This harmless appearance sentence is actually a powerful protection mechanism.
Some childhood injuries are difficult to heal and reappear in adulthood, sometimes even unpredictable. “”A trivial detail, a sound, a smell, a word can become a trigger that awakens in us emotions, sensations, thoughts or behaviors directly linked to this past suffering“, says Christine Calonne, a psychologist in Namur. These reactivations, often misunderstood by the person who lives them, are signals that our history continues to influence our present and invite us to take a careful look at the injuries of the past.
An injured adult during childhood often manifests excessive guilt. For example, he will apologize for everything or for nothing, or constantly believe that everything is his fault. We also observe in him a suradaptation: he will systematically comply with the desires of others, forgetting his own. This attitude is a survival strategy to avoid new suffering.
And among all the sentences that our psychologist hears, there is one that puts the chip in the ear and which often betrays a repressed trauma. This is: “It doesn’t matter, there’s worse than me.” “”This apparently harmless sentence is actually a powerful protection mechanism, a way of minimizing the intensity of your own emotions and suffering. Often, children “injured” are alone and therefore they protect themselves from the intensity of emotion by minimizing it ” underlines Christine Calonne. Other sentences, as significant, can alert the therapist like: “I am not up to par,” “I will not succeed” which reflect a lack of confidence and self -esteem, or “I do not deserve this gift/this compliment” which refers to a difficulty in accepting love and kindness. “”It is because she thus protects herself from the pain of having missed it“, Complete our expert.
To get rid of childhood trauma, the support of those around them is essential. Faced with an injured person, you have to practice active listening: encourage the person to verbalize their feelings, recognize their successes and revalue themselves. “”It is to give her all the support she did not have at the time of the trauma “summarizes the psychologist. For more in -depth work, consulting a mental health professional is highly recommended: he can help the person to stabilize emotionally, to identify the resources he has used to survive in the past, and, in a second step, to revisit and transform traumatic memories. It is not a question of “re-tapping,” but of allowing the person to reclaim their history and to free themselves from their invisible chains.
