Hey Couchies,
I know not everyone is into "inner child" stuff (do I hear an "ack!" from stopdog?
) and well, for me...in therapy, my T and I have been working hard on my "vulnerable child" mode (schema therapy). I found the entire article interesting -
How to Stop Neglecting and Abusing Your Inner Child
What stuck me the most is how I would never intentionally mistreat a flesh-and-blood child like how I hit myself, starve myself, cut myself.
I honestly wouldn't make a warm, attuned or nurturing parental-figure -- I failed some time ago in preventing an aunt from spanking her 3yo grandson for crying (hitting a toddler to get them to stop crying = they're just going to cry harder!)...
Quote:
You’re probably an abusive parent. Even if you don’t have children.
In each of us lives an inner child. This child isn’t just a sub-layer of our personality; it’s arguably the real us, the deepest aspect of ourselves.
Like many people, I’ve been aware of the inner child idea for some time. I thought of the concept mostly as another way of explaining our personal sensitivities or the childish behavior we all are capable of at times. But it’s not that; it’s much more.
It wasn’t until I thought of my inner child in relation to my actual children that I started to appreciate just how important it is to really take responsibility for this child. I realized, too, just how so many of us mistreat our inner child. Abuse them even. And it’s changed the way I treat myself forever.
[...]
And worst still, I have failed to tell him I love him. I have let him feel unloved, unwanted, and unworthy. Because I was continuing a pattern.
Like so many people, I had experiences early in my life that communicated to my inner child that he was not enough. For some people, this manifests as a deep-seated, almost silent belief, whispered into the ear of our inner child that says, “You are not good enough,” “You are not wanted,” or “You are not important.” Ultimately, it’s a feeling of being unlovable.
In my case, this came about from incidents of witnessing and experiencing abusive behavior at home, with my parents’ divorce when I was a five-year-old at the center of it. I later experienced a more subtle emotional neglect by my parents and had experiences with violence.
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I'm really going to try to be kinder to my "vulnerable child" part...I still hate her sometimes, and want to beat her up...but then sometimes I remember I wouldn't cut a misbehaving child as punishment, nor would I beat a difficult child in rage, so why am I doing it to me...?