Your childhood

April72

Well-known member
Yesterday, I was talking with a friend (an avoidant) about childhood.
Her childhood, on the contrary to mine, was horrible.
She knew soon what being an outsider meant. It's sad. Children shouldn't suffer for anything.

I, on the contrary, was a normie. Yes, I can say that there was a part of my life when I was a normal person.
The only strange thing that I can remember from my childhood is that I was very reluctant to give my grandad a kiss. He was so carefull but I wasn't able to see a man like this bc my dad was the oppossite. Distant, serious...
I have these memories fixed in my mind bc I really wanted to show my grandad carefull but I didn't daré to do it.

I'm curious to know how was your childhood.
 

PerseverareJasmine

Well-known member
I'm sorry your friend had a hard childhood. Its sad to hear about kids who don't really even have much of a chance to live out a happy childhood because of certain circumstances.

My childhood was pretty normal too like you said yours was. I felt loved as a child and cared for. My teenage years were rocky because I watched my parents' marriage crumble and eventually had to go through their divorce then I gradually felt some aspects of my relationship to my parents during my childhood start to fade as time went on, but I still feel like they love me and have my best interest in mind even when things get rough between us.
 

singing-love

Well-known member
Childhood? Hm, nope, I must have missed that part.... Mine wasn't what you would call normal, filled with abuse - physical, mental, emotional and eventually sexual. Then there was divorce and neglect and this and that. These things happen, I guess all you can do is try and be better and try not to let your past ruin your future, at least that's what I am trying to do. You can't truly help others through things if you have never experienced anything. I've been through a lot so I guess, I hope, one day i'll be able to truly help someone.
 

Metal_isthe_Answer

Well-known member
I think my childhood was semi normal for a while. I rode my bicycle with my best friend, we got into video games around 8, neither one of had too many other friends and we just became isolationists very early on. I wanted to do typical kid things like play catch with my dad, he was always too tired from work and never wanted to do anything, when he did want to spend time together sometime later I had lost my interest in spending time with him, now he's too drunk to ever do anything.
I moved to another town and we spent time together when we could. I gained a lot of weight and was harassed pretty hard for it and just generally felt pretty worthless. This town was way out in the country (as in 200 students in the entire school) and I spent most of time alone. Moved back here a few years later and was messed with less for my weight, but I started doing badly in class and failing, so I had people thinking I was "special," I felt more worthless.

I think that sums up a lot of my childhood and teenage years. I actually have a hard time remembering a lot of stuff from the past.
 

CrazyGirl

Well-known member
Things went okay up to when I was going into 7th grade, around 13 at the time. In my younger years, I had a few close friends then we just drifted apart as we got older. Then teenage years came, that was when I started to withdraw into my own bubble not letting anyone in. There were times I thought my parents would of been better off divorced. I've also had recurring dreams that my family would die in an accident so I could get adopted into another family. It was difficult getting along with my siblings. Being the oldest, I was expected to act mature like a mini-adult. Any squabbles between me and a sibling, I'd get the blame. My mom was critical of my behavior and would frequently compare us to other families. My dad was lazy. While he was physically there, he was emotionally distant. There was literally no affection shared in the home. I got treated like a "misfit" at home and everywhere else
 

planemo

Well-known member
Unfortunately my childhood set me up for my future failings. I was different. I felt it deep within me. I couldn't explain why, but I was terrified of people. I just wanted to be left alone, and I genuinely feared what the world around me, would do to me, if I had no choice to avoid it.

I was terrified of almost everything, but most especially to behave normally around people. I froze when amongst them, so I didn't speak. I couldn't do anything around them without being riddled with fear. This behaviour would later ruin my adult life.

Anyway, I lived in a dysfunctional home with my own dysfunctional mind. I got bullied at home and school, and treated like dirt, since being quiet was a great sin amongst my peers. My body started developing in ways which made me feel even more ashamed and isolated. It was just a mess, which I find myself still struggling to try and get out of.
 

Graeme1988

Hie yer hence from me heath!
Unfortunately my childhood set me up for my future failings. I was different. I felt it deep within me. I couldn't explain why, but I was terrified of people. I just wanted to be left alone, and I genuinely feared what the world around me, would do to me, if I had no choice to avoid it.

I was terrified of almost everything, but most especially to behave normally around people. I froze when amongst them, so I didn't speak. I couldn't do anything around them without being riddled with fear. This behaviour would later ruin my adult life.

