, sounds, and visions.
KNOW THAT YOU ARE NOT ALONE: 100 CELEBRITY SURVIVORS
As proof that childhood traumas often result in exceptional gifts to all who learn to harness the positive lessons from them and who use the extra powers of instinct, insight, wisdom, compassion, inner strength and resolve thus learned from the traumas, here is a list of 100 famous people who, not only rose to the challenge, but many of them have become heroes and even legends in the process.
1. Maya Angelou
2. Christina Aguilera
3. Roseanne Arnold
4. Ludwig van Beethoven
5. Mary J. Blige
6. Humphrey Bogart
7. Clara Bow
8. Johannes Brahms
9. - 11. The Bronte Sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne)
12. James Brown
13. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
14. Augusten Burroughs
15. William S. Burroughs, Jr.
16. Richard Burton
17. Truman Capote
18. Andrew Carnegie
19. Johnny Cash
20. Jackie Chan
21. Ray Charles
22. Anton Chekhov
23. Leslie Cheung
24. Christina Crawford (daughter of Joan Crawford)
23. James Dean
24. Sandra Dee
25. Charles Dickens
26. Janice Dickinson
27. Angie Dickinson
28. Fyodor Dostoevsky
29. Queen Elizabeth I
30. Missy Elliot
31. Ralph Ellison
32. Joe Eszterhas
33. Jodie Foster
34. Anne Frank
35. Aretha Franklin
36. Antwone Fisher
37. Jane Fonda
38. Clark Gable
39. Paul Gauguin
40. Vincent van Gogh
41. Cary Grant
42. Teri Hatcher
43. Goldie Hawn
44. Rita Hayworth
45. Anne Heche
46. Jimi Hendrix
47. Audrey Hepburn
48. Alfred Hitchcock
49. Billie Holliday
50. Anthony Hopkins
51. Henrik Ibsen
52. Michael Jackson
53. Franz Kafka
54. Helen Keller
55. Rudyard Kipling
56. Queen Latifah
57. D. H. Lawrence
58. Heath Ledger
59. Sandra Lee (Semi-Homemade Cooking)
60. John Lennon
61. Jack London
62. Traci Lords
63. Steve Martin
64. Marshall Mathers (Eminem)
65. Rose McGowan
66. Steve McQueen
67. Henry Miller
68. Marilyn Monroe
69. Audie Murphy
70. Eddie Murphy
71. Chuck Palahniuk
72. Rosie Perez
73. Edgar Allan Poe
74. Elvis Presley
75. Richard Pryor
76. Sinead O’Connor
77. Laurence Olivier
78. George Orwell
79. Ozzy Osbourne
80. Peter O’Toole
81. Dorothy Parker
82. Alexander Pushkin
83. Keanu Reeves
84. Tony Robbins
85. Eleanor Roosevelt
86. Axl Rose
87. Carlos Santana
88. Anne Sexton
89. Angela Shelton
90. Suzanne Sommers
91. Barbra Streisand
92. Tina Turner
93. Leonardo da Vinci
94. Alice Walker
95. Orson Welles
96. Hank Williams
97. Tennessee Williams
98. Oprah Winfrey
99. Natalie Wood
100. Virginia Woolf
Of course there are countless more. Scratch an artist, writer, actor, or musician— actually any type of entertainer—or therapist, counselor, social worker, or teacher, and you’re likely to find a survivor of some sort of childhood trauma. So, no need to feel alone in your experiences! Take heart from all those who have overcome!
TO BE CONTINUED …
This is going to be an adventurous journey into our past, present, and future lives. None of us can be prepared for what we might find along the way. So, just sit back and enjoy the ride! Also, I hope at least some of you brave souls will share your answers, insights, and revelations in the comments below for everyone’s benefit!
When you’re done, collect your answers and keep them in a safe place. I recommend a diary. It makes a precious gift to someone you love, especially you!
[For “Day 6: Sibling Rivalries,” click here.]
[For entire “All About You!” series, click here.]
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[For “10 Reasons to Keep a Diary,” click here.]
[For “20 Questions for Your Diary,” click here.]
[For “Requests for Cuckoo in Your Nest!,” click here.]
[For “How to Be an Extrovert,” click here.]
[For “My 10 Commandments,” click here.]
[For “Fan Your Inner Flame Till It Burns Bright,” click here.]
[For “Change Your Mindset to Change Your Life,” click here.]
