Why is it that one person can have a bad childhood and come out stronger as an adult and others just continue with a shit life

[RusticRon]

I have just been thinking recently about this. And I hope I don't offend anyone and understand that I am massively generalising but I hope you understand the gist of what I'm saying.

Sadly, the fact is that there's loads of people who have had awful childhoods with neglect, trauma, abuse, crap families etc.

As adults, you can see the effects; mental and physical health problems, bad relationships, more abuse, low self esteem, substance abuse, poor choices, low confidence, self sabotage etc.

This results more often than not in poorer financial outcomes, poorer quality of life,. They have kids who don't have the best start in life as others.

Then you have the other set of people who come out stronger. They are thriving as adults. They have good relationships, good boundaries. They have healthy self esteem. They have better life outcomes. They have kids with a better start in life.

Why is it that two people with similar crap childhoods, one it's affected them negatively all their life and for the other it doesn't appear to be that way.

Is it down to personality? What is it?

and so, what? You live like a paper doll or rag doll who gets thrown around by various people because you cannot muster a bit of self control ?!

@daisychain01

For years I felt angry and hard done by but now I can see it as a silver lining in a cloud . To be fair they were good parents in some ways but I knew I was unwanted and resented and became the family scapegoat and punchbag . Joining mums net and reading other people's experiences had opened my eyes and made me realise that it wasn't me that was the problem, in fact my DM had remarked how carefree and confident I've become . Looking back I should have looked after number one at lot lot more and not cared about being seen as selfish .

Didnt have the greatest childhood but was lucky to have good grandparents. I also think I'm a bit stubborn and restless so ultimately was never going to settle for a shit life. It helps that I naturally have good english/comms skills, I can quite see how easily you could fall into the poverty trap and stay there without some breaks in life! Its really, really grinding to have to constantly drag yourself up by your boot straps.

There's some really tough stuff that people have been through on this thread. ❤️

It's really interesting to see what protective factors are involved. I might have a look at some of the books people have mentioned. Alot of you have mentioned having even just one supportive, safe adult in your life. And that really struck a chord with me as I didn't have that at all and even now I feel I have noone.

I've been thinking about my own childhood recently and my life as a whole and where I am now. I have low self esteem, low confidence. I was neglected as a child. Im pretty sure I had selective mutism which obviously wasn't treated. I hated myself. I still do. I couldn't get a job after uni after doing a HCP degree and went for low paid admin jobs which I've always done. My relationship isn't great either. Dh has been abusive. Things are better now but I don't love him. It's like a cycle I've repeated as an adult. Almost like I sought out a person who treated my like how I was as a child. Ignored, disinterested,not valued, not loved., getting shouted at for no reason. It's honestly astonished. It's as though subconsciously I chose that,but I don't know why I would.

This thread is so interesting and I appreciate everyone who has shared their stories.

Some of us have been lucky enough to survive, then do a bit of learning the lessons and healing steps.
Some of us met a good person on the way.
Some of us still get things wrong, but in a smaller scale.

Well I've asked myself this so much over the years. My sister is the first person you describe and I'm the second. So I can't answer your question but personality must play a key role.

With all due respect I don't think it's that simple at all. I think what happens to you as a child can seriously affect how you operate as an adult. On the face of I had a decent upbringing - food on the table, parents together, nice house etc. But what people didn't see was the parents arguing & threatening divorce, the emotionally-absent father, the hyper-critical mother, and the undiagnosed autism. Consequence of which I ended up with no self-esteem which led to crap relationships. And they then kept my self-esteem at zero. And despite my best efforts and counselling I'm still at zero self-esteem and struggling, only most people wouldn't guess that by looking either. My sister on the other hand didn't have any neurodiversity so built friendships at school, went off to university and made a happy life for herself. Self control has fuck all to do with it. If I'd been diagnosed as a teenager I'd have had half a chance, or if I'd had a loving mother, but as it is I'm struggling through life trying to work out how to successfully adult without anyone to guide me.

You definitely can't judge from the outside

On the face of it my husband and my sister in law are like the example you gave. But in reality he and I have struggled in our marriage as a result of his childhood and eve gone through a lot of therapy to work through it. On the face of it tho we have a very successful and happy life

Events in their lives are karmically predetermined but can be modified.

This is such a cruel way to look at it. So, if you have a crap childhood, its your own fault for what you did last time around. I hate this shit.

I can relate to some of this (lost my mum before I hit my teenage years). It’s true - the OP makes it sound very black and white, but what you see on the outside is far from the whole picture. I’m not slating you btw @RusticRon , as I know what you mean, it’s an interesting topic… just adding to the conversation ‘from the