Do you think that you internalise what you're told you are as a child?

Yes, but it's never too late to tell that voice to stop being so silly/mean/down and to start telling ourselves some kind/thankful/consoling things. Today x

Yes, I think you do internalise what you are told, but even if it is positive, it has to be backed up with actions or it leaves you very confused. My parents told me all the time that I was loved, but never provided the basics - clothes, school equipment, shoes that fitted, a coat that kept out the cold, hygiene products, pocket money, even though they had pots of money. they just didn't notice that I needed anything ad for some reason I was too scared to ask and also internalised that I didn't deserve anything, didn;t deserve the basics because they'd obviously provide them, since they could, if I did deserve them.

So I was very confused. I didn't know what love was. I believed I was loved because they said it all the time, but all around me friends had clean nice clothes, pocket money, decent kit, hobbies paid for, support to acquire essential life skills, emotional and practical support and advice, and I had none of that. Nor did DSis. We fended for ourselves. It wasn't until I met DH that I learned you have to demonstrate love not just state it.

My mother had a very strange belief that children shouldn't be praised. Apparently it would make them 'big headed' and they would stop working as hard! Consequently all that came from her mother was criticism and explanation of how I'd embarrassed her by my behaviour and how ashamed of me she was.

Oh gosh, this rang so true for me. Nothing was ever good enough and I felt like a constant disappointment. My mum admitted later (quite proudly) that she did this on purpose so that I would "keep striving". It worked, I suppose, because I did and I've had a successful academic record and career but constantly haunted by feeling not good enough/ imposter syndrome/ never enough. I'm now a partner at a law firm but my parents have never ever acknowledged this, it's bizarre.

Likewise always being told "you're no oil painting" because mum thought it would make us vain to compliment our appearance beyond "neat and tidy". That backfired massively because having been convinced I was terribly ugly, once I got to teenage years and boys/ men found me attractive I found it incredibly seductive rather than taking it with a pinch of salt. Once I was out with my mum and we met one of her friends from church who said "oh your daughter is so pretty" and mum actually hissed angrily "NO SHE ISN'T!" The poor woman looked horrified and couldn't understand what she'd said wrong!

I did have some therapy a few years ago from an acquaintance doing a PhD and she really tapped into the "disappointment role" I'd been assigned. It finally made sense and I've been able to be kinder to myself though it's very hard to shake off a way of thinking I've had my whole life.

Completely. I have no doubt my mother loved me but she constantly criticised me from when I was very small. I'm not a therapist, I don't know if it lead to my awful shyness but low self esteem and lack of confidence definitely. It took until my 30s and bringing up my own children to realise what an effect things like that can have.

It is very hard to shake off the words and messages delivered in childhood. It isn't simply the things said to us by parents which imprint themselves so deeply in the psyche, it is picking up on the favouritism which infects so many families. How many people, as very young children, instinctively picked up on the hierarchies operating within the home? Who is Mummy or Daddy’s favourite, who is always scapegoated? Who is said to possess tremendous abilities because the parents wish it to be, whilst others are labeled ‘mediocre’? The ability to parent with good humour and avoiding idiotic favourites or protagonists, is a tremendous skill.

Yes.

If you say "you're a helpful person" or "you're a kind person" to a small child it sticks more than "thank you for helping".

Df always used to tell me that I gave up on things and never finished things properly. I now have a deep worry about failure, like It is always my fault because i could have done more or worked harder. Often when things go wrong it is completely out of my control but this sense of not being seen as a failure has really impacted my life.

I was going to say no but totally unbidden leapt into my mind that my dad used to jokingly call me a 'fairy elephant' when I started ballet aged about 9 or so

I probably was a little bit hefty back then too

I grew up with my mum loathing my paternal grandad. She was very careful to not say anything about him in front of me and my sister, but you could tell that she didn’t like him. This made us wary of Grandad, but he was always lovely to us. When he died I know that my mum was relieved.

Years later I asked he why she disliked him so much. She told us that as a young housewife and mum, my grandad wouldn’t let her parent us and he always knew best. He had odd habits of telling friends and family that he hadn’t seen my mum and dad for years (even though we lived two doors away and my dad went round every day).

Grandad had been a career soldier and had travelled all around the world. He ended up in the first battle of WW1, Mons. He was wounded and sent back to Blighty to recover. He rejoined his regiment and survived.

Knowing all this now, makes me sad, because I think Grandad was suffering from shell shock. I wish I hadn’t picked up on my mums ‘vibes’ because both me and my sister would have had a totally different relationship with him.

I see that. I suppose I have it too, as we didn’t have a tv when I was growing up (poverty, rather than ideology!), so it’s not a habit I’ve ever really formed, and I’m deeply suspicious of non-readers, though that in my case I think is just some unprocessed fear of what my life would have become if I’d been the non-reading child my parents wanted and left school at 15.

Absolutely. I was the smart one in the family, my cousin was the pretty and outgoing one.
Both of us have a massive chip on our shoulders about it

One of my regrets as a parent is laughing at my DS (in what was meant to be a nice way) about his choice of clothes as a child. He tended to go for crazy combinations like a stripy top and checked trousers in a different colour or similar. He's now 18, and still thinks he's rubbish at choosing clothes. It's a small thing, but I wish I'd done it differently! Hopefully I did enough of building up his self esteem in other ways (eg telling him I love him and he's awesome and I'm proud of him).

