6 keys to overcome a difficult childhood

Childhood is not only the stage of life characterized by innocence; It is also the one in which we are more delicate, more susceptible to psychological damage. This is not an unimportant detail, considering that there are many experiences or living conditions may prove negative to vulnerable people and without the ability to seek help outside of the family.

• Related article: "The 6 stages of childhood (physical and psychological development)"

Thus, the marks of a difficult childhood can continue to show when we have grown and entered adulthood. However, that does not mean that we should resign ourselves to it. As much as the discomfort and anguish may be unbearable at times, in most cases it is possible to significantly improve the way we live with that past. To contribute to this, below we will see some guidelines to overcome a difficult childhood, as well as a reflection on how we should face this task.

Emotional pain that comes from the past

Some people speak of this feeling as if it were some kind of emotional hack: pain comes to us through the vulnerabilities of the past, Although we believe that if we had not gone through all that suffering, today we would be totally complete people and capable of everything without dedicating many efforts.

In other words, traumatic events and anguish experienced during our first years of life robbed us not only of childhood, but also of adulthood. The stain of trauma it is constantly spreading as we try to flee into the future.

However, we do not have to be slaves to our past, even if it took place during childhood, the moment when we become aware of what the world is like. There is always a possible change, as we will see.

How to get over a difficult childhood

You must bear in mind that each case is unique, and therefore, if you really suffer from your past, it is best to seek the personalized treatment that psychologists can give you in your consultation. However, in the short term you can use these tools that we offer you below.

1. Learn about the effects of psychological trauma

This is important as In most cases, there is an excessively deterministic conception of trauma that is inclined towards pessimism..

It is true that traumas can contribute to us as adults having various problems with emotional management and regulation of attention, but that does not mean that people who have had a difficult childhood systematically develop PTSD, nor that this type of experience has to leave us marked necessarily.

In fact, even in cases of severe violence and abuse in childhood, there are many people who grow up to reach adulthood without significant mental problems and without lower-than-average intelligence expected.

What does this mean? That in many cases, people with a complicated past face states of discomfort generated by pessimistic life expectancies and based on a problem that is not there. That is why when it comes to overcoming a difficult childhood it is necessary to be clear that all or a good part of that feeling of discomfort can arise from a fiction.

2. Change social circles

As far as possible, we must try to get away from people who in the past made us feel bad and who currently have no intention of helping us. In this way, situations that remind us of traumatic events will appear less frequently.

3. Lead an active social life

Breaking isolation is a good way to break rumination, that is, the propensity to give in to recurring thoughts that end up becoming obsessions.

The good thing about having an active social life is that it helps you live in the present and get away from those memories that keep coming back again and again. Building life in the here and now is a good solution to prevent the mind from filling that gap with elements belonging to the past.

On the other hand, after spending some time in the company of friends and loved ones, it is not necessary to impose this strategy on yourself. And the fact is that the memories that generate discomfort, no matter how intense they may be at first, can lose vigor at high speed if we get used to not invoking them frequently for several months at a time.

4. take care of yourself

Many times, going through outrageous situations makes us automatically fix our idea of ​​the Self to all the discomfort and vulnerability suffered in the past. This can cause us to act like we don't matter at all, meaning we treat each other the same way life treated us. If these complicated situations appeared during childhood, in addition, there is a possibility that we have not known another version of ourselves that is not that of the victim role.

To break this vicious cycle, it is necessary to force ourselves to take our own well-being seriously. This involves eating well, exercising, practicing good personal hygiene, and sleeping well, among other things. In other words, we must dedicate efforts to show ourselves the potential that exists in ourselves, even if at first it does not feel like it.

In this way, those beliefs linked to the self-image itself will change until our self-esteem improves significantly and, with it, our expectations do too.

5. Reinterpret the past

There is no single interpretation of our lives: no matter how hard we try, we never reach an objective perception of things. This is especially true when, in addition to considering the facts, we take into account the emotions with which they are associated.

In fact, our memory works in such a way that memories are constantly changing. The simple act of remembering something while being in an intense emotional state can make the events we evoke more congruent with those emotions.

Knowing this fact can help us a lot not to blindly believe that we retain those painful memories of childhood due to the fact that the experience was real and caused us discomfort. Maybe we keep that memory because we have learned to associate it with negative moods, even going so far as to distort its content.

So, feel free to reinterpret the past without fear of unconsciously modifying it: the latter is inevitable, but we can prevent it from damaging us emotionally.

6. Seek professional help

There are cases in which, no matter how much effort and effort put into it, very little progress is made in overcoming the traumas and problems experienced in childhood.

This is not due to a lack of willpower, but to something much simpler: in the same way that these mental alterations emerge from the influence of our environment, to get out of that kind of emotional quagmire we need someone to help us from outside. And that someone must be a mental health professional.