The Concept Of An Inner Child... Not Really Buying It

[nimkekaa]

Now that you are an adult (or if you prefer to look at it this way - now that you are in a position of having access to more resources) you can go back and look at if you want to replace any bricks or mortar.

I love how you put this. This is exactly how I think of it when I think of my childhood. I didn't have the proper tools or materials and I now have to go back and repair parts of me that might colapes in the future because of substandard materials.

 

[Tanishq]

I think psychology has done alot of damage to alot of people.

I think so,too. :cautious:

 

[Tanishq]

But I did have a piece of myself that was scared, confused and couldn't move past that event until it healed.

I do feel this way. That some pieces within me are completly broken and need some healing.

Nimkekaa, Thanks for posting it. Those are words of help!

 

[rightkindofme]

I told my husband, a long time ago: "Most people have a picture of themselves. It is kind of set in place. When you experience trauma those become little cracks or chips in the picture but it is still mostly there. My picture got dropped. I can either scramble around on the floor frantically crying as I try to reassemble little shards of glass or I can make something different."

I don't really do "inner child" work. Instead, and I feel awkward saying this is I am reading many comprehensive child development books as my kids age. I have to deal with a lot of recurrence of my PTSD symptoms as my kids pass through each age I was when traumas happened. I have put all the pictures I have of me and my husband and my kids up on the walls of our house. I put hooks in the corners and strung string and used clothespins. Might destroy the pictures but enh. They are doing what I want them to do. I should scan them.

My husband and I are talking (not around our kids) about what happened to me (and him but his life wasn't 'traumatic' just not what he wanted). It's really interesting.

I'm not working with my inner child. But I'm understanding the scope of my life better and better. I see why I have specific really ingrained defense mechanisms: they started happening in response to my life as a two year old, three year old... I am working on forgiving myself for all the guilt I feel for being the way I am now. I should be able to "get over it" already. But the more I research the brain and how it imprints, the more I learn about stages of development... Whoa. I can forgive myself for some of my quirks.

I find that as I forgive myself for having them they lesson in intensity. I can consciously figure out different coping methods to use as substitutes. I am not good at "mindfulness" or "meditation" in the ways I hear people talk them. What I do is choose goals that will require me to deal with aspects of my personality that are struggles for me.

It's getting easier to understand why they have children do the things they do: like paint. In studying brain development I am learning how to challenge myself as an adult to develop abilities I want but don't currently have. I do it as I'm teaching my kids. It's really intense but good.

So I'm not working with my inner child--I'm working with my kids. I consciously chose to homeschool my kids because I want to figure out how to work with all of the ages and stages of childhood. I was a high school teacher. I am not sure what I will do when my kids are grown but I have some interesting ideas.

For me I spend a lot of time thinking about the fact that people are living longer and lover but we evolved to only live for short spans. If I want to have an interesting life I need to figure out how I'm going to do all the things I want to do. I may not get through the whole list but I'm working on it continually.

For me part of that is understanding what a "healthy" and "safe" childhood looks like. I'm very lucky that I have the financial privilege to have this experience without worrying about having a stable life.

So... yeah. Not really inner child work but still a lot of work. I intend to be done processing my childhood by the time they are grown. :) I have to forgive myself for needing to understand the scope of this in the proper time.

 

[rainy_daze]

Has any one experienced their inner child as a scrambled mess? Or something a bit scary? People always seem to refer to innocence and vulnerability. If I have an inner child, right now it's feeling more like a little Frankenstein monster.

When I wrote stories about my inner child, she had committed suicide and was haunting me. As if she was this ghost that followed me everywhere, and I tried to ignore her. She wouldn't leave me alone. When I drew her, she never had a face. She looked like me in terms of size/hair and so on, but she either had a blank face or I scribbled on the paper where her face should have been. This was all during the teenage years when I suppose people would have taken my creative ramblings as melodrama, but as the years go by I look back and I can see what it was all about. I used these things as outlets because I wasn't telling anyone what had happened to me.