It took me a long time to realise that "not as clever as your brother" didn't mean I wasn't clever.
He's a genius. I was (am?) merely intelligent.

I still compare myself to him.

I take massive care to tell my children I'm proud of them individually.

@BlindHarbour

Laughing at this (well, ruefully), because it was the opposite in our house. No one was fluently literate apart from me, and the only books were mine, from the library, and my mother thought a child reading was ‘lazy’, ‘not normal for a child’, and would fly into rages about me not doing housework or ‘playing’. I remember to this day reading The Fellowship of the Ring in the garden

Yeah in some ways it’s a good problem to have, don’t get me wrong. And your mum’s approach is awful.

But I still carry with me a horrible reflexive snobbery about people who don’t read which I struggle with. Objectively I know not reading two books a week doesn’t make someone a bad person. But I still get a instinctive nausea and self hatred when my family watches TV or when my partner goes on his phone and it’s surprisingly hard to shift.

@CountTo10 your mother turning on you for saying Yeah- mine would do EXACTLY the same thing to me. And why did I use that tone of voice? Didn't I see how rude it was? Was I trying to make her look stupid?
She could make a telling off for that last days.

Oh yes. I was told You're too slow, you're stupid, you're lazy, you're not as pretty as your sisters, you're not unhappy you're just making it up, you're only good for cooking and cleaning, etc etc, by my parents. Mostly by my father but mother had plenty to say too.

And it stuck.

It's taken me to my 40s to stop thinking it and it still creeps in.

I think what your parents/caregivers say about other people affects you as well.

Absolutely. The good and the bad

Laughing at this (well, ruefully), because it was the opposite in our house. No one was fluently literate apart from me, and the only books were mine, from the library, and my mother thought a child reading was ‘lazy’, ‘not normal for a child’, and would fly into rages about me not doing housework or ‘playing’. I remember to this day reading The Fellowship of the Ring in the garden in the summer holidays and failing to put it away in time when my parents arrived home after a day away. Years later when I won a big international scholarship to do a postgraduate degree overseas, she told a neighbour I was ‘too lazy to get a job’.

(I mean, I know exactly where all this was coming from, but it was pretty pernicious.)

OP, you can actually unpick and challenge scripts you learned in childhood, though — it’s a lot of work, but doable with a good therapist. I’ve managed some, but still working on others.

Yes. I'm very careful not to say anything damaging to my children.

Absolutely! My mother had a very strange belief that children shouldn't be praised. Apparently it would make them 'big headed' and they would stop working as hard! Consequently all that came from her mother was criticism and explanation of how I'd embarrassed her by my behaviour and how ashamed of me she was.

Nearly 60 years later I still feel that nothing I ever do is good enough and I'm not quite good enough or I've done something wrong. I know a previous poster said that you can change the narrative but actually when it happened constantly as a child until you left home it is pretty much fixed. I was very shy as a child and I remember being about 7 at a social gathering when the mother of another child started chatting to me. I thought it had gone pretty well and was feeling quite pleased with myself that I'd managed to interact with this lady. Afterwards my mother turned on me and said how ashamed she was of me because when the lady was talking to me I said 'yeah' instead of 'yes'. I wasn't aware I'd done it but this wasn't a throwaway comment but a full rant about how embarrassed she was of my behaviour and how ashamed of me she was. Even now it makes me second guess social interactions wondering if I've done something wrong that I wasn't aware of.

Just want to say, to all of you who received negative feedback during childhood, you can change this dialogue - it's not fixed.

@PonyPatter44

Everything that wasn't based around reading books was nonsense. My mother absolutely fetishised books, and children who showed an interest in anything else (sport, art, even music) were just wrong and silly.

Are we sisters? My parents were both absolute book fetishists. Obviously encouraging an interest in books is a good thing but this was taken to extremes and had a really snobbish and judgemental undertone.

Books are great and I love reading but the absence of reading doesn’t equate to stupidity or moral turpitude.

I still to this day feel appallingly guilty and “dirty” if I watch TV ie any screen based entertainment at all. I subconsciously hate myself and think I am stupid, lacking motivation and lower class. Which is my mother’s internal voice.

My mother had a similar disdain for make up and clothes and self adornment borne out of her own insecurity about not being an “intellectual”. I hate it but find it hard to throw off.

I was told that I was too clever and was disadvantaging my brother (not so clever, but not thick either). In addition, I should stop "blowing my own trumpet" because I would make other children feel bad.

I have had extremely low self esteem my entire life, I will not do anything to put myself at an advantage at any time (and to do so, makes me feel really awkward). As a result, I have really bad self esteem and suffer from imposter syndrome - apparently, I'm quite good at my job (my colleagues back this up), but I don't feel this way at all)

Sadly yes I believe you internalise things you’re told as a child. I was told a lot about my disability that I would never be good enough compared to able bodied people. Also was told things about my appearance both good and bad by different people (the good things being that I’m beautiful, the bad being that I’m fat and ugly), also told that no one likes me by some people and sadly yes I’ve carried those beliefs around into adulthood. There’s days when I think I’m decent but days I think I’m the worst in the world. I have issues with the way I look as I pick apart and try to perfect everything and if it’s not perfect or not an overnight fix it really gets me down, I have fear of abandonment and think everyone or at least most people I love whether that’s friendly, family or romantic will abandon me, I think I’m not good enough and have to constantly fight to prove my worth.

Yes probably