Daughter’s Childhood

Watermeadow
With the best will in the world, things still go wrong, don’t beat yourself up about it.
There can’t be many of us here, who haven’t made mistakes.

My daughter said that she won’t discuss this and I respect that.
There was nowhere to ask for advice back then, we all did the best we could and of course made mistakes.
When I tried to shield the bullied child I was accused of favouritism and it only got worse. I know jealousy was the root cause and there was absolutely no reason for jealousy.

M0nica

I too am with Humbertbear's last sentence. Unless you have a childhood of unremitting dreadfulness. Grow up and deal with it.

Look at the lives of the children who survived the the WW2 concentration and extermination camps in Germany, can you think of an experience, other than gross sexual abuse that compares with that? Yet so many have led normal lives, built happy families, had successful careers. I am sure those horrors never left them, but many never even told their children about them.

I think all of us can conjure a quite accurate misery childhood, if we concentrate on the downside and forget about everything that was good.

Excellent post.

No one, so far as I can see is dismissing anxiety or depression or advising people to just shake it off

I'm just starting to see glimpses of the social media culture with my GC Sara1954 and I agree that girls (and maybe boys, but I'm not sure) need to be very self confident and content in their own skins to rise above it. The pressure to "fit" into an almost impossible "template of coolness" seems to get exponentially greater, the older they get, and seems to be starting before they've even left junior school. Physical playground bullying has almost become "old hat" now that the psychological bullying, by doxxing, stalking, cancelling can be done via social media 24/7/365.

paddyann the way I look at it is, everyone has their 10 on the 1 to 10 scale.

10 being the worst thing they have experienced.

However their life is, if they usually run at a 1 or a 2 then suddenly there is a 10, then that is going to have an impact.

If we tell people that they should be measuring what they are dealing with against others rather than how a problem actually feels to them, that may prevent them seeking help.

So many suicides come out of the blue from individuals who looked happy and fine and that is a clear indication that people are hiding their pain.

If that pain is hidden because they don't think their feelings would be seen as valid on some sort of scale or because they don't want to impact others, then we are failing them as a society

Paddyann
Well we have a whole different set of problems for our grandchildren to contend with, I’m really happy I’m not growing up now.

I have six grandchildren, the twelve and thirteen year old girls are obsessed with social media, I know I’m getting old, but what I see horrifies me, the language,
The pressure to look gorgeous, to wear the right brands, to be cool all the time.

That’s bad enough, but if things go bad, if people turn against you, or ridicule you, then life becomes intolerable.

I think the TikTok/Love island/Kardashian’s culture is doing damage to our young people, and parents are pretty much powerless to prevent it.

I hope my girls are strong enough to deal with it, but I do predict mental health problems ahead for many.

M0nica

I am referring to sadness, stress etc, not those who need professional intervention.

As I said, no one has a perfect childhood, we all need to learn to deal with the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune'. We may all have a moan now and again, but blaming everything that goes wrong in your life on a less than perfect childhood, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Well alternatively I would say that, facing up to the fact that things that happened in childhood has caused problems in adulthood is just being honest.

If a childhood creates a depressed or anxious adult then that does impact every aspect of adult life.

Saying so to the people involved in that childhood is an opportunity for them to acknowledge their part in that and to validate it.. which actually makes it easier to heal (even if not doing so doesn't prevent healing) and can help mend that relationship

M0nica

I have never said
expect people to just put it behind them and get on with life

What I have said, is that people should face the problems they had as children and deal with them. It may be therapy or any other action that most suits them. I would never suggest someone turns their back on their problems and pretends they never happened. Repression is the route to unhappiness. But so is wallowing in one's problems.

Thank you for clarifying

Why dont we just turn the clock back to when my late mother had mental health problems? She was told to start smoking to calm her "nerves" when she had postnatal depression and she was advised to have a sherry every day at mid day .
Luckily she never developed a taste for alcohol but the cigarettes certainly caused her major health problems later in life .
Nowadays my lovely GD has mental health issues centred around her mothers ill health and the pandemic ,,thankfully nobody has told her to give her self a shake and get on with life .....one of her friends,just 14 years old,committed suicide because of similar worries last year ,
Was she just dwelling on her problems ?
Should their less than perfect childhoods be dismissed because children went through worse times in some peoples view,during WW11?
These days mental health issues are looked at very differently from when my mother was young ...or even when I was ,everyone deserves to be treated with respect and compassion however "small" people like you think the problem is .
I watched a programme recently about the affect constant "teasing" has on young women and the ever increasing demand for cosmetic surgery by girls as young as 12 because of it,some folks idea of teasing is others mental torture .Maybe you could attempt to move into the 21st century WW11 was a very long time ago and is of no relevance to most of us

I am referring to sadness, stress etc, not those who need professional intervention.

As I said, no one has a perfect childhood, we all need to learn to deal with the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune'. We may all have a moan now and again, but blaming everything that goes wrong in your life on a less than perfect childhood, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

M0nica

I have never said
expect people to just put it behind them and get on with life

What I have said, is that people should face the problems they had as children and deal with them. It may be therapy or any other action that most suits them. I would never suggest someone turns their back on their problems and pretends they never happened. Repression is the route to unhappiness. But so is wallowing in one's problems.

Exactly so MOnica

It’s a positive that mental health problems are less likely to be seen as shameful. I don’t find it positive when feelings are labelled m.h problems. I’m referring to sadness, stress etc not psychosis, clinical depression/anxiety.

I have never said
expect people to just put it behind them and get on with life

What I have said, is that people should face the problems they had as children and deal with them. It may be therapy or any other action that most suits them. I would never suggest someone turns their back on their problems and pretends they never happened. Repression is the route to unhappiness. But so is wallowing in one's problems.