So, yes, Hashi, I have experienced the inner child as a scary thing - in fact quite an evil thing, now that I think about it (like I said though, this was just a creative thing I would do during angry and anti-social teenage years, and not related to any therapy work). I think looking back on your life is scary when scary things have happened to you. Maybe you feel like your inner child resembles the monster because you are building the concept yourself? I feel awful for him as a character, because he was frightened and lonely, which made him go a bit mad :eek:. When you said it feels like Frankensteins monster, did you mean your inner child is angry? Plus if it is a fictional character, this maybe creates some distance for you, if that makes sense. Maybe something worth thinking about too Hashi. Or potentially something worth ignoring, as I have probably read too much into your mention of a fictional character.

 

[Hashi]

rightkindofme, everything you say sounds so healthy. I'm glad you've found this process for yourself and are using it so well.

I am working on forgiving myself for all the guilt I feel for being the way I am now.

I'm really struck by how much people are talking about forgiveness, innocence and guilt when talking about this topic. (I understand the point that innocence is not meant as the opposite of guilt but as something pure or original.)

Of course all sorts of things could be going on in my unconscious that I don't even realise, so maybe this is all equally true for me too. I'm not sure it is, much. I'm far more aware of my anger and sense of injustice, now and when I was a child. I think I have more of a tendency to externalise and blame other people and situations. This makes sense in the context of my childhood and how I coped at the time. I need to make peace with the world more than I need to make peace with myself. Not that I'm fine with myself, far from it, but my focus on what's wrong and why I am the way I am now is unrelentingly outwards, and always has been.

I'm thinking about what it means in that case if I have an "inner child"... But really I don't care what she wants and I dislike having to even think about. It takes me into all sorts of resentment about having to take care of some child I'm stuck with. I don't like children, get nothing from being with them and haven't got any patience with their demands and needs.

rightkindofme, that's why you sound so incredibly healthy to me. Just about the last thing in the world I would want to do is bother about a child's development. I know someone has to, but I don't want to. My approach is, I'll talk to people when they've grown up and until then I'm really not interested.

So I don't mind having a Child archetype because that's only about the qualities of a child which are still present in me as an adult. But an actual younger version of myself? She only ever wanted to be grown up, and I only ever want to deal with myself as a grown up, so... for me, it does seem to keep coming back to needing "her" to stay firmly in the past. I don't particularly want to look at that past self but I can. Seeing anything of that as still part of my current self... I really don't think so.

 

[Hashi]

I have probably read too much into your mention of a fictional character

No, you're spot on. It works well for me to use metaphors and part of that is the distance it gives.

I feel awful for him as a character, because he was frightened and lonely, which made him go a bit mad. When you said it feels like Frankensteins monster, did you mean your inner child is angry?

I have experienced the inner child as a scary thing - in fact quite an evil thing,

Thank you for sharing what you did. In fact, I think you did talk about this teenage experience earlier in the thread and I was struck by it then, but a combination of having to be careful about reading this thread because this is quite volatile for me, and general mush-for-brains meant I didn't make the connection.

I think what you express is maybe the closest to how I feel. If I think of myself when I was a child, there's a demonic feeling. Like, there was so much evil around me that I was responding with a similar sort of force. That would be my idea of childlike "innocence" - not knowing what I was doing when I was trying to defend my mind/psyche.

Yes, I was angry and like Frankenstein's monster that probably started from the unexpressed loneliness and hurt. So, my image is of a child who was accessing a lot of power from her rage and pain, and didn't exactly know what she was doing with it. It's lucky in this sense that the defences I developed included being very controlled and dissociating at will, or I think I would have done something really serious as a child, like harming other people.

As an adult once, someone groped me in the street and my reaction was literally one of murderous rage. I went completely out of control, trying to kill him. Thankfully, he got away. I think I'd actually have done it, which terrified me afterwards. This was before coming out of denial and recovering new memories. Now, this is the energy I see in myself as a child.

Maybe you feel like your inner child resembles the monster because you are building the concept yourself?

Interesting. And/or that I had to construct myself to some extent at the time. So I did feel like Frankenstein's monster trying to work out how to act like other people, without having learnt that naturally.

Thank you, rainy_daze. This was really helpful.

 

[rightkindofme]

I sincerely dislike other peoples kids. I don't have much patience. I have patience for these two people specifically because I am invested in who they will become. Past that I don't think I could bother.

