People Who Had An Unhappy Childhood Often Have These 11 Self-Destructive Habits As Adults
Krakenimages | Shutterstock People's memories of their childhood are very much shaped by how their parents and caregivers treat them. Much of how we feel about ourselves and how much we trust others is rooted in the relationship a child has with a parent. It's no surprise, then that people who had an unhappy childhood often adopt self-destructive habits as adults.
Much of what happens during our childhood is actually out of our control, which is why it can be hard to initially notice the signs you had an unhappy childhood. As we grow up and grow into ourselves, we tend to compare our experiences to other people's. This comparison allows us to discover whether or not we had healthy childhoods. Sadly, many people come to realize that their childhoods weren't as happy or peaceful as they thought.
People who had an unhappy childhood often have these 11 self-destructive habits as adults
1. They don't want to accept help
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"Asking for help is hard, but others want to help more than we often give them credit for," says Stanford social psychologist Xuan Zhao. As hard as it is to believe when you're the one in need, people want to show up for you.
Imagine that you grew up with neglectful parents, so you were forced to become self-reliant from a young age. You couldn't rely on your parents to take care of you, so you learned to take care of yourself. As a result, you might push away help in adulthood, because you feel uncomfortable letting other people support you.
You might have been raised by parents who saw asking for help as a sign of weakness. In order to survive your unhappy childhood, you fit yourself into their mold by denying that you ever needed extra assistance.
Now that this person is an adult, it can be hard to shake that mentality, so they find themselves shrugging off anyone who offers their help. After all, taking care of yourself is deeply ingrained in how you define yourself, which is why so many people don't want to accept help from others.
2. They lack self-awareness
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When someone had an unhappy childhood, they may lack the ability to see themselves or their internal experiences objectively. For example, they may snap in anger at someone when they feel attacked. While we all do this, someone lacking self-awareness may not have the ability to look inside and see whether they were justified or if they were out of line.
According to Dr. Jonice Webb, an expert in childhood emotional neglect, there are three main types of self-awareness: relational, emotional, and physical. These are all valuable to adults, but can be challenging to learn if you didn't feel secure as a kid.
"Those who grew up in a household where their emotions were ignored or discouraged by their parents tend to push their emotions and emotional needs away and try to make them disappear. This is the definition of childhood emotional neglect," Dr. Webb writes.
So don't be surprised if you meet someone who seems lacking in self-awareness and later learn that they had an unhappy childhood. The emotional toll of being neglected or mistreated as a kid can run deep.
3. They dismiss their own emotions
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Another sign someone had an unhappy childhood but didn't realize it at the time is that they ignore their own emotions. Imagine that you were raised in an emotionally unsafe environment by parents who didn't have the skills to process their own emotions, let alone anyone else's. It's no surprise they grew up to be dismissive of how they feel.
As a child, their emotions were likely invalidated or minimized, to the point where they tamped down their true feelings, burying them so they wouldn't have to deal with them. Bottling up emotions or downplaying how you feel is a coping mechanism that indicates someone isn't allowed to express hard feelings as a child.
In an interview, therapist Eli Harwwood explained that "We go through hurtful things in childhood that we don't know how to process — even if that hurt is covert, even if it's just a parent who doesn't look us in the eyes when we're crying."
Harwood notes that our parents' attachment styles and their relationship to their own emotions deeply impacts us, way past childhood. "We tell ourselves a story to get through that experience and the story that the average person tells themselves about the insecure attachment style with their parents is ‘it wasn't that bad,'" she said.
If you find someone pushing away their feelings or trying to convince themselves that they're okay, even when they're not, it could be a sign they had an unhappy childhood, where they weren't given the space they needed to express their feelings.
4. They're perfectionists
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Making mistakes in childhood is unavoidable. After all, doing things wrong is how we learn.
Some parents are accepting of their kids' mistakes. They understand that failing is part of learning how to be a fully-realized person. They act as guideposts for their children, letting them know how to do the right thing without shaming them or blaming them for being wrong.
But other parents are overly critical of their kids' mistakes and instill in them a deep-seated fear of failure that follows them into adulthood. Often, this turns into perfectionism.
Life coach Ellen Nyland defined perfectionism as "The relentless pursuit of flawlessness and the setting of unattainably high standards, often accompanied by self-criticism and fear of failure."
She explained that perfectionists get caught in a cyclical trap: They have impossible expectations for themselves, and when they fail to reach them, they believe the lie that they're unworthy. As a result, they feel like they're never good enough.
Breaking the habits of perfectionism takes time and commitment. People stuggling with this issue essentially have to reparent themselves, offering the acceptance to mess up that their parents never provided.
5. They seem overly-controlled
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Have you ever talked with someone who seems a little too obsessed with self-control? Maybe they speak in measured sentences and never take a strong stance, or maybe they talk quietly, as if they're working super hard to not offend or draw too much attention.
This type of overly-controlled behavior can be a sign someone had an unhappy childhood. While this can be an appealing and even productive trait when used in appropriate settings, it can become self-destructive if it hides who the person is or keeps them from speaking up or setting boundaries.
