Stop living in the past and enjoy the present - this is exactly the goal we set for ourselves when we want to become successful and happy. But, be that as it may, past experiences influence our subsequent lives. Destructive attitudes instilled in us by loved ones and acquaintances, mental traumas from childhood, incorrect stereotypes and fears - all this has been following us for many years, not allowing us to become what we want.
Today we will talk about childhood traumas and their consequences, consider how they affect the psychology of thinking of an adult and directly body weight. You will be surprised, but all these aspects are very interconnected with each other. Get ready to look deep into yourself and find the answer to the question: why childhood trauma prevents you from losing weight...
Psychological traumas from childhood into adulthood: how they affect you
Not all of us had an absolutely cloudless childhood, where everything happened exactly the way we wanted, where parents fully understood and accepted, where close relatives did not try to make it their own, where no one criticized, made fun of, or crushed hopes and aspirations. .
Therefore, we all brought from childhood and adolescence a large baggage of experiences and attitudes that now influence our lives. No, this does not mean that nothing can be changed now, it will just require psychotherapy for childhood trauma.
Our psyche works like a computer: once you run a certain program on it, and now it automatically loads every time you encounter a similar task or situation.
To change the answer of your subconscious to some request, you need to rewrite the program. This is the only way to solve the problem at a deep level, and not return to it every time behavior correction is needed again.
When in childhood we see injustice or wrong actions, we promise ourselves that we ourselves will not allow such things to happen. “I will never be like my mother,” “I will not act as my father did,” “I will not allow myself to be treated like this with my children,” we tell ourselves at a young age in a fit of despair and hopelessness.
But years pass, and we catch ourselves thinking that our behavior reflects the manners of our mother and father; we reluctantly tell our children the same phrases that we ourselves once heard. Psychological traumas of childhood gradually make themselves felt, even if we initially wanted to avoid it.
The whole problem is in the initial experience of the relationships that we build with our parents, close relatives, brothers and sisters, and first friends. We remember a certain model of behavior in a given situation, and then, using the principle of transference, we project it throughout our subsequent lives.
When working with childhood trauma, the psychologist will definitely ask you about your relationship with your mom and dad. By answering it, you can understand why a girl cannot get married even at 35, why your family is falling apart, what prevents you from losing excess weight and losing weight forever.
It is very important to remember the main points in the relationship and the attitudes that your loved ones instilled in you. This will allow you to find the reason for your failures in weight loss and life in general.
Imagine that you came to see a doctor complaining of severe pain in your leg, and he asks you what happened, what events happened before your leg started to hurt. But you don’t want to answer, citing that this is all the past, why remember, you just need to make sure that your leg stops hurting. Sounds absurd, doesn't it? It’s the same during psychotherapy or coaching – it’s important to find the cause, and not just stomp around the consequences. This is what we will do now...
Coming from childhood or early mental trauma
In psychotherapeutic work, we often ask ourselves where certain mental symptoms of a person originate.
For many years, humanity, to some extent, while aware of the suffering of mothers, has been unable to understand the feelings of the child. After all, until quite recently, psychological science did not consider at all the problems of the mental life of the fetus and newborn, but for a woman who has at least once carried a child, the presence of his psyche was an indisputable fact that was given to her through sensations, at least in the last months of pregnancy. Sigmund Freud was the first to speak about birth trauma, and Otto Rank is credited with its scientific discovery and significance for the formation and functioning of the human mental apparatus.
The formation of the human psyche is greatly influenced not only by perinatal trauma and birth trauma, but also by traumatic events for the psyche that occur in subsequent years of life, up to about twelve years of age, but up to six years is the very basis, so to speak.
Early traumas include the following periods of a child’s life:
- perinatal period: when there is a threat to the life of the fetus (not wanting to give birth, for various reasons; attempted abortion, threat of miscarriage, etc.); negative messages from the mother and her immediate environment; intrauterine rejection.
- period of birth: pathological course of childbirth (here is a caesarean section - a child who has not passed through the birth canal on his own, in later life will rely on someone from the outside, someone will come and do everything for him; if he was dragged, he will pull him out; anesthesia, which leads to the fact that the uterus is as if dead, the mother through the uterus does not say that she is here and is waiting for him, does not help, the child feels loneliness), as well as negative maternal emotions in relation to the birth process and to the child.
— the period of the first years of life: rejection of the child’s basic needs. The needs for food, warmth, care, love, bodily and emotional comfort are not satisfied, for some reason, and this includes medical manipulations.
Feelings of rejection, loneliness, physical and emotional coldness, helplessness, uselessness, resentment, anger, and so on, once experienced by a child, even while in a repressed state, form the core of a person’s idea of himself. The results of studies conducted in various years have proven the direct influence of traumatic experience in the early period of a child’s life, including the perinatal period, on the formation of character and its psychopathology.
