Self-Worth: Can Childhood Trauma Cause Someone To Believe That They Are Bad?

One thing that someone may find, that’s if they are able to mentally detach from how they experience life, is that they don’t feel good about themselves. If they were to take an even closer look, they may see that they feel like a bad person.

Even so, this doesn’t mean that they have the tendency to do bad things and to mistreat others. When it comes to how they live their life, they could be someone who does a lot of good in the world.

A Mismatch

Therefore, there is going to be what is going on internally and what they do externally, with there being a massive difference. Thanks to how they usually feel and the thoughts that often run through their mind, it will be as though they are having a negative effect on the earth.

If someone in their life was to find out about this, they could struggle to believe it. Undoubtedly, the view that one has of themselves won’t have any basis in reality.

One Focus

So, as a result of how they see themselves, they are going to have a strong need to behave in the ‘right’ way and to be a ‘good’ person. This could be seen as the only way that other people will accept them and want them in their life.

It will be as if they are constantly being judged, with other people waiting for them to put a foot wrong. Naturally, it will be hard for them to just relax and to enjoy the life that they have been given.

One Area

When it comes to what one does for a living, they could have a job where they are directly helping others. This could mean that they work in the helping profession, for instance.

By having a job like this, they will probably be used to receiving positive feedback from others. But, no matter how much positive feedback they receive, there is a strong chance that it won’t really go in.

Stuck On a Treadmill

As for their personal relationships, this could be another area of their life where they are always doing things for others. Around others, they could act more like a parental figure than a friend or a partner.

Once again, as they feel so bad about themselves and unworthy, they will do far more than they need to. Not taking much in and giving so much is going to take its toll on them; they could often feel deeply frustrated and exhausted.

A Heavy Burden

Experiencing life in this way is likely to mean that they will typically lead to a miserable existence. If they were to look back on their life, they may see that they have been this way for a very long time.

Ergo, for as long as they can remember, they will have felt bad and as though they don’t deserve to exist. Based on how they see themselves, the logical conclusion would be that they have done something bad at one stage of their life.

Going Deeper

If they were to look back on their adult life, they may find that nothing comes to mind, and the same thing could take place if they were to look back on their early years. Their view of themselves, along with how they feel, is then not going to have a cause.

What this is likely to illustrate is how they see themselves is the result of the meaning that they attached to the experiences that they had as a child. This would have been a stage of their life when they were deeply wounded.

Back In Time

During this time, they may have been abused and/or neglected on a weekly, if not daily, basis. This would have been a point in time when they were egocentric and would have lacked the ability to question what was going on; meaning that they would have taken what took place personally.

It was then not that they were being treated badly because there was something wrong with their caregivers; it was that there was something inherently wrong with them. There would have been what happened and then there would have been the meaning that their mind made.

Set Up To Suffer

A time in their life that should have prepared them for the real world would have greatly undermined them. The years would have passed, causing one to lose touch with what happened.

But, while their conscious mind would have lost touch with what actually happened, the emotional wounds and the meaning that was created at this stage of their life will have continued to affect them. Feeling bad and unworthy of life would have been seen as the truth, as opposed to a natural response to a stage of their life that was incredibly traumatic.

The Truth

Ultimately, one is not a bad person and they deserve to be here; what happened at this stage of their life had nothing to do with them. For them to realise this at the core of their being, not just at an intellectual level, they will need to work through the layers of trauma that are inside them.

Simply changing what is taking place in their mind is unlikely to allow them to know this at the core of their being. This is a process and not something that will take place overnight.

Awareness

If one can relate to this, and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided by the assistance of a therapist or healer.
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For so long, they will have felt guilty and ashamed for a crime that they didn’t commit – punishing themselves for something that they themselves didn’t do. Now is the time for them to forgive themselves and to gradually move forward.