It is not so much the emotions that you experience as child as much as what did you learn from them that still holds a certain degree of power over you.
Because when we are born we have no concept of our own mortality, we live like any other animals completely ignorant over the fact that we are going to be dead one day. According to the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard human beings are the only animals that are aware of the fact that one day they will die. So by nature after birth we are all in death denial.
We get exposed to the concept of death gradually through out our lives, and slowly we realize that one day we are going to die. When this happens like with all the realization of truth that has some negative implication it is uncomfortable and generally creates an existential crisis. This is why we have the tendency to stay in denial and reject the truth because this is giving us immediate comfort. It is partially the responsibility of the parents to teach the child about death. But so many of the adults today chose to deny death so how can you help someone accept his own mortality if you didn't accepted your own. If your parents had any problem accepting death they probably encourage you to deny it as well.
In the book "Denial of Death" written by Ernest Becker, he argues that because we deny death we live life in such away to avoid our anxiety of it and engage in thinks that create the illusion of immortality. This might involve: wanting to become famous, making a lot of money, religion, having a lot of sexual partners or making a great discovery. The think that all this activities have in common is that it gives the individual the impression that he is of some grater importance or he/she is going to live something behind that will outlast the person.
Equally there are people that self tranquilize to avoid their anxiety, with all kind of various distractions just to avoid asking themselves the important questions about their own nature of existence.
Either of this addictions will consume someones life the same way any addiction does. Attempting to do anything great or change the world is the worst thing you can do for your happiness. There is very little control you have over the outcome of your actions. There is no guaranty that you will be successful this is why you have to look for happiness somewhere else, some of the most bitter people i know are people who are trying to make a mark on the world. Not to say that you shouldn't have any goals or ambitions, it is in the realization that happiness doesn't comes out of great accomplishment as much the daily work.
As ones life progresses beyond infancy, he/she has to learn the first skills like talking and walking first later in life more complex skills.
The first skills you learn organically by observing the adults around you and imitate them, when you are going to learn a new skill there will be the inevitable failure, if you ever had a chance to observe a baby practicing his verbal skills.
They seem very contempt repeating simple silable without being frustrated that they are not able to pronounce full words, and everybody around the child seem to find it normal that an infant is not being able to speek fluently.
Later one when the child grows up and has to be learned skills the role of the adults plays an important role, because now the child looks at them for feedback.
For example when you are in school and you draw your first letter is inevitable not going to be perfect you will make a couple of mistake. Only that now you have a teacher that comes and tells you that it is wrong and eventually he punishes natural normal consequences of practicing a skill.
So the child receives negative feedback for normal behavior, this could eventually lead the child that there is something wrong with them, and make him avoid all failure. Which long term will create incompetence.
Some of us are very unlucky and ended up with violent parents and families. Statistically approximately 80% of parents physically abuse their children and call it education. Regardless that you suffered from physical or emotional abuse it is equally damaging, just because it dosen't live a physical mark it doesn't mean it is not violence.
If you are an adult and you are in a relationship with an abusive person you can live at any point because you can be independent, it might be hard or you might have psychological problems like Stockholm Syndrome, but there is nothing physically that is stooping you.
A child is dependent on the adults around them, he or she doesn't has the skills to be self sufficient, the option of living is not available. Your own survival depends on how much the adults around you like you and take care of you. Because of that it is a matter of life and death to be liked by adults, so not only you have to tolerate the abuse because you can't live but you have to justify it to yourself as not being violence, because that love is necessary for your survival and security.
So you refuse to accept that violence exist or that you are the victim of it. It is only after the child grows up and is capable to care of himself that he finally stands up to his parents. Generally this happens during the teenage years.
Unfortunately by that time the damage is substantial, the relationships you have with your parents become patterns you replicate in your life. If you had an abusive relationship with your parents you are more likely to have abusive dysfunctional relationships as an adult.
Facing adversity in life is a certainty, the way you were treated when you encountered adversity during childhood pretty much sets your attitude towards it today. If you grew up that were in denial about pain, there is a possibility that they might have had a hard time being around you when it happen. This creates the impression that there is something wrong with pain and adversity leading one to the conclusion that there is something wrong with encountering pain. Which makes it very hard to accept it.
Suffering any of the scenarios describes above can create havoc k in someones adult life. Unfortunately there is no exact way how someone can change or heal from abuse experience during childhood.
It seems that so many of us struggle to lose the status of abused and neglected children through out life even decades after one becomes an adult and lives the house oh his parents. Unwilling to fully accept adulthood despise that we now have an adult body.
I think that in suffering from this forms of abuse, pushes one in a state of denial about certain negative aspects of life, creating the chronic counterpart of what is being denied.
Ultimately there are only four things you can deny: pain, violence, failure and death. When we fail to accept this we act in a way that create more of the very own thing that we deny. So we end up with: agony, war, incompetence and decay.
As i started the post by telling you that is not the experience that is making you suffer today, it is what you learned during childhood that still holds power over you today. What your parents unwillingly thought you is to deny: pain, failure, violence and pain.
The mark of a mature mind is that it is able to accept the negative aspects of life.
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