An adult is afraid of heights or spiders, afraid of losing something (an object), fear that something bad will happen to someone close. When we start to understand, it turns out that the basis is the fear of death, the mother thought about having an abortion, or during a difficult birth there was asphyxia, the mother often left her from an early age, for a small child to be left without a mother is the same as dying.
A person feels the need for intimacy, but cannot be in it, distrust of other people, distrust of feelings (do you love me?), loneliness among people - left... the mother who left and left will never return, even when she returns , there remains the understanding that you can’t trust her, that mother has already left...
Stages of psychological birth:
1. The period of normal autism (from the moment of conception to three to four weeks of birth), the baby does not react to the world around him, with the exception of meeting needs. If something goes wrong, subsequent loneliness and bodily discomfort, something is always wrong, a person does not even try to change something in his life on his own.
2. Isolation of an external object (up to 3-4 months). Realizing that who is there, he turns his head there. You exist, but I don’t yet. Someone comes and does well. Perception moves into the contact zone. What if he doesn’t come, or doesn’t do well? For example, the mother is cold, distant, there is no contact as such.
3. Symbiotic phase (up to 7-8 months). You are the one who satisfies all my needs. A good-bad mechanism is being formed. If I feel good when my mother came, then the world is good, and if not, then the world is bad, rejecting, frightening. My pleasure or not pleasure depends on you. The beginning of the formation of bodily traces, bodily memory. To form a normal attachment, the object must be one and constant.
4. Stage of differentiation (from 6-9 months to 1.5 years). The emergence of you - not I. Awareness of yourself as a separate self. Differentiation does not occur if it is not supported by the mother. Mom is overprotective. The mother decides what kind of porridge the child will eat, regardless of whether he wants it or not, she knows best what he needs. In this case, a person does not think of himself as an autonomous being. You and I are one, you are me, a person cannot take care of himself as an adult. Doesn't know what he likes and what he doesn't. You can often hear that a person loves, also what his mother, husband loves... If the I is not formed, childhood is amnestied. If not - I, then you as a subject are absent, I want it to be the way I want. Not yet - I, the feeling of gratitude is not available. I’m not there yet, but you already are, envy is forming. He has something, but I don’t, he can, but I don’t... From 9 months, fear, if he is not like that, mom may fall in love with another boy (girl). A feeling of guilt and a feeling of one’s own badness is formed. The child adapts to his mother so that she does not stop loving him. For a small child, the loss of a mother, death; as an adult, a woman thinks that she cannot live without a man.
5. Practice phase (1.5-2 years). The mother is on the bench, and the child is in the sandbox, periodically he screams or runs to check that the mother is nearby. If his mother is anxious, she will paralyze him. If the mother hides, the child gets scared and does not leave her side. As an adult, a person is afraid that the other will leave as soon as he turns his back. If the mother behaves calmly, the child gets used to it and plays on the bench without constantly checking whether it is in place.
6. Accession phase (up to three years). The child ran to his mother with a complaint that another child had hit him with a shovel, and the mother responded, I told you, don’t leave me, such a child will be afraid of the world, afraid to stand up for himself, you need to sit next to your mother (hereinafter referred to as husband or wife) then everything will be fine.
7. After three years, separation. I am an autonomous base! If before the age of three, the mother says we (for example, we ate), this is normal, if later, then her trauma is already making itself felt and of course she will not allow the child to undergo separation.
Queries that indicate early trauma: I live as if my life is not my own, a feeling of being “locked in,” loss of the sense of Self, lack of contact with the body (the body is like an appendage to the head), inability to disconnect one’s experiences from the experiences of another, a fusion complex, separation conflicts, anxiety losing an object of influence, problems with boundaries, and so on.
The father and other close people play an important role in the process of a child’s mental development. Since they not only influence the emotional background of the child’s mother, but give her support and self-reliance, which is very important for a woman, especially in the first months after the birth of a child. In addition, they are an additional source of pleasure and support for the child.
It is not enough to recognize the early pain; you also need to heal the old wound.
I’m always happy to help in such a difficult process.
Major childhood traumas: what do they mean?
When asking a psychotherapist how to work through childhood traumas, you need, first of all, to understand which of them affect what. Let's look at common childhood traumas, the psychology behind them, and the consequences in adulthood:
Symptoms and manifestations of injury
Any outbursts of traumatic experiences are normal and natural, so there is no need to reproach yourself for showing feelings towards them. The reaction to a negative event that caused damage to the psyche is expected. This is a common response to unusual circumstances.
What symptoms can be used to determine the presence of childhood psychological trauma?
Psychological signs:
- State of shock, despondency, apathy, joylessness, depression. This condition should last for a long time without seemingly obvious reasons.
- Unreasonable mood swings, from cheerfulness to rage and irritation.
- Feelings of guilt, shame. Blaming oneself, searching for reasons within oneself that led to negative consequences.
