Grieving Losses from Childhood Trauma
“The death of having a positive relationship with yourself is one of the worst losses.” Pete Walker
What would your life have been like if you had been lucky enough to have been raised in a family of good enough parents? Would you be in the same career or followed your passion into something else? What would your relationships be like? Your health? Friendships?
Children with secure attachment have an intrinsic sense of worthiness and trust that they belong. They laugh, play, make friends, and sleep well. They have a solid base as they grow up and move into adult life.
They know that when hard things happen, as they do to everyone, that they have someone to turn to who will have their back. When they experience failure, it does not turn into a core deficiency belief of I am a failure. Their brain and nervous system develops for connection, not survival level protection.
We learn about trauma and cultivate the capacity to be with ourselves with compassion and kindness. We look back, experience regret, and develop the capacity to stop shaming ourselves for our nervous system and brain development. We become our own friend.
Grieving is an irreplaceable tool for metabolizing and resolving what arises in our body during emotional flashbacks that bring us back to childhood feelings of fear, hopelessness and overwhelm. To heal, we need to grieve the absence of safety, attachment and the pain of our frustrated attempts to win approval that have dragged us down throughout our adult lives.
Survivors can learn to grieve themselves out of fear – the death of feeling safe.
We can learn to grieve ourselves out of shame – the death of feeling worthy.
We can learn to grieve ourselves out of depression – the death of feeling fully alive.
With sufficient grieving, we get that we were innocent and eminently loveable.
We mourn the bad luck of not being born to loving parents and find within ourselves a fierce, unshakeable self-allegiance.
We become ready, willing and able to be there for ourselves no matter what we are experiencing – internally or externally.
Resources: Pete-Walker.com Links to his books are on his website. Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving and the Tao of Fully Feeling.