How Not To Let Childhood Trauma Negatively Impact Our Adult Life?
I bet everyone experienced the same thing…
Have you ever been ridiculed, superiorly laughed or bullied? Do you sometimes forget these sad stories? Is there any possibility that these old memories still have a significant impact in our adult life?
After you read my personal story you would not only understand most of the people have at least suffered from one trauma in their life and also know how to solve it:))
One of my trauma and how to solve it?
Being superiorly laughed
When I was studying at elementary school, my classmate, even teachers would laughed at me. At that time, i did not understand why and why me? But in retrospect, i understand my behaviors were being considered “weird” but not “speical”,there is a huge difference, because nowadays, the word — special, usually being used as a good description of unusual, on the other hand “werid” are stereotypically bad.
They laugh about my misfortune or my misbehavior,but its not funny for me. I would feel so angry, and the angrier I am the more they enjoy.
They would say something mean to me like
“Eric you behave like a monkey, that’s so stupid”
“Eric your hair cut is so funny, with your stupid glasses, you look like a nerd”
In retrospect, some of my behaviors might invite unwanted laughter like i talk too loud or ask questions non stop. But when I was young, i didnt know whats so wrong about my likes-to-ask-question behavior. I also remember clearly that most of the teachers are laughing with classmates, they not only did not educate me about asking questions in right moment, but believe it or not, they were annoyed by me.
How does it influence my adult life?
Whenever i see people laughing, unless i know the context and clearly understand they are not talking about me, i would feel uncomfortable and think they are laughing at me. Even those complete strangers who are laughing 40 meters away, i would think they are laughing about me.
I would be very emotional, and automatically assume they laugh “at me” because I wear something bad, skin color is ugly, face is ugly, walking position is stupid, or my behavior is funny.
It’s excellent to feel emotional, but the thing is, it would ruin the rest of my day, my brain would be restless and keep replaying the “awkard memory”, making me unable to work or enjoy life.
I do understand being funny can be a good thing, after all most of the people loves to suck comedian’s dick, but for me “ umm umm”(shaking head). Me being funny, or making others laugh has become a major unpleasant thing for me.
How am i practicing to overcome it now?
Step1: Recognize emotion and feeling
For example, after i tried 4 times expressing myself in russian, Russian people laughed and say “eric could you speak russian”,then one of the student started to imitate chinese intonation(im from taiwan), then everyone laugh again.
My brain started to surge emotions, and instead of exaggerating the impact having on me, this time …
I recognized that i feel awkward, stupid, uncomfortable and very anxious.
Step2: Stay silent
The reason why staying silent is necessary is that not only we would feel our emotion is transient but also we would give our self more spaces for instant self-reflection, leading to better self-awareness.
Step3: ask ourselves “is there any possibility that it can actually be a good thing?”
By asking this, we could alter our perception of seeing the event, instead of using our default negative perspective but encourage our brain to be curious and think more positively.
In the same example, after asking myself “is there any possibilities that their laughter could mean good?”,the answer shocked me.
inner voice answered: “well maybe i entertained them, maybe even though their laughter involved some criticism towards me but at least there is a chance that laughter make them feel better and happier, because authentic laughter can be very beneficial. And since my dream is to make as much as people’s life happier and better, why is this a bad thing? is a fucking good thing! “
“It’s plausible that my negative awkwardness relieve their stress!”
And not only just this.
“maybe it’s a good chance to improve myself, since it’s hard to find people on the street to criticize my Russian skill, most of the people would give me fake compliment preventing me from feeling hurt, but these people who laugh at me, they are the brave one, they are what i want, they are the source of my improvement.
Now you think bad things has come to a good end? Trauma is gameover?
Yes indeed things are getting better, but we need to combat the root.
Final step: ask ourselves “Have i ever have similar experience as this when i was a child?” “Perhaps, there must also be some good things that i missed at that event?”
After asking myself this question, I no longer feel i am still being bullied by those who laughed at me in elementary school. Instead, I understand the reason why I perceived my classmate’s laughter as bad thing is because they are laughing at my peculiar behavior and peculiar behavior at school usually leads to punishment (I was under asian Chinese education) ,so my brain relates people’s laughter as punishment”
I also understand that we are all once a super closeminded human beings when we were kids, we almost never introspect or being courageous enough to ask “why do you laugh at me?”. We simply just shut our mouth and suffered from it.
However, through retrospection, I could not only realized that being laughed doesn't mean i would definitely get a punishment, and being a weirdo, might be special in other girls eyes. (OMG that's why girls in class likes to talk to me!!)
I even find out my peculiar behavior — asking too much “stupid” questions, turns out be a very beneficial things for self-improvement!
202010 eric(naruto) plovdiv
