Discussion Adverse childhood experiences poll

[juna]

I know everyone has a reason to be here. But how many of you had a bad childhood? I recently read a book "determined" and according to it, if we have adverse childhood experiences, we will experience depression or some mental health issue in our adult lives.

I want to see how true it is.

 

[Trav1989]

Not personally, my childhood was great, my adulthood on the other hand.....

 

[Abyssal]

Other people have worse experiences, my life looked good enough. I had good parents and all that. Still bullying fucked me up, I can't handle shit and small things bring back those memories. I can't stand that I'm the same person as back then.

 

[SixNeufUn]

Yeah sure. I would say my entire childhood . Abusive parents, often hit me, imposed things on me and never asked for my opinion, controlled all aspects of my life and even outside. Grow up with no loving parents and would really often saw them argue or heard them in my room. We never talked and never genuinely asked me if I was doing good, made all my siblings left the house leaving me alone (I still can't understand why they did that and they never talked about it. Yeah this one was very traumatizing. We could support each others from this heavy atmosphere and ended alone, the only people I would talk to where my siblings and it worsened my isolation and no phone obviously at that age so I never got news from them since they came back years later. Honestly I don't even have any ideas of how long since my parents never told me nor I kept track of it. Of course they only told me they were coming back a few days before.), spent 40% of my childhood on something I didn't like even though they knew it they never stopped until my 18s. Without surprise once I got out that place I forgot everything years of my life gone to waste, wtf it was even that difficult to understand that you can force someone to do something they don't want to! Lesson learned they stopped doing that with my younger brother seeing how I didn't give a fuck about it even tho I was there since 5-6 years old. Anyway there are too much things to say I will stop here but thats the idea (manipulation, using fear, violence, control)

 

[LunarLight]

My childhood was widely traumatic. Sexual abuse. Bullying. And much more.

 

[-nobodyknows-]

How bad is "bad"? What age range are we looking at?

 

[TAW122]

My childhood wasn't that great, I had helicopter parents (typical Asian American parents) and while on the outside (food, shelter, etc.), I may look like I have been successful, internally and emotionally, it was a wreck. I wasn't really allowed to have fun, and they were really overprotective.

It is possible that I may have still had lingering developmental issues (on top of Aspergers and other comorbidities) even into adulthood, and also lack of being a well rounded individual (though even if I grew up better socially and developmentally, I'd still have other adverse difficulties). I would say that it may have been a factor towards my eventual CTB, but my CTB especially is more grounded in existential dread, logical and rational reasoning, the face of reality of the world as is (life is full of suffering and the lack of acquiring my dreams or fantasy would be torture and I wouldn't want to live decades or agony and torment reminded of the have nots).

 

[bl00deater]

Sexual Abuse from the moment I was born, moved on to straight torture when I hit double digits, and then my mother got pregnant again. I turned into a father for my brothers, yadada yeah my childhood was bad

 

[kotonearisato]

Abuse both physical and sexual, bullying bad enough I had to change schools, not to mention my health issues beginning at an early age - years of routine fevers of 105+, migraines starting at 6, chronic pain getting worse as I grew up, etc.... childhood was definitely an awful time for me.

 

[PlannedforPeru]

I wouldn't say it was terrible, but if I described it to some, they'd probably exaggerate it (relative to environment). I'm listing these out in accordance to my unsupported and purely fictional version of an average person's standards. sounds terrible but most of the "pros" & "cons" are neutral-ish experiences for me I appreciate both as they made up the uniqueness that is my life if that makes any sense? I apologize to those if I seem to be taking the below pros for granted and minimizing the cons for those who experienced something similar.

Cons:
- SA'd a few times
- Mostly absent bio-father
- Unhealthy parental dynamics for a few years
- Didn't have pie 24/7

Pros:
- Had friends for most of my childhood
- Opportunities to indulge in my preferred hobbies
- Reasonably travelled from a young age
- Consistent material/financial stability
- Wasn't bullied

 

[Forever Sleep]

Yes, 3 close family deaths by the time I was 10. Then, grew up with a (suspected) narcissist. I was suicidal from the age of 10.

I have a feeling a large proportion of people's problems here began in childhood. I agree with you. Childhood forms who we are. Anything that affects our view on the world and ourselves at that age is bound to stick and cause problems throughout life.

 

[ForgottenAgain]

For me, everything was great until I hit 13. When I hit that age I started to get bullied at school, then my mother died, my father didn't wait long to start dating horrible women, one of them stole money from me and fled the country, another told me to my face she wished I suffered and died, then grandma died (second mother), my cat died, etc.

Childhood itself was lovely, adolescence and beyond was horrible.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

My childhood was shitty as it was filled with bullying and parental abuse but, honestly, adulthood has been significantly worse for me in comparison. That isn't to say that my childhood was great as it wasn't but I'd prefer childhood over adulthood any day