Self-Image: Can Childhood Trauma Cause Someone To Believe That They Deserve To Be Treated Badly?

What someone may find, that’s if they were to reflect on their life, is that they are rarely treated well by others. Just thinking about this could make them angry and then they could feel down.

To make matters worse, this could be how their life has been for as long as they can remember, meaning that they may believe that this is just how life is. Consequently, they could believe that there is very little that they can do about it.

Totally Helpless

It could be as though other people can treat them however they want and that there is very little that they can do protect themselves. As a result of this, there is a chance that they will carry a lot of rage.

This can be something that has accumulated due to how strangers and the people in their life have treated them over the years. There may be times when they express how they feel but, in general, they could keep it to themselves.

A Closer Look

If they were to describe what takes place, then, they could say that people often cross their boundaries, put them down, ignore them and treat them like they have no value. Just thinking about what happens could fill them with rage.

There could be moments when they imagine what it would be like to get revenge and to punish those who have harmed them. Then again, they might not have much fight in them and just feel sorry for themselves.

No Choice

If they have a victim mentality, they could believe that the world is against them and wants them to suffer. Thus, in order for their life to change, what is going on ‘out there’ will need to change.

Deep down, they could have a strong need for someone to save them. With the support of someone who is strong and capable, it will give them the strength and the power to change their life.

Two Levels

Now, although experiencing life in this way is going to cause them to have a miserable existence, it could be what feels comfortable at a deeper level. On the surface, one will be against what is taking place, but at a deeper level, they can be strongly attached to what is taking place.

If they were to hear this, they could end up dismissing what has been said and say that they desperately want their life to change. The fact that experiencing life in this way makes them angry and frustrates them, for instance, can be seen as evidence that supports what they are saying.

Diving In

Nevertheless, the truth is that if being treated in this way didn’t feel comfortable at a deeper level, they wouldn’t put up with it. To accept this, they will need to connect to what is taking place in their body.

If they just focus on what is taking place in their mind, it won’t be possible for them to see what is actually going on. When it comes to why they feel comfortable with what is going on, it is likely to be thanks to what took place during their early years.

Back In Time

Many years will have passed since this time and their mind will have blocked out what took place, which is why they won’t have been able to join the dots, so to speak. If their mind didn’t have so many defences in place, defences that are in place to protect them, they would be able to see the connection.

At this stage of their life, they may have been abused and/or neglected on a weekly, if not daily, basis. This would have meant that they didn’t receive the love, nurturance and care that they needed to be able to develop in the right way.

Two Parts

In addition to this, there would have been the meaning that their undeveloped mind made out of what happened. As this was a time when they were egocentric, it would have meant that what happened was taken personally.

It was then not that their caregivers were in a bad way; it was that they were inherently bad and defective. So, now that they are an adult, the meaning that they made all those years ago will be defining how they see themselves.

Inner Child

Another way of looking at this would be to say that the child that they were will now live inside them. This child part will massively influence how they feel and what kind of behaviour they put up with.

Until this part of them realises that it doesn’t deserve to be treated badly, they will probably find that their adult self doesn’t realise it either. Once it does, they will have a felt sense of worth and no longer be a human punch bag that that just absorbs the punches that are directed at them.

Awareness

They will have gone through a lot as a child and experienced things that no child should have to experience, yet, now they will be able to heal the parts of themselves that are in a bad and to gradually transform their life. For this to take place, they may need to reach out for exte
al support.

This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.