I need to forgive myself for being irritable and bitchy and for having a hair trigger. Those are the things I feel guilt for in the present tense. I'm on edge--you know about that. I feel really guilty that I take my bad temper out on people who have never hurt me just because they have the misfortune to be standing near me now instead of the people who actually hurt me.

 

[Abstract]

It sounds like looking at all of this is disregulating so I am glad that you are taking yout time with it.

I think my experiences are opposite to yours in some ways. There are things I relate to but in childhood I internalised everything. Mostly others were blameless and I was what was wrong. I also had no conscious awareness or connection to anger let alone rage. The lack of that put me in unfortunate situations. I had no boundaries. My concept of others was a fantasy.

It seems from what you are saying that any attempt to connect to the concept of your past child self comes with memories or possible re experiencing of that rage and blame. Or is something else happening?

This may have the opposite effect from that intended but have you thought that that child is innocent in its rageful state? I realise the word "innocent" is a tricky one but maybe in this context it means understandable and automatic.

You refer to Frankenstein's monster. For me initially that brings to mind something frightening and not quite human. On second examination though I rather think of pain and loneliness and not quite fitting in the world. Of being made up of disconnected parts.

The other question that occurred to me is if you have judgement of that rage or if it is rather that you fear it. Or something else entirely different. What feelings do you have towards your rageful and judging younger self? What feelings come up when you start thinking of this Frankenstein self and what is aimed at it? Is it fear, rage, pity, disgust, shame, sadness, vulnerability, understanding, acceptance? What comes to mind?

Also what is it that you dislike about children in general? I think looking at that may give you clues to what is happening with your feelings towards you as a child.

For some it can be that they signify need. And control probably plays a role too. Not because all children are needy or out of control but rather that they developmentally require outside help to survive and that control often plays a role in survival. Even when they don't get or manage these.

The rejection of having needs can be the core of many things for us as adults when it comes to relationships, sleep, food, exercise, health and even work. It can be hard to have a stable relationship when we have had long experience that needing anything leaves one at risk. Sometimes fierce autonomy and independence can be partially founded in this stuff. I have no sense if how this does or does not play out in your life for you but do think its worth considering when there is an aversion to children.

Looking at the concept of needs or what one did not get can feel like opening pandoras box as one then has to let into ones consciousness that they may exist and have existed and that can lead to feelings of frightening vulnerability.

Needing to be strong, independent and separate can be a way of rejecting that entire side of human experiencing.

There is a lot of the above that strongly relates to my own personal experiences.

It may not be a suitable path for you or helpful but in the last two years I have worked on accepting needing help or support. Before that it seems I could not even say that to a therapist. And clinginess fills me with horror.

I hope these concepts are not too directly connected to what you find difficult about this subject.

 

[I Can Do This]

This is a fantastic thread!!! So many fantastic insights - I think I can add an element that hasn't been discussed yet.

I think what is missing in much of our understanding about the inner child is understanding how the brain works. I love reading about the brain because it unlocks the mystery for me so here is my take on it.

We have three "brains" - first the reptilian brain which is called that because it is the oldest part of our brain that we share with reptiles. It's purpose is to perform all the automatic functions like breathing and heart beat to keep us alive. It's function throughout our life is to keep us alive and to multiply.

Then we have the limibic system - which is where are emotions come from. The stronger our emotions are, the more likely we are to remember events. This is so that we learn not to eat poison berries again. We cannot remember events very well without emotions attached to them. Emotions are chemicals or energy moving through our body and signal us to run, fight or multiply. Many of our emotions feel exactly the same in our bodies - it is our conscious mind that separates their meaning. One book says when we meet anyone this part of our brain only wants to know if we should, fight, flee, freeze, have sex, nurture them, or be nurtured by them. If they aren't in those categories - we typically are not that interested!

Then there is the Neocortex - which is our reasoning mind and this is where our idea of "me" lives. It is the newest part of the brain that separates us from animals. It wraps around and sits on top of the primitive brain.

When we are born, our reptilian brain and limbic system (together are the subconscious) are what we mostly use. We use the same method of crying to get all of our needs met. Our subconcious mind then records that the one who meets our needs loves us. This part of our brain continues to record all the events of our life and it places importance on how safe we feel, and how unsafe we feel. When we do not get our needs met we feel unsafe - this translates as danger to this part of our mind, we think we will die. Because that is what this part of our brain is for - to keep us alive, and to multiply.

