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

 

[juna]

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

If you feel it was bad, it is bad. Everyone has different mental capacities, for some, a small thing is bad and traumatic. For others, a very big event might be small.
Age range - I would say under 15 is a kid. But even under 18 is a kid.

 

[guineapiglover8503]

My experiences haven't been overly traumatic or anything, however, I've had my fair share of betrayal and alienation. That however is partly why I'm here

 

[JustAnx]

No, and was lucky to have had two loving and caring parents. They were not big on emotional support, but they cared and took care of me.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

My childhood was fine for the most part. Lucked out on being born to a loving family and I've never suffered from any sort of traumatic events in my life.

 

[F@#$]

Anybody seen the documentary on Netflix called " hell camp"? I was sent there at when I was a kid.

 

[never]

I definitely have a good life but unlike most good things, I can't really live with good things. Most of my family gave up on trying to a build a relationship with me because I'm very unwell. I had a good education and was brought up by a single parent family but every part of it is dysfunctional because my mom is a verbally abusive alcoholic and my father was very absent in my life. Overall I grew up very privileged but no one really knew how my family actually was because my mom can hide the dysfunction very well. I'm grown but I really don't think I can last long with all the trauma I went through. I really just want out.

 

[ladylazarus4]

I grew up very privileged, loved, and as a happy child. I got suicidal/started SH pretty young (11) and I'm not sure why. Honestly, I've wondered if I was SA'd a few times because I have some symptoms of it. But I really don't think I was because memory repression isn't real. Anyways, I had friends and a supportive family but I started hating myself/being depressed too young.

 

[temporal_anchorite]

• Received a lot of disciplinary action for misbehaving all throughout K-12 school due to untreated ADHD
• Was frequently alienated from my peers due to the aforementioned behavior, but I was still able to make friends fairly easily thanks to my sense of humor and unfiltered personality
• Product of a broken home and went through 2 divorces all before the age of 12
• Got sent to juvenile detention for a week not long after the 2nd divorce
• Got expelled from my public middle school and had to enroll in a private religious school for a year because it was the only place that would take me in lol
• Never had a positive relationship with either biological parents (mother was a controlling helicopter parent, dad was neglectful and hardly present)
• Never got to properly experience high school and missed out on a lot of developmental milestones as I spent a considerable amount of time in psychiatric hospitals & a residential treatment facility during those formative years
• Had immense difficulty maintaining any sort of long-term friendship (still do) because my life was so hectic and volatile

But I wouldn't consider any of that "traumatic", certainly turbulent and adverse though.

 

[SoulWhisperer]

It's pretty much quite the reason I'm so fucked up as I didn't receive any help or support when I needed it. Now basically left alone dealing with the aftermath of trauma. Goddamn...

 

[CantDoIt]

Not really I guess I just sick rather naturally.

 

[Ligottian]

I voted yes, but 0-8 was an edenic childhood. Then things started to happen. to make it not so good.

 

[Defenestration]

I'm the opposite, I've been overprotected, way too covered...so the outside world since the end of adolescence has been too hard. we have always done everything for me, I am like a 13 year old child lost in this world without any defense (I am 37 years old)

 

[moonlightwhisper]

yeah, physical and emotional abuse from both of my parents. though, I only feel bad that my siblings, had to go through that.

 

[banger12]

My childhood was weird, gross and wrong. But at the same time idk if I'm allowed to feel bad cuz idk how much of it is just the norm. And then it's fairly common for other people to experience worse

 

[depthss]

my childhood was fine, everything around me was as good as it could be. i think i feel the way i do because i wasnt meant to be born

 

[WholeHereafter]

dysfunctional household, abuse, pediatric brain cancer. Could have been worse, could have been better.