I think Monica is mostly correct, but I’m very aware you don’t need to be abused to have an unhappy childhood.
The most horrible and vile things happen to some poor children, from which they may never recover.
For some of us, there was no abuse, but still not a happy home.
The two things are incomparable.
I think it’s best to either as I have done, walk away from it, or just rub along the best you can with your family,
I have never considered therapy, I would find it really self indulgent, but if you feel you might benefit from it, you probably owe it to yourself to give it a go.

Monica I would offer an alternative

Those who suffer from "gross abuse" can seek help heal and move on...

So why shouldn't anyone who has any kind of unhappiness do the same and access the right level of help and support to heal.

If we accept a certain level of difficulty and expect people to just put it behind them and get on with life we accept that as normal.

Which means that not only do people not heal from it they're more likely to repeat it themselves because "normal".

Which means those that get way with it because "normal" might sometimes decide they enjoy it and cross your line in the sand into " gross abuse"

That sounds terrible to me

No, not patronising, and I specifically exclude those who suffered severe problems, but no one has a perfect childhood, we all have to contend with problems of some kind or another. In my case the main problem, there were others, was an embarrassing and difficult health condition that led to a lot of physical bullying in school.

But I was determined that I would never let a difficult childhood ruin my life . I faced my demons and then put them behind me and got on with my life.

As I said, when children suffer gross abuse, of course it affects them for life, but, as I said life isn't perfect for anyone, and unless we are going to be a nation of emotional cripples, most of us have got to learn to face our problems deal with them and move on.

My middle son is very quiet. He has no memory of any events before about age 10.Thinking back ,I had postnatal depression when he was about 4 and he must have had quite a rough time.His brother also bullied him and they are not close.

How patronising Monica if it was that simple there would be a lot less damaged people in the world.Sadly abuse of any kind can leave lifelong damage .
Thankfully in the 21st century it is recognised that bullying whether you think its banter or a joke can cause long lasting mental issues.Maybe you grew up in a less enlightened era when folk were told to grow up or give themselves a shake ...but those things didn't work and the problems were often kept hidden with horrible results.

I share the concerns about repressed memories and so called false memory syndrome as summarised by Violet

Sexual abuse if children is more widespread than many people are able to accept. Being aware of that shouldn’t lead a therapist to suggest that their client may have repressed memories of sexual abuse. ‘ Good therapists ‘ don’t attempt to lead or plant suggestions like that to people in immense distress and vulnerability
I hope your sister gets the help she needs icanhand

Sometimes that's the only way, pur mental health matters too and people have to choose to help themselves..

As long as we support them when they do

Thank you for answering, VioletSky. Interesting you should say good therapists don't work with repressed memories. The current therapist has suggested that my sister might have repressed memories of sexual abuse. Her mental health seems to have gone completely downhill with this particular therapist and I do wonder what is going on. However, for my own sanity, I have to try to remain distanced although not estranged.

icanhandthemback

Let me start by saying I'm not qualified in any way, I've just read a lot so whether that counts I don't know

But I would consider

Trauma
Depression
Stress
PTSD
An abusive gaslighting third party

It's simply not a syndrome

False memories do not manifest in a healthy happy person from everything I have read on the subject

This is also why (good) therapists won't have anything to do with repressed memories, they run the risk of accidentally implanting ideas into someone's head

VioletSky, I wonder what you call it when a family member has completely false memories which suit the narrative. My sister will wax lyrical about how she and I were in care...we weren't ever. She denies her child was sexually abused and yet the police came to see me about it because I witnessed behaviour with my child which made me very concerned. The police were investigating what had happened with her child and we discussed it with them. I could go on and on but it doesn't help. I accept people have different perspectives so some of her feelings are very real to her even if she seemed happy at the time but the denial of truth or outright lies are more difficult to accept.

False Memory Syndrome doesn't exist and is not recognised.

The only thing that exists is a foundation called False Memory Syndrome which was started up by parents whose daughter accused the father of sexual abuse.

They quickly gained power during to funding and support by other accused parents and despite no medical training, were able to influence court decisions on cases of sexual abuse and rape against the victim. This is terrifying for victims of abuse everywhere and opposed to feminism entirely.

Perceptions and memories may be different and ideas may even be implanted by abusive people but that is in no way a syndrome.

It truly dies frighten me that a condition that has no place in the DSM or any other literature is so widely believed in.

People can and do live in the same household and are impacted by things in different ways or sadly by hidden ways.

Refusing to listen and understand a family members pain often leads to estrangement.

The foundation itself is slowly disbanding. The UK faction still existed the last I checked but will soon be gone too, as it should be.

Humbertbear

My older sister has what we term ‘false memory syndrome. I won’t even begin to detail the imagined horrors of her childhood. I think part of growing up is letting go of your childhood and taking responsibility for yourself and the way you are. It’s easy to blame your parents/ family.

Humbertbear, the term false memory syndrome is controversial, as you probably know. My work and personal life exposed me to descriptions of childhoods that aren’t borne out by others closely involved. For example 6 siblings, one of whom has memories of experiences the others either don’t remember or reject as being entirely different to their experiences of being parented in the same family

I’m assuming that your sister’s descriptions of her childhood have no resemblance to yours, or your memory of hers.
I,m familiar with the counter arguments about golden and scapegoated children. I do not dispute this happens. I’m sure though, that some people distort memories, or believe the narrative they develop to confirm their victim status. I don’t mean to cause offence to people who experienced abusive childhoods. I know too many of them to do that. But I believe we have to be open to dialogue, to listening rather than polarising,