You can imagine how this comes about. As a small child, if you've experienced mockery when sharing your opinion or shame for speaking up, you will probably make a habit of keeping yourself quiet and small. Shame is, after all, one of the most destructive forces for children.
Hopefully, someone with an unhappy childhood who is stuck in this old pattern can find people who love and accept them. That way, they can practice being a bit more assertive.
6. They over-explain
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Over-explaining is a sign someone may have had an unhappy childhood. If they feel the need to justify everything they do and say, it could be an indication that they weren't trusted as a child. They were likely not given the confidence-building skills experts insist are key to helping a child feel secure as adults.
When your parents question your actions and opinions, you never learned to trust yourself completely. Instead of teaching you how to listen to your intuition, parents like this instill the idea that you simply cannot be trusted. As an adult, you second-guess what you want, and you often feel helpless or indecisive. You might even rely on other people's opinions to form what you think.
Over-explaining is often the result of having an unhappy childhood, one in which someone's self-doubt crystallized, so they carried it into adulthood.
7. They're hyper-independent
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Being raised in an unsafe household often leads people to believe that they can only rely on themselves. Developing a sense of hyper-independence is a natural reaction to instability and emotional neglect. According to the Mental Health Association of Delaware, hyper-independence looks different for different people, but typically includes:
- Reluctance or refusal to ask for help
- Difficulty delegating work to others
- Perfectionism
- Isolation/social withdrawal
- Being guarded/having difficulties in relationships
- Tendency for stress and/or burnout
As a hyper-independent person, you believe that you don't need anyone but yourself to get by. You avoid opening up to others, because being vulnerable might lead to being hurt. If you weren't adequately cared for or protected as a child, you probably absorbed the message that the people who were supposed to provide you with safety were only going to let you down.
Hyper-independence is often a reflection of having unmet needs during your formative years. It can feel scary to let people in and see the real you, so people with unhappy childhoods often build up walls to ensure they won't be hurt again.
8. They have imposter syndrome
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Having imposter syndrome could be a sign that someone had an unhappy childhood, even if they didn't realize it at the time. Researchers explain that people who experience this go through cycles of the following emotions: perfectionism, super-heroism, fear of failure, denial of competence and fear of success.
Certified professional career coach Michele Moliter describes imposter syndrome as a "mysterious mind trap."She explains that people often develop imposter syndrome as a reaction to their childhood, especially when "Your parents, guardians, or other family members may have been overly critical of you or put too much emphasis on being a high achiever."
People who had an unhappy childhood might have a hard time accepting praise or believing compliments because they have low self-worth, despite all of their accomplishments. Imposter syndrome is hard to shake, as it tends to get louder the more we try to ignore it.
9 They're people-pleasers
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Everyone deserves to be validated on both an emotional and practical level, yet if someone was denied validation in childhood, they might spend your adulthood seeking it out. Being a people-pleaser is a sign that someone may have had an unhappy childhood, even if they didn't realize it until you were an adult, and self-destructive habits m ay arise.
As a people-pleasers, people aim to avoid conflict and meet others' needs before their own, in part because they don't believe they deserve to show up for yourself. People-pleasers seek outside approval, which is a habit they may have learned if they had an unhappy childhood.
Children who were raised in an environment where love was conditional often become adults who try to make everyone else happy, as their parents withheld love as punishment. While people-pleasing behavior is deeply-rooted, that doesn't mean it's impossible to quit. Practice putting yourself first, saying "no," and honoring your own boundaries in order to heal.
10. They have a hard time relaxing
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If someone has trouble letting themselves truly, it could be an indication that they're hyper-vigilant, which often arises due to having an unhappy childhood. While this trait is often praised by others as being driven or hard-working, it can be seriously self-destructive.
You can imagine how this happen in a childhood home full of tension. Maybe your parents yelled at you whenever they deemed your playing was "out of control." Maybe having fun wasn't made into a priority, and you were expected to be quiet, calm, and serious at all times.
Being raised in a stressful environment can lead to an anxious adulthood. You might feel like you're always on edge or waiting for the next bad thing to happen, due to the fact that you didn't feel safe or stable in childhood.
While hyper-vigilance isn't easy to undo, letting yourself know that you're safe now is essential to begin healing.
11. They emotionally collapse
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If someone had an unhappy childhood, they may find themselves going-going-going until they emotionally collapse. They then feel a need to take to bed or couch rot, even when things need to get done.
This cycle is common for hard-working people, of course, but those struggling with issues from childhood may find themselves doing it to a degree that makes them seem unreliable to others. They may miss appointments, flake on friends or fall behind at work or at school because they simply do not know how to manage their feelings in a healthy way while also functioning normally in life.
You can imagine, if your childhood were unpredictable or scary in any way, you might work hard to ignore what's happening at home. But, eventually, your body will tell you that it can't take it anymore and it will "force" you to rest. You may get a cold and struggle to get better of it, or you might slip into a deep funk.
Rest is important, but the goal should be balancing daily or regular rest with go-time.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.
