The childhood self.

[Bermuda]

I know I have kind of talked about this in pieces before, but it is fresh in my thoughts as I have been doing revisions. So, sorry if my mind constantly rehashes thoughts and attempts to reconnect them. I guess that is CPTSD.

People are always talking about serving their inner child, and doing child work, appealing to their inner child, and things like that. Of all the CPTSD concepts, that one I find the most difficult to understand and relate to. I understand emotional flashbacks, and maybe sometimes I can attach them to an incident, but not childhood as a concept, or to a child as a conceptual person. I understand if you are not following. It's perhaps that my sense of self was already so silenced, that I can't look back on a person with childhood wants and needs.

It made me think as I wrote about my lack of a childhood, if maybe that's it. People talk constantly about how they miss not having adult responsibilities, I don't know what that means. I have much fewer responsibilities than I had then. I was four peeling the potatoes, setting the table, washing the dishes, changing nappies, and folding laundry. Maybe that's why I cannot find the child, the childhood. Maybe I don't have an innerchild. I have an inner young woman, who was constantly preparing for the cruel real world that never came.

[NarcKiddo]

Do you have a concept of wanting to be loved/nurtured? I think that is a big part of the inner child.

When you had to take on responsibilities as a child (as I did, though not nearly to such extremes as you), did you take them on and do the bare minimum or did you do them to the best of your ability? Did you do the tasks because there would be retribution if you did not obey, or were you also hoping for something more?

I've discussed the inner child a bit with my T. It is a concept I struggled with but feel more comfortable about now. I thought at first I was supposed to have some literal 5 year old lurking inside me, and that may well be how some people experience different parts of themselves. My inner child is more a way of reacting that I now realise comes from childhood and a place of vulnerability. I have journaled about child NK taking over at the dentist or medical appointment, because I find myself emotionally regressing there. It makes the whole experience familiar if I emotionally turn into child NK, accepting that this experience must be gone through as quietly and compliantly as possible. There can be no question of accepting I have the agency to jump out of the chair and leave the surgery (because then I might do just that). This coping mechanism may not be the most healthy but it is at least helpful and ensures I get the treatment without fuss and trouble. (That said, I tried to let adult NK be in charge at the dentist yesterday and it was not as stressful as I thought it would be).

I think you do have an inner child. I think we all do. But that child is of course going to be influenced by your actual childhood experience and will likely be very different to how a child with a good enough childhood might be. I think it makes sense to consider this, because young Bermuda is likely involved in emotional flashbacks and you probably need to meet young Bermuda wherever she is at in order to process the flashback in a healing way. Young Bermuda was taking on all sorts of adult responsibilities but not with an adult sense of why.

[storyworld]

Do you have a concept of wanting to be loved/nurtured?

This intrigued me. I struggle with this. I wonder if others do as well.

[Armee]

Definitely. In that I am almost repulsed by the idea of being nurtured. I did not want my "attachment" figures anywhere near me. Now working on parts stuff and T suggests putting my hand on my chest or abdomen and being kind to those parts and I want to vomit or scream to get away from me, even tho it's me.

[Bermuda]

I too have a difficult relationship with nurture.

The short answer is yes, absolutely. It's one of the deepest wounds. I have no one to relate to, to tell about my day and my thoughts. I have no one to hold me. I live a very lonely life. That's the other side, which is me. I don't like being touched. Being held makes me feel sick. I don't want to tell people about my day, or my thoughts. No one tells me about themselves either, and that would be weird. "Hi, today I felt nervous because of my relentless need to over-achieve when there was no reason to even measure my output at all, but now I feel worthless because I didn't live up to my made up standards that no one was even aware of and would have been impossible given the circumstances." I am laughing, of course.

I do want to be loved and nurtured. I just don't have reference for that. I know dinosaurs were real.

[Blueberry]

I feel moved by all your posts on here. I've been able to do a lot healing work with Inner Children and Inner Teens, especially nurturing but it hasn't always been that way at all.

I do have some more things to write here which could be helpful for some or all of you. Let's see when I get round to that / have the time.

Safe virtual        all round.

[NarcKiddo]

I rather had a feeling we would have difficulties with nurture. I do, too.

"I know dinosaurs were real" is so apt.

I want to be nurtured but I also don't want to be. Touch is a problem. Being questioned about my thoughts and feelings and welfare is a problem. In my case I was not neglected in a way anyone would generally associate with neglect. But nurture, when it came, was utterly engulfing and vile, generally speaking. Essentially I was subjected to my mother's idea of nurture. I am lucky that I had some experience of good nurture from my paternal grandmother, so I know that it can feel and be beneficial. I knew enough about it to doubt my capabilities of nurture, such that I did not have children. I have a compulsive history of pet keeping with all the attendant doubt - but I loved them and kept them alive and healthy and now have loads of material to go through with my therapist on the topic of nurture.