Anyway, I lived in a dysfunctional home with my own dysfunctional mind. I got bullied at home and school, and treated like dirt, since being quiet was a great sin amongst my peers. My body started developing in ways which made me feel even more ashamed and isolated. It was just a mess, which I find myself still struggling to try and get out of.

Ah hud a similar experience, planemo. Scared of lots of everything, eh? Aye, I definitely relate to the whole freezing up around people an' not speakin' - ah still do, sadly. Selective mutism's a bitch.Though, ah never experience tha bullyin' at home until ma teens - which is jist whit ye need at that time in yer life, eh? Realising yer family're... arseholes.
 

NamiraWilhelm

Well-known member
Isolating and volatile, to summarize, I guess.
My father is a decent sort, but whenever he was home he would fight terribly with my mother, my mother only knows how to communicate in anger and violence. So often he would not be around (finally leaving for good when I was 11), thinking that would make for a more peaceful environment for the children, also because he had several bouts of cancer treatment that he had to recover from.
Unfortunately my mother took drugs, and her week would basically comprise of 3 days of constantly being awake and 4 days in some kind of coma. Fortunately I had my older brothers around, until they left as soon as they could understandably. But I had no one to take my to school so I often just missed it, I think I missed at least a third of each year up until things improved in year 8 or 9. That's the part I lament the most, my education. I could be so much more than I am now.
When I did go to school I was often scruffy and dirty in dirty clothes (we didn't have a functioning boiler and rather than use cold freezing water I'd just not bathe much, nor wash my hair much). I began being bullied for being poor and trampy, not that I'd had much chance to develop anything in the way of social skills! Then the bullies decided I was fat and ugly too. Oh, and I had lice for probably an entire year, since no one took care of it for me. That definitely didn't help!
One of my brothers didn't help at all though, he'd inherited my mother's volatile nature. He'd watch my mum and dad fight and mimic it with me, hitting me or calling me names, spitting on me. I think the spitting was the worst of the three! Oh he stole from me often too. Actually that's why we're no longer speaking, his stealing from me, that and because he was violent to his ex girlfriend and ickle 5ft, 8 stone me frequently had to rush into his room and wrestle him, a grown man, off of her. I understand why he's turned out like that, but I'm not going to remain in his life until he does something about his behaviour.
That lack of love of course caused me to find love elsewhere, and I had a boyfriend on and off from 13-18. He was not good to me. He was yet another bully. He'd control me, everything about me, had an awful temper and bullied me into sex/sexual acts that I was either not ready for or had no interest in doing. I still to this day have awful taste in men, which is why I'm determined to remain single until my self-image and happiness improves.

Er yeah, that was my childhood! I think that's everything... sorry to bring the mood down, for anyone having a good one!
 
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April72

Well-known member
Hey, guys, a lot of pain here!
I'm sorry a lot. As PerseverateJasmine says, a child shouldn't be mistreated or bullied. A child shouldn't suffer.
It's not strange we don't daré to explorate the world or show ourselves up it when the only we have recived from the world is that we are innapropiated, to sait it in a soft way.

Thank you very much for your replies!
 

planemo

Well-known member
Ah hud a similar experience, planemo. Scared of lots of everything, eh? Aye, I definitely relate to the whole freezing up around people an' not speakin' - ah still do, sadly. Selective mutism's a bitch.Though, ah never experience tha bullyin' at home until ma teens - which is jist whit ye need at that time in yer life, eh? Realising yer family're... arseholes.

For me the bullying at home has gotten less as I've gotten older, thankfully. One reason could be that in my late teens my relatives pretty much disowned us. "The abused always kick downwards", as they say, and I think a lot of the bullying I received was due to some in my home being bullied by my relatives. The feeling of being last in the chain and that you have no one to kick downwards to, is very disheartening. That said though, at times I did have chances to be mean back at those who were mean to me, but I just let it go since it just felt wrong.