This part of our brain records everything up until the age of 7 - then the neocortex is the focus in our development. So the subconscious mind cannot grow older than 7 years old. It never matures, it does not reason - it only experiences and compares! So each time we suffered because our needs were not met - this always translated to "I might die". The only tools this part of our brain has to protect us from danger are freeze, fight or flight. So this is when we develop our coping methods that stick with us for the rest of our life as an automatic (subconscious) habit. So what we experienced as a child - when our brain finds a current day match to it - we act as we did then. But when we have experiences that are dangerous but do not match up to our past - we act as reasoning adults using their neocortex - not the subconscious knee jerk actions.

This part of our brain continues to look out upon our environment - which it can only hazily understand through our 5 senses - not through our reasoning mind. When it finds a symbol that matches up with the past it quickly determines if we were in danger then, or if we were safe. A smell may trigger us, a sound or tone of voice, a particular image - etc. So if it finds a match to a past experience that was unsafe - it automatically goes into freeze, fight or flight. There is no communication with our reasoning mind - so we often do not know what just happened and I think this is the source of our flashbacks. It found a match and it intrudes on today because our brain is on high alert to its perception of life threatening danger. It is sending chemicals, which are emotions, all over our body so we can react - our neocortex can only make up stories to try to find meaning because it has no access to that information from the subconscious. So anytime you spend in therapy trying to understand things can truly be a waste for this reason - your neocortex does not know.

So you have the overwhelming experience of your subconscious mind finding danger - and your reasoning mind having no idea why. The greater the emotions that were attached to the event, the greater the flooding will be in your body.

So where your inner child comes in is because the subconscious is always you and your life experiences before the age of 7. What we sense as life threatening danger can be as simple as sitting in poopy diapers, or having a parent that doesn't listen to us making us feel that we are not loved. Of course, for PTSD to occur there had to be more serious experiences than these, but for everyone, these simple moments of not having our needs met hurt us emotionally because that is the part of our brain that is developing and in charge of our existence.

So when we see people triggered, who then act like children - we can understand more easily why. That part of our brain is a child - its coping methods are limited and simplistic. Run from danger, fight to save yourself, or freeze so they think you are already dead.

When we have traumas later in life - it still connects to your childhood because the meanings were first made then. For instance, a child that was neglected and felt unloved who later in adulthood ends up divorced may find this an earth shattering crisis because it triggers the meanings that the brain attached to it in childhood - if I am not loved and cared for I will die. Another person that had solid parenting and felt loved and secure ends up divorced in adulthood and it does not trigger them into those particular intense feelings. These are very basic examples.

So our inner child is our subconscious mind in many respects. And this is why we do not have to remember events to heal from them. The emotions we feel are what is important and are the clue that something happened and needs to be fully processed. We can do that without knowing the event because our emotions are our traumas.

I hope this made sense.

 

[Hashi]

This is a fantastic thread!!! So many fantastic insights

Yes it is, and there are. There's something weird about this thread for me (in a good way). I don't know what I expected, but I certainly didn't expect so many responses and that every single one of them would be so deep! I can't say how much I appreciate everyone for posting here. Even if I don't personally relate to what someone has said, I understand it, they've said it in a way that I could never have understood anywhere else, and the very fact that I don't relate to it is clarifying things for me. Hopefully, it's helpful to others too. I think it's amazing.

Abstract and I Can Do This, you have said some v.e.r.y. interesting things, as have other people here. Will ponder, take it carefully and come back to you. (I'm still working through backwards!)

 

[I Can Do This]

Thank you for the feedback Hashi - I appreciate knowing that it is intriguing to you. Pondering is an excellent use of time IMO!

I agree - some very deep insights that are too many to quote! I am new to this site and am so glad to have found it. My impression is that I have found a group of people that are seeking answers and want to heal - and I think that depth of character is reflected in the postings and by the lack of critical appraisals. So - thank you enormously to you all! My therapist says it is always better to heal in community - and this is a very safe place to do it.

And lastly, I have read that our wounds become our message and our trophy ( as in the crucifixion) and our gift t the world - I have finally come to the place where I can see it is true. I never thought that an emotional problem would lead me to my passion - but it has. :joyful: