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Learning to Trust Yourself After Childhood Trauma · Breaking Our Borders

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, this is the Breaking Our Borders Podcast, and I'm Dr.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Michelle Border.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: In today's episode, I'm going to discuss learning to trust yourself after experiencing childhood trauma.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Abuse and neglect can cause mistrust of our thoughts and beliefs due to survival behaviors as a child.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Behaviors that helped us cope as children can cause us to struggle with confidence as adults.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Today I will discuss what happened to make us struggle with trust and confidence, and what we can do to change those beliefs.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get started talking about all of that right now.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Our parents may have said or done things that caused us to believe we were not good enough, broken, unlovable, a burden, or just plain bad.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us had our feelings dismissed, our experiences denied, or our decisions constantly criticized.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: We were treated so badly that a mental border was created that makes us not trust our thoughts, opinions, or behaviors, especially about ourselves.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: This lack of trust can follow us into adulthood and lead to negative beliefs that we don't question whether they are healthy or not.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever found yourself questioning your own judgment?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you make a decision and then you second guess yourself.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you feel hurt by something someone says, but instead of acknowledging your feelings, you wonder whether you're just being too sensitive.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps you find yourself asking other people what you should do because you don't trust yourself to make the right choice.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you can relate to any of these experiences, you're not alone.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: For those of us who experience childhood trauma, learning to trust ourselves can be one of the most difficult parts of healing.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Children interpret experiences as evidence of who we are.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: If a child is not protected, they may develop beliefs they are not worth protecting.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: If their thoughts and feelings are dismissed, they may learn that their feelings don't matter.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: If their actions and words were constantly criticized, then they may believe they are not good enough to be valued.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: If the child learned to keep the adults happy to stay safe, then they may develop beliefs that their needs are less important than others.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if a child lives in an unpredictable and chaotic environment, then they may believe that the world is not safe and they can't trust their own judgments.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: During childhood, if your thoughts and feelings were dismissed, denied, or constantly criticized, you may have learned not to trust what you thought or felt.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Our parents' influence helps us develop our identity.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: If we are overly criticized or dismissed, we will learn that we are not right or good.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: If our parents, the people we depend on for love, protection, and guidance, think we are bad or always wrong, then as a child, we can believe that we must be.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So when we have thoughts of I can do this, I'm good at that, or I want to try something new, then the doubts will creep in from our parents' influence, and we will push those ideas about ourselves away.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: We may develop low self-esteem and lack confidence in ourselves.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: We may learn to look to other people to tell us what is right, what is wrong, and even how we should feel.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Over time, we can lose touch with our own inner voice.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Some trauma survivors become people pleasers, constantly seeking reassurance or depend on other people's opinions to make decisions because they have learned to trust someone else's opinion more than their own.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Our parents are our biggest influence during childhood, and it is normal to believe what our parents tell or teach us.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: We learn to trust all that they tell us, including what they tell us about ourselves.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: From this, we may learn we need to trust others' thoughts and opinions because ours aren't right.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Trauma survivors often develop feelings of shame.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: They were made to believe they are a terrible person, worthless and a burden.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: They are shown that they are the cause of unhappiness, the reason for anger, and the one who produces disappointment.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Being bombarded with such negative opinions can cause us to feel ashamed that we are so bad.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: We may wish we weren't so awful, but our parents' words and actions told us this is all true.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we feel shame about who we are.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: All of this criticism through our childhood can develop low self-esteem, low self-worth, and lack of confidence in ourselves.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: If we have thoughts of being good, talented, or able to complete a task, we may reject those feelings due to self-doubt.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thoughts like, why would I even try that?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: My parents told me I'm terrible at everything, so I will fail at that too.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: We may also develop an inner critic that uses harsh words and tells us what our parents did.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Things like, you idiot, why did you do that?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: You mess everything up.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: All of these negative thoughts and beliefs were forced upon us by our parents.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: The negative messages we received from our parents may have become beliefs we carried into adulthood.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: We learned to believe their opinions about us because, as children, we depended on them to help us understand the world and ourselves.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: But their words and actions do not divine our identity or determine our worth.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: As adults, we can begin to recognize that the things we were taught to believe about ourselves may not be true.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: To survive the trauma as a child, we learn to believe our parents, trust their opinions, and support their thoughts about us.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: However, this is not the truth of our identity, and as adults, we no longer need to use those behaviors to survive.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: As adults, we can separate our identity from surviving.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: To begin building self-trust within yourself, you need to start changing your perception of yourself that was built during childhood.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: This might be hard to do at first and will probably feel uncomfortable.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Your identity was built long ago, so changing thoughts you have lived with for a long time can feel strange.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Be patient with yourself.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever thoughts were imposed on you as a child, your new reality needs to be that you are a good person.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: You are worthy of love and acceptance.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: You are smart and capable, and that your feelings matter.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: As you start to believe these things about yourself, your behaviors and relationships will change for the better.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Your feelings are worth listening to, even when they are uncomfortable or confusing.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to dismiss your feelings simply because someone else disagrees with you.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to yourself and evaluate what is happening with compassion.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: As adults, we have the opportunity to believe what we want about ourselves and create the identity we want.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: We can decide that we are good at making decisions, and it's okay to make decisions about things we want.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: That we deserve relationships where we feel safe and protected.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to feel guilty for creating boundaries so that others can't abuse or manipulate us.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: We can decide we will trust our feelings.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: We can decide that when we experience disappointment, uncertainty, or mistakes, that we will approach it with compassion for ourselves and work through the situation to find a positive solution that respects our wants and needs.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we can decide that we are allowed to want what we want, feel what we feel, and search for a way to have our needs met.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: For some of us, that list is scary, feels kind of selfish and a little uncomfortable.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thoughts come up like, but if I'm only thinking about myself, that means I'm selfish and I don't want to be like that.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thinking about our own wants and needs doesn't mean we don't ever consider other people's.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: We need to learn that our needs matter too.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: We can care about other people without constantly sacrificing our own well-being just to keep them happy.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: This can be a difficult concept for survivors because as a child, they had to put everyone else first for survival.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Letting our needs become a priority and learning to trust our reactions to our needs means we are relearning something differently than the way it was taught to us as a child.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: The goal isn't to become self-absorbed to the point of never thinking of anyone else.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is not to instantly change your perception of yourself and start demanding everything you want and need.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the goal is to become someone who can question yourself without automatically thinking you're wrong.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is to become someone who can make a mistake without losing faith in yourself.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: To be someone who can hear a person's opinion without abandoning your own.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's someone who can feel afraid and still make a tough decision.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Self-trust develops when you begin acting in ways that support the person you're learning to believe you are.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing wrong with telling yourself that you want or don't want something, that you do or don't like something, and that you deserve respect and acceptance for those things.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: You have the right to believe that you are a good person, have positive contributions to give to others, are intelligent, and can be trusted to make good decisions about yourself.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's okay if those opinions about yourself are different than other people's.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think the first step to healing this part of our trauma and breaking down the mental border that we can't trust ourselves is to look at what childhood belief was created and then decide how we can change how we see that belief as an adult.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you have the belief that you can't trust yourself because you always get things wrong from your childhood, as an adult, look at this as, sure, I make mistakes, but I can work through those by making decisions that are right for me.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Learn something from that situation, and make adjustments so I don't make that mistake again.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can also think of an example where you have done this.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I spent too much shopping last month, so I made a budget for shopping so I don't make that mistake again.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a childhood belief that your needs don't matter, tell yourself now that they do matter, whether someone else agrees with you or not.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone's needs matter.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's okay for us to make sure our needs are met.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Think about a time when you ignored your needs to focus on someone else's.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: How can you handle a situation like that differently in the future?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to say, no, I'm too tired, or sorry, I'm busy, if you are unable to meet someone else's needs.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: An example of this is uh recently a friend asked me to go out with them.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And normally I would have said yes right away because I knew that's what my friend wanted and I wanted to make the friend happy.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: But on this day, I wasn't feeling so great.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I told them I wasn't up to it, and could we plan it another day?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: I expressed my need and my friend understood.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you have the belief that every time someone is upset with you that you have done something wrong, you need to understand that just because someone is upset, it doesn't mean that you've done something wrong.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: When someone doesn't like what we do, that doesn't automatically mean we are wrong.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: It simply means that the two are seeing the situation differently.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Think about a time when someone was upset with you for something you decided.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Were they upset about your action?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Or the fact that your action was not what they wanted you to do.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Back to my example of me telling my friend I didn't want to go out that day.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: If she had come back at me with, come on, you never want to hang out with me, you're a terrible friend.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't do anything wrong to her by expressing my need to stay home, and it was not my job to make her happy.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: In this example, the friend is upset because I didn't do what she wanted, not because I did something wrong to her.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you have the childhood belief that you can't make decisions for yourself because you're not good at making decisions, then you need to change this belief to if I don't feel confident making a decision on my own, I can ask someone I trust for advice.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: I can search for more information about what I'm deciding on, or get another perspective about the situation.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: When I was getting unhappy with my job, I considered what I could do to change that situation.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: This led me to the idea of obtaining a PhD with the plan to expand my career in education.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Almost as quickly as I had the thought to go back to college, my childhood beliefs jumped in my brain, saying, that's a ridiculous idea.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: You're not smart enough to accomplish that.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna look like an idiot when you fail and drop out.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Although those thoughts were comfortable and easy to believe, because that's what I'm used to, I knew they weren't true.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: I talked to a couple of people that I trust to help me make smart decisions about my idea.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: I listened to their thoughts about the plan, my ability to do the work involved, and the consequences of taking on such a demanding task.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: They helped me see that the beliefs of my childhood were false, and that I did have the ability and support to accomplish this goal.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't get to choose all the experiences that shaped your childhood, and you probably didn't choose the beliefs you developed to cope with those experiences.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: But now as an adult, you can begin to examine those beliefs and decide which ones no longer serve you.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can change your beliefs to support the identity you want to have, to strengthen your self-respect, and to build trust in yourself.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: This change will not be easy, quick, or a one-time switch.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: There will be times the old beliefs will come back, and this is normal.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: But it is okay to question those beliefs now.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the more you examine and recognize those beliefs, the more you will begin to build trust in the person you are today.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: You are no longer a powerless child.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can learn to be someone you can count on.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Self-trust isn't believing you will always get everything you want and get everything right.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's believing you can trust yourself to navigate what happens when you don't.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: So now it's time to put this into practice.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not enough to just say, I am not the beliefs of my childhood.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: You have to take action to prove to yourself that you are not those beliefs.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: I will put a journal prompt on my website, breakingarborders.com, that can help you think through your beliefs, suggestions of how to change those beliefs, and thoughts on how to support yourself in the future.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening today, and I hope you will join me next week for another episode about coping with childhood trauma.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, I hope you have a wonderful week.