For me this is a big part of why the inner child concept is problematic. I know, logically, that children need nurture. Emotionally I have little experience of it, so knowing what to do when the child aspect of me comes into view is very challenging.

I am glad you started this thread, Bermuda.

[blue_sky]

I had heard about the "inner child" concept only around 2 years ago even though I have been in therapy since 2016.
I think initially I struggled as well. To even acknowledge that there was even a little and teenager Blue.

When I thought of a random child/teen going through what I went through, I would feel empathy for them, I would tell my T that it was definitely not the child's fault. But when it was myself, I couldn't feel empathy or love the inner self. I actually hated seeing photos/videos from my childhood.

One thing that definitely helped me understand this concept a bit more was the book "Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing your Inner Child" by John Bradshaw.
It had little exercises to do too. One of the exercises was to write a letter from little Blue to adult Blue using your non-dominant hand and a letter from adult Blue to little Blue using your dominant hand. I wrote letters as an adult first, it was easier. When I was used my non-dominant hand, it was already challenging to write letters, but something shifted. I felt a need to hug my little self who was alone and scared.

EMDR and more talk therapy helped me build a strong relationship with little Blue quite easily. With teenager Blue, it's still quite a struggle. I feel like teenager Blue went through so much and eventually shut down so she doesn't even want adult me near her. She doesn't want any kind of empathy, she just wants to be left alone.

It was/is incredibly difficult work but I think it's worth it to keep trying. Nurture might mean different to different people. For me, just lying next to my dogs and holding their little paws in my hand feels nurturing.

[Kizzie]

So when my NM died recently, for almost a whole day I laid in bed and cried and cried and said "I want my Mom" over and over again.  I think what my inner child was actually saying was I wanted a loving mother.  It was quite primal and something I needed to let out but it came as quite the surprise in terms of how deep the place in me it rose up from.   

[NarcKiddo]

Kizzie-  It feels strange crying for one's mother, even when said mother is the last person one wants near.

[Bermuda]

  Very relateable.

[Kizzie]

I didn't cry like that for my F, just my NM and because I wanted a M who loved me so badly. I think F's are not nurturing in my vision of life so I and my Inner Child weren't that sad when he passed because he wasn't a potential source of love if that makes sense.

I gave up wishing my bio Mom would ever change quite a while back, but I was surprised at how my inner child still wanted and needed a mom, not the one I had but a loving, caring M. Being 67 I'm never going to have that and my NM's death brought all that was left in the dark recesses to the surface. I think (hope) my Inner Child has settled now as I feel like I let her grieve all the residual hopes and dreams for a loving M.

I don't know Bermuda, but perhaps there is an Inner Child hidden away in a deep part of you that you can't let come to the surface because you lost too much in what should have been your childhood?  I felt like what poured out of me when my NM died was of that ilk; the things I simply could not bear to acknowledge or feel until her death. It may be there will be something that brings that to the surface, young you that is, at some point.

[Blueberry]

So when my NM died recently, for almost a whole day I laid in bed and cried and cried and said "I want my Mom" over and over again.  I think what my inner child was actually saying was I wanted a loving mother.  It was quite primal and something I needed to let out but it came as quite the surprise in terms of how deep the place in me it rose up from.   

  

Some part of me is really missing a loving FOO atm, so your posts on here are quite apt for me atm.

[Kizzie]

It's a bit amazing to me that I am 67 and my inner child surfaces still.  I'm sorry you are missing a loving mother BB and I hope you can come to terms with the loss.  I really think just letting young me feel all her feelings has helped in that regard.

 

[Blueberry]

Oh I think inner children will re-surface from time to time for all our lives*, and it certainly doesn't surprise me that they do after the death of a parent, even of a neglectful or abusive one.

I'm actually missing a whole FOO atm. F gave me more nurturing than M ever did anyway. And then the more contact you cut with certain FOO mbrs, the less contact you have with other FOO mbrs who may not be abusive per se but still more on the side of abusive nuclear FOO and actually not that emotionally healthy either because the whole of FOO isn't that healthy. That's after all how my nuclear FOO got to how it is. But still FOO and there's an automatic attachment there, even if unhealthy. Besides I don't have a FOC and find friendships and keeping in contact increasingly difficult. But I'm not going back to FOO, no chance, just missing having one, or an inner child is missing them more likely.


* at least they will re-surface if we can allow them to, as in it's safe enough for us to allow them