Your Childhood is Not an Alibi

A lot of people have become very good at naming what happened to them during their childhood. They can identify emotional neglect, manipulation, parentification, and the habit of watching every face in a room before deciding its safe to speak. The language has given people a way to understand experience that they once thought was their fault. But it’s also made it easier to explain harmful behavior without needing to change it.

Someone may go silent during an argument because speaking up in childhood made things much worse. Someone else may attempt to control every detail because uncertainty once meant danger. Criticism can bring back the feeling of panic around being mocked, humiliated or punished for making any mistakes. It makes absolute sense why these reactions would have developed. The larger question is what happens when the people in your life are expected to tolerate it.

Not speaking to anyone for a few days may feel like the only way you know how to calm yourself, but your partner may experience this as punishment. You may believe that you are simply asking questions because betrayal has made you incredibly cautious. The person being asked may feel watched and accused. You may hear concern in someone’s voice as criticism and lash out in anger. Then the people around you may start to fear bringing anything up. Your history is valid but it doesn’t change what the people around you are living through.

People can be comfortable talking about the harm done to them and much less comfortable hearing that they have caused harm themselves. The second conversation can feel like a denial of the first. They begin explaining what their parents were like, how frightened they were, or why they reacted the way they did. Before long, the person who was hurt is listening to the childhood story of the person who hurt them.

Children learn relationships by living inside of them. They notice who is allowed to be angry and who has to apologize. They learn whether love can disappear when someone says no. They watch one parent use silence to control the house or turn every disagreement into an argument where only one person gets to speak. These situations can become so familiar that a person recognizes them immediately in a parent and misses them entirely in themselves.

Someone may resent their mother who used guilt while making the entire family feel responsible for their moods. A person who grew up unheard may interrupt a conversation whenever another person's account threatens their own. Someone who waited years for an apology may become well versed at explaining and poor at apologizing. It can be difficult to recognize yourself in those moments because most people have spent years promising themselves they would never become like the person who hurt them.

Intentions can make that a lot easier to dismiss. You recognize that you’re frightened beneath the anger. You know the questions you’re asking are coming from a fear of being left. You are aware that the silence began because you felt overwhelmed. The person on the receiving end does not have access to everything that is happening inside you. They know that you shouted, accused them, disappeared, or made them responsible for restoring the peace.

Trauma can put someone on high alert. They may look for any sign that they could be harmed, while leaving them unable to notice the effect that they are having on other people. Once fear takes over, the intensity of the reaction can begin to feel like proof that it was justified.

The language of therapy can feel useful, but it can also provide cover. A person calls their anger a trauma response and expects that to be ok. They describe cutting someone off without explanation as protecting their peace. They decide another person is unsafe because that person asked a question they did not want to answer. The words may be accurate in certain circumstances, which makes them especially useful when someone wants to avoid looking more closely at their own behavior.

Knowing that something is a trauma response can tell you where it may have started. That does not mean that everyone around you must accept it. A boundary is what you do to take care of yourself. It does not allow you to control another person, frighten them, or punish them until they behave the way you want. Calling something self-protection does not dismiss the fact that it is also causing other people harm.

Knowing why you withdraw, rage, accuse, or cling does not mean the pattern has changed. You can describe your attachment style, your triggers, and the behavior of your parents perfectly while the people close to you continue learning how to manage your reactions.

Taking responsibility means listening to what the other person is telling you. It also means apologizing without explaining your childhood. It may mean catching the moment shame takes over and you start insisting that you are a terrible person. You may think this looks like remorse, but more often than not, it leaves the hurt person comforting you and leaves very little room for what happened to them.

You don’t have to hate yourself for carrying something forward. Most of these behaviors were learned before you had any agency and shame usually makes people more defensive. What matters most is whether you can catch the pattern sooner and respond differently. So that the people around you stop preparing for the old reaction.

This work can feel really unfair. The parent that taught you those patterns may never examine their own behavior. You may have to learn how to stay in difficult conversations when no one ever showed you how. You’ll also have to learn to become careful with other people's fears after spending a majority of your own life wishing someone had been careful with yours.

A child is never responsible for their parent's rage, neglect, addiction, or need for control. That responsibility will always belong to the adult. Even if the adult has their own painful childhood. Growing older does not dismiss what has happened or make it anymore acceptable but it does mean taking ownership.

You can understand how your parent became the person they are and still hold them accountable for what they did. And the people close to you are allowed to do the same.

photo by Brett Jordan from Unsplash