- Feeling of anxiety, fear. A fear of the unimportant develops, psychological phobias - fear of darkness, silence, loud sounds, strange strangers, large crowds of people, loneliness.
- Feeling of abandonment, uselessness, inferiority.
Physiological symptoms:
- Night terrors, nightmares, insomnia.
- Increased heart rate, tachycardia.
- The appearance of chronic pain, sometimes without an existing reason.
- Fatigue, constant tiredness, powerlessness.
- Impaired attention and memory.
- Muscle tightness, tension.
Prohibition on showing emotions
If a child was exposed to any kind of violence in childhood, or was scolded when he cried, laughed loudly, was sad, offended, afraid, etc., then he begins to unintentionally control and suppress his emotions. The following attitudes are laid in his mind: “showing any emotions is bad”, “complaining is bad”, “being afraid is bad”, “talking about the fact that you are hurt and bad is also bad.”
Growing up, he ceases to feel his inner world, it is difficult for him to love someone, since there is a clear misunderstanding of the emotions that arise due to their blocking. Such a person loses joy in life, little suits him, he cannot enjoy pleasant moments, he does not see happiness in simple things.
The result: emotional coldness and detachment, difficulties in building any relationships, regular overeating and excess weight gain against the background of emotional hunger and associated stress. Such people try to lose weight with a nutritionist, but nothing works out for them, since destructive attitudes have not been worked out, childhood trauma has not been corrected, and the psychology of thinking continues to obey the stereotypes that were once laid down.
You can recognize such people in a crowd by the following signs:
- not accepting compliments from others;
- keeping silent about your achievements;
- a wary attitude towards everyone who shows sympathy and interest in them;
- cold, indifferent facial expression;
- refusal to attend entertainment events;
- lack of support and words of approval addressed to loved ones;
- arrogance or odd behavior that scares others away.
Such individuals need to be carefully warmed up, taught to feel emotions and express them, and gradually saturate their lives with various events and impressions in order to pump up the emotional sphere. As soon as this can be done, many problems in building relationships and weight correction will immediately be solved.
Lack of guardianship or overprotection in childhood
If in childhood a child was left to his own devices, or, on the contrary, he was constantly followed by a team of relatives monitoring his every move, then in adulthood he will be prone to obesity or eating disorders. Such children do not have time to learn to love themselves, so they become dependent on food.
When working with them, a nutritionist for weight loss must choose a special approach:
- teach you to love yourself and your body;
- increase self-esteem;
- make it clear that decisions are made only by this person, and no one will influence them;
- show a way out of addiction to eating disorders.
Growing up early due to irresponsible parents
When a child lives in a family where one or both parents are dependent in some way - on alcohol, drugs, gambling, work, then he has to grow up early, because he needs to take responsibility in many matters.
From a young age, such a child solves problems that, due to his age, should not be solved, so he grows into a hyper-responsible and empathetic person. He is great at giving, but has not learned to receive. It is difficult for him to relax and have fun, since he perceives life as a difficult test.
In adulthood, children with a similar background build codependent relationships or become hostage to orthorexia - dependence on proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle.
You can get rid of such childhood trauma only after working through your areas of responsibility, leaving the role of victim or savior, and establishing harmonious relationships with yourself.
Childhood psychological trauma
Child psychological trauma is the result of intense stress, excessive for the possibility of protective mechanisms of the child’s psyche, which manifested itself under certain circumstances in their adulthood.
When injured, the child loses the sense of comfort and safety that should surround him. They are replaced by a feeling of fear, powerlessness, helplessness in front of the uncertainty and changeability of the outside world: what yesterday provided peace and confidence today brings pain and suffering. Those children who are often in stressful situations are at risk; they are most susceptible to the negative influence of the outside world.
Traumatic experiences do not have to be physical. Its main criteria are strength and intensity, which evoke an emotional response in a person. The more intense the negative impact of the event, the greater the possibility of injury.
But not every unpleasant situation can cause damage to mental health. To do this, it must be meaningful and important for the child. The negative influence of a situation (circumstances, people), reinforced by weight and significance, poses a threat. Their frequent repetitions can turn a healthy child into a neurotically ill adult in the future.
Lack of choice or emotional abuse
If a child in childhood is not allowed to express his own opinion and make choices in simple matters, then in adulthood he will avoid any conflicts, will not defend his rights so as not to displease others, and will shift decision-making to loved ones. These are another candidate for building a codependent relationship (usually they take on the role of a victim). In addition, such individuals are susceptible to eating disorders, in particular compulsive overeating.
They always agree to eat with someone for company, cannot refuse the friendly hosts to taste all the prepared treats, and are unable to resist any food temptations. Their excuse: it’s not me who makes the decision, which means the consequences are not my fault.
You can help such people lose weight easily and quickly only by teaching them to make decisions, defend their boundaries and opinions, and be responsible for all their actions.
