Inner child?

I read that people talk about their inner child and I just wondered how people know there is one in there and how it feels to know it is there? For example is it something separate from you? Does it talk to you? Does it come and go? How are you aware of it? How did you discover it? And how do you work with it with T?

Thanks - Soup

Mine doesn't feel separate - I sometimes go into a place where I feel very childlike and young. At other times I can more or less function as adult and the child isn't around. When I'm feeling a lot of sadness or grief I can feel very young. When I've been rejected or hurt I'm definitely aware of the child and try to comfort myself by hugging a soft toy etc. I struggle to retain a sense of my adult when I'm totally in the child, which is frustrating for T as she wants me to 'comfort myself' during those times. My child side appeared when I met this T as there was an instant 'knowing' this T was right for the hurting and vulnerable aspects of myself.

Mine is quite separate, I sometimes feel like I have two brains. It feels like a dialogue, but it's happening in your own head. The child brain usually wants to do childish things, like buy toys, sometimes it is scared of stupidest thing you could imagine. I didn't have to discover it, it was always there, it's more like one part of me grew up, but the other one didn't. It knows when it's ok to pop up and when it's not, so I have no trouble about it and hence I don't do much about it. I guess I just learned to live with it so long ago that I don't notice it. It's who I am, and if I want to buy a lollipop and watch cartoons, well, it's my life and I can do whatever I want, don't I And if the child part is scared of something (i.e. going to the doctor), the other part promises that it will take care of everything and the child part can go hide safely until it's over. It's more or less a happy family with strictly divided jobs

We all have inner parts, depending on how well your developing yrs went will dictate how unintergrated and seperate these parts feel. My unresolved emotions from birth onwards felt very seperate for me. I'm not into naming parts that's more hollywoods take on "parts", but I can visulise the me that doesn't feel like me and try to get rid of it, kill it etc. With therapy over the yrs more inner parts of me are merging so went situations arise that use to trigger that part into a particaular reaction, its no longer there, I seem to suddenly be the adult in charge of a child situation and that feels strong and safe.

I have writtne to certain parts and talked about certain parts as if they were unwelcomely hanging around with me in therapy.

I always imagine that everyone has an inner child, mentally healthy or not. I think it's healthy to acknowledge your inner child, it's where the magic lives, and the time to play and be innocent and become immersed in happy things. Being an adult can be dreadfully dull lol

There's another side to inner child, therapy wise where you can access the young part of yourself where the hurt is stored. If that's when whatever you're in therapy for started.

Personally, i don't have parts as per split-personality or DID have (i hope i've used the correct terms) my inner child is me accessing the playful side of my personality by playing on swings, painting, playing with friends children and being silly. However in therapy i am very much aware that i have certain ages i feel underdeveloped in, like i didn't fully complete some stages and that has left me feeling younger than my chronalogical age in certain situations.

We all have many inner 'selves' ie parent/child/ critical parent/ etc etc, if there has been abuse we will have an inner protector and an abuser (that doesn't necessarily mean we go on to abuse) but that inner part will act out how it was for us when we were abused. We may find ourselves acting in ways we don't like, it is a way of defence maybe or a way of reaching out the only way we know how. With therapy it is possible to become balanced and whole so that all of these parts are in harmony with each other. I agree totally with what others are saying, it is good to be in touch with our inner child in a healthy way just as much as being adult .

As a survivor of childhood abuse I now embrace my child in a healthy and loving way and have learned how to soothe her (myself) if triggered. I hope this helps a little. Kerry xxxx

I feel I have no inner child.

I mean... I am adult. All of me. I may act childishly at times, but no use to blame that on my inner brat.

Thanks for all your posts - it's just that my T keeps talking about "her" to me and how T would like to communicate with "her" - I am like "What? Who?" I am really confused, but then this week sensed something in me, like a child talking to me that really freaked me out - is this the "inner child thing?"

I can relate to venushalley - I can be extrmely childish at times, but always think this is just being me - I get sad sometimes and think this is just being me - I can feel real hurt sometimes but thing this is just being me - so I can't quite get to a place of understanding this at the moment - Soup

The only time I am really aware of that part of me is when I'm am for some reason in the throws of PTSD symptoms. At those times my thoughts and feelings can revert to the age of my trauma. I don't consider that particularly healthy or rational at all, but it happens nonetheless. I mostly am and act and feel as the adult that I am, which I firmly believe is the healthiest and sanest place to be for me because as an adult I am much more rational and based in reality. As the adult that I am, I am perfectly capable of enjoying life, being "playful", having a certain idealism, etc., but the baggage of my early traumas doesn't take over and skew my thoughts and feelings. Much prefer to work from the "adult" me.

So is there a benefit to seeing these as two separate parts?

The only benefit I've ever seen is to recognize that the child side of me was working from a place of trauma and without the ability to see the events through the benefit of adult reason. Those perceptions and beliefs that came to me as that child were not particularly rational; they are where I went to "survive" what was happening, but I don't need to keep viewing those events as a child now. I'm not a child anymore. I have the ability to see things with more experienced, rational, reasoned eyes so that I can get unstuck from that child perspective. That child was frightened, hurt physically and emotionally, confused, self-blaming, ashamed, etc. I don't have to keep seeing things as the child did anymore.

I wonder therefore if someone is exposed to trauma as a child that is unresolved and is then exposed to further trauma as an adult how this differs from the experience of an adult exposed to trauma who did not suffer childhood abuse?

If exposed to trauma as an adult with no previous early trauma you can go back to a time of wholeness and use that as a base to go forward from. But if early childhood trauma exists there is "no before me" only feelings in disintergration which makes it harder to move forward from.

Thank-you earthmamma, this helps to explain a lot for me. Soup

The t has also talked about "her" to me and I have no clue what the t is going on about.

I just don't understand how does the inner child thing work.

They say how you need to satisfy it, yadda yadda... look, if you did not get something as a child, it suck, but there is no going back really.... Adults have different needs, even if you carry out a trauma from childhood... and I prefer to adress it from adult POV...

I was first sexually abused at age 5. What we know now about what happened to me is that at the time, I dissociated from the events and internalized the messages that my abusers gave me (and the messages that I gave to myself as a result). Many years later, as a teenager, with those same internalized messages about shame and blame and powerlessness, I was again victimized. While I was older physically, mentally and emotionally I was stuck back as that 5-year-old, ashamed and powerless, unable to react.

Early trauma, if not dealt with at that moment, leaves you scarred and more vulnerable to future abuse. If I was never abused as a child, but someone tried to abuse me now as an adult, (a) I would fight like H*ll to protect myself (and probably try to kill them) (b) I would have more rational, adult eyes more able to place the blame where it belongs (c) I would be able to ask for help quickly and willingly.

Acting as the abused child, I didn't have those options. I was literally powerless; I was ashamed and self-blaming; and, I feared asking for help because my life I was threatened. An adult who grew up experiencing and believing those things, just isn't fully equipped to deal with trauma in a healthy way.

Really? From my own experience of work in therapy I find your pov has a lot of misinformation and gaps in it.

Hey - I'm totally with you there stopdog, maybe we can crack it on here - some good responses that are getting my brains cells working / wondering.

such as?

I can understand from this how early stuff for me did go on to place me at increased risk of abuse later on - so not only does a child that has been abused process abuse experienced as an adult differently, the unresolved childhood stuff can actually place the person at greater risk and limit coping strategies to deal with it.

I feel like a light bulb has gone on - although still need to get my head round the different parts of me - I know the inner child bit has probably surfaced briefly from time to time - and actually when I think about it - I absolutely loathe having anything to do with that part of me - now to be able to have the courage to talk about this with T.

Inner child work, for me, began when I thought of my various memories and remembered how I felt, what happened, what I thought (at that time, as a child). We are all our experiences and thoughts and feelings throughout our lives; we didn't just suddenly become grown up when we passed a certain birthday?

My mother died when I was 3, was sick all my life, in fact, was already dying when I was in the womb, was having difficulties when my brother was an infant, two years before I was born. My first memory is of being lost when I was around two years old, and my father "rescuing" me. It's a very detailed memory, I can remember what I thought and felt and how I tried to "reason" my way to getting back home. The problem was I was two and didn't yet have enough reasoning power!

In a week or two I will be 61 and now I have enough reasoning power I can see/trace the problems of the 2 year old me and "fix" them to a certain extent; the two year old was "trapped" in being two and had to be rescued by an adult. Not all problems we have as children have rescuers though? Too, my father found me and took me home but that doesn't do anything for my sense of my abilities and the "trapped" feeling. When I'm on my own, I can tend to doubt my abilities, even at 61.