I'm sorry you're still being ill treated by your family. It really shouldn't happen, but most often those closest to you, do you the most harm. :sad:

And to all who posted *hugs*
 
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Izzie

Active member
I was lucky to have a really loving family from my Mums side. My Dad left before I was born and was halfheartedly around sometimes. He is an alcoholic and he had a way with words twisting the truth, lying - it's hard to explain and he just wasn't 'there'. I had had enough of him by my early teens it felt cold and distant to be with him and I just couldn't listen to him anymore. When I didn't want to go over to his again he turned up unexpected and told us he was dying of cancer and only had months to live - he wasn't and is still alive. I was lucky my Mum married a lovely man when I was three. I fully class him as my Dad but I always had it in my mind that he didn't want me, that I was simply part of a package when he married my Mum.
Ever since I can remember I was quiet and hated people trying to talk to me. I hated more all the comments like 'aw she's so quiet'. I hated pre school and never spoke to anyone my Mum tried to take me to gymnastics as I was super bendy but I hated it so she stopped. I made friends at school but as we grew things got more complicated. Playing with toys less and talking more which I wasn't good at and I was always too scared to knock at friends houses in case they didn't really want me there. When I was older I had my best friend (still friends now) and others I would kind of mingle with but mostly I would try and hide - spend breaks in the loo and stuff.
 

Graeme1988

Hie yer hence from me heath!
My childhood... Well, eh, ah didnae exactly get the best start in life.

Grew up in a rundown, working-class council estate - the scheme as it's known in Scotland. Then, ma family moved into another council house closer to the centre of the wee town ah still live in.

When we moved was when things started going downhill, really. The emotional neglect, psycho-logical torment by family.

Ah mean, it was great. If ye disregard being locked outta the house on dark, cold, winter evenings as a means of punishment for misbehaving by my mum. Or just being locked outta the house, general as punishment.

Or the time one of ma sisters shoved me an' ah cracked ma chin off the TV unit - require me to get stitches. Or tha family summer holiday which end in an argument.

My cousins constantly picking on me for their own amusement.

Me being blamed for something, then overhearing my sister saying I should live with her dad (my step-father).

Being viciously bullied during much of primary school. Mainly for being disabled and an ethnic minority. Which ah think might've been the main contributing factor to me being so quiet, and rarely talkin'. Though, ah attempted to make friends by making ma fellow school mates laugh. Because ah hud f**k all else going for me an' ah didnae want go down that whole route of "take pity on the poor f**ker coz he's a spastic". Ooops! Ah mean "differently abled", tae use the patronising politically correct turn o' phrase.

Then adolescent hit, and that was me fuct! Fat, hairy; a stubbly beard an' massive, droopy tits, all by age 14.

My mum became more distant, emotional, as I enter ma early teens. Started tellin' me how much of a c*nt my dad was toward her because he was abusive towards her physically an' verbally. Thankfully, he buggered off short after ma birth. So can only take her word on that. Then the stereotypical "man-hating feminist" pish started, which has done wonder for ma self-esteem. Nuthin' beats being telt, indirectly, that yer useless. Over an' over an' over an' over again. Best joke ever...

So, being outnumber from a gender standpoint doesnae really give ye a leg to stand when it comes to arguing yer point, y'know? Kinda like Heather Mills.

Then ma dad came back into ma life to attempt to connect wi' the child he never really gave a crap about, during my mid-teens. Not exactly the best time to establish a relationship wi' an absent father but it wus'nae ma choice. He's made it, ma mum agreed it'd best for me. So ah went with it, gave it a chance but after our first meeting I said - in an epic piece of foreshadowing:

Me: "Well, this will'nae work..."
Mum: "How no'?"
Me: "He's a total % u n t. Long time, no see. Aye, funny ye should say that. Ah mean tha f**kin' nerve. Wanderin' back intae ma life actin' like ah owe him money, or summit. He owes me mair than that"
Mum: "C'mon, give 'em a chance?"
Me: "Ye mean like you did?"
Mum: "But he wants tae git tae know ya?"
Me: "Aye, sure he does. That explains tha shite joke an' tha attitude. He's hud 14 years tae get to know me - guess it was'nae worth makin' tha effort?"

Anyway, ah leave it at that. So, yeah, that's pretty much all that ah can recall of my childhood. Pretty shit, but that's how it was, for me.
 

Steiner

Well-known member
It was alright if you consider lots of loneliness and hiding inside the house all the time out of fear of other people fun. Some PTSD like traits from other things that occurred.
 
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Yesterday, I was talking with a friend (an avoidant) about childhood.
Her childhood, on the contrary to mine, was horrible.
She knew soon what being an outsider meant. It's sad. Children shouldn't suffer for anything.

I, on the contrary, was a normie. Yes, I can say that there was a part of my life when I was a normal person.
The only strange thing that I can remember from my childhood is that I was very reluctant to give my grandad a kiss. He was so carefull but I wasn't able to see a man like this bc my dad was the oppossite. Distant, serious...
I have these memories fixed in my mind bc I really wanted to show my grandad carefull but I didn't daré to do it.