The work I do with my "inner child", my self as I was when I was two, is to show her the future path she takes; I'm amazed at my thinking as a two year old, smirk at some textbooks that try to figure out what children who cannot talk/express themselves well yet are thinking, what they know. I got lost because I went around a bend in the creek and couldn't find a bridge across. I know now that I was not able, as a two year old, to understand about bends in the creek. The frustration I can still feel, if I immerse myself in my two year old memories, of knowing there was a bridge and knowing what direction it was down the creek and knowing it logically wasn't/couldn't have been moved and yet knowing too, it wasn't "there" and I was helpless to resolve that discrepancy is very real, actually happened to me and can do with "fixing". It lessened a great deal the day I discussed the memory with my father and he explained about the bend in the creek, that he had found me several yards down from our house; we (my brothers and I) had walked at an angle I had been unaware of once across the bridge. By that discussion, I knew my psychology and of Piaget's work and that I was too young to understand. I could convey that to my younger self and become more "whole", connect with her and assure her that she was right! She was right to feel frustrated and anxious at not finding the bridge and it was not her fault she could not. My adult self was able to confirm my child self's feelings.

My child self memories had/have lots of incidents like that that I, as a child, did not understand. Why was I so anxious when left with my girl cousins my age who were so nice; nothing bad happened? Well, going back there with both my child memory self and my adult self, they were my stepmother's nieces and I had only known my step mother less than six months. I had spent a couple years with my father and grandmother (his mother) during my mother's illness and death and afterwards. I didn't know my stepmother very well; was she a good rescuer? Would she come back for me at their house? Who were they/their mother? I was left with virtual "strangers", despite their being called my cousins/aunt.

When I understood that, it made a lot of my behavior after that clear! As a teenager, I hated babysitting because I was alone in a stranger's house. Even today I have some trouble with babysitting my husband's grandchildren! My husband and I go together to babysit and when he goes outside to smoke, I have a bit of anxiety, being in someone else's house, alone and in charge. From work in therapy and with my younger child memories, I feel better about myself and my ability to take care of myself and my adult knowledge that a lot of my fears and anxieties about being alone don't have bad results.

I saw my therapist for two periods of about 8-10 years, with ten years between the periods. The second period I went to see her because my stepmother was getting senile and unable to care for herself (and died in 2001; I saw my therapist for the period 1996-2005). The anxiety level really ratcheted up, if she couldn't take care of herself, who would take care of "Me"? A very inner child problem/question for me and it was mostly inner child work I did for the next nine years to resolve that question.

I think of the inner child as being part of my unconscious, clothed in actual memories. You know how you dream about things that have elements that happened when you were younger? People and places appear that you recognize but were from many years ago? Dreams are unconscious and I believe many of our memories are there in our unconscious, no longer remembered. I know there were lots of "recovered" memories in my work that last 9 years of therapy. A lot of understanding about what I did remember too that had been confusing to me before.

I told my T about my memories from age 3, February 1954 (when we moved from California to Maryland through about December 1955 (my father and stepmother were married in November 1955, my mother died in July 1954)). My T's perception of what I told her? I had a hard time keeping the summers of 1954 and 1955 straight! It was a jumble to me and it came out as a jumble! My T noted that, that it sounded as confusing as it must have felt. That's where inner child work helps. As actual facts and better memories are regained, the jumble gets straightened out and "smoother".

I do not have any direct memories of my mother. I have the 2 year old memory of being lost and my father finding me (my mother was in the hospital) and I have memories of Maryland after we moved (my mother did not move with us, was air-lifted directly to Bethesda Naval Hospital where she died less than a month later) and then I have memories with my stepmother; my memories were "choppy", I had three different lives/timeline, not one. Working with my inner child and getting facts from corresponding with my father's sister, my aunt about what I didn't "know", eventually I got better connected to myself, got a single, smooth, timeline. I'm more "whole" now.

I am not sure if seeing these as two parts are helpful if you are not having any current problems with it. My little girl is a nuisance to me right now, having tantrums and such. T can get her to talk in session. Weird. I was not aware of it but T was and let me know about it. So I think it is best to explore this topic with your T. As far as working with T about this little girl I feel as if I am on a roller coaster ride and T has total control of the car. I can write with my left hand and little girl can talk. (I am right-handed) She is separate from me, yet she is me. I am learning the mind is a complicated thing.

When the t tried to describe "her" to me, all I could think was if it won't grow up, tell me how to kill it.

You all might want to read Running From Safety, by Richard Bach, the guy who wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull? It's a discussion with his inner child and, stopdog, his inner child was pissed off at his attitude and came after him with a submachine gun

http://www.amazon.com/Running-Safety.../dp/0385315287