I'm curious to know how was your childhood.
Is your Grandad still around, April72? Is the chance to show him affection gone now? That would be frustrating if the chance is gone. :sad:

I can relate because I wish I had a closer relationship with my Grandma (she passed away when I was a teenager) My SA got in the way though. I had a childhood with a lot of missing things. When your childhood does not have what many other kids at school have, it can knock your self-esteem to the ground.

Is there such a thing as a "normal" childhood though? :thinking:
I think every family is dysfunctional in their own unique way. I just think some are dysfunctional to a greater extent than others.
 

dannyboy65

Well-known member
My childhood was tough because of my autism (I wasn't diagnosed till I was 16). My parents and family loved me. But I had no friends (or good friends). I was bullied from kindergarten right to grade 12. I started seeing a counselor when I was in grade 2, from there I didn't stop going to counseling. When I reached my teens I got into drug abuse and hated everything. My childhood was rough but I got through it and for that I am happy.
 

theoutsider

Well-known member
My childhood was pretty normal although looking back I can see traces of my SA. For example, I had friends at school but would rarely want to hang out with friends afterwards. Sometimes I would but for the most part I was content to play games at home with my brothers. They all had after school friends who would come to the house and ask if they could come out to play but I never did. On the rare occasion that somebody did, I would tell my parents to tell them I was busy doing something else. I would go out and hang out mostly with my older brother and his friends but not with other kids my own age. I just couldn't be bothered. When somebody at school referred to me as a hermit one day, I was actually surprised but I guess that was pretty much what I was to them.
 
Like me, my childhood was complex & unfathomable.

In most ways i wasn't much different than than other kids - had a normal family, played sport, rode bicycle (& motorbike), had pets, watched tv, played computer games, went to public school, did homework, good student (a+), did outings/visiting with family (& the odd beach holiday).

But in just a few ways, i was noticeably different or wierd, and some of these were to be the "seeds" sown that would gradually & eventually lead to my "downfall" in life (resulting in the "dire" situation i now am in). Things such as being my own worst enemy (being way too negative & self-critical, forbidding self to enjoy life/people, not tending to my my true emotional needs), not able to relate/connect with people properly, having BDD, not really enjoying normal everyday things (only my obsessions, eg schoolwork), the bullying/insults/etc that regularly came my way for my whole life, not having any social life, not having "normal" loving relationship with family, having a great fear of people in general, having a number of nervous habits of the years (which never truly addressed), GAD (which may have caused my AvPD & also caused me to develop a lifestyle which was lacking in stimulation).

So now (w)here i am, 30-40 years later, the problems i face are as always complex & unfathomable, but now they seem impossible, and i can't honestly see a way through most of them. Which means i have no hope for the future .. which means for much of the time i really don't want to continue existing, but for now i must keep on enduring the ever-tightening thumb-screws in my private little torture-chamber .. so i just try to get through each day moment-by-moment, gaining brief moments of respite through the day (usually by diversions, or comfort foods). I guess my life was always going to become like this. The seeds were sown from birth. I guess there is no escaping destiny, cause-and-effect, karma, the hard "lessons" one is destined to learn in this lifetime...
 
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StandingJelly

Well-known member
Well, I got a normal family, but I found that my parents had to leave me for a long time since when I was 2 years old, which I met up with them again when I was 4. So according to some book, that had been damaging.

Then this explained how, I was always lonely and found it difficult to make friends ... even in kindergarten, primary, and when I did, I changed schools because moving homes. Into my teen years I made friends sometimes, but friends that didn't really last, and when they tried to last ... stupid me, for some reason tries to avoid everything associated that could lengthen the friendship. E.g. A new friend walking up the hallway, I turn around and take the long walk ... I just don't understand myself.

Now, I guess I have more rational thoughts, and wouldn't just avoid new friends and people. But I still couldn't really get close to people, and no comfortable friend I could be with.
 

Earthcircle

Well-known member
My childhood was not remotely normal. Relentless abuse, including abuse that even damaged my brother's brain. And the Bible was used to justify everything.
 

xsawx

Member
The more I think about it, the less and less I can actually remember from my childhood. What I do remember though was lots of yelling, screaming, domestic abuse, and don't even think about going to the store or anywhere without getting into a fight with someone at some point and telling them to **** off and storm out of the place. Everything was a just a bad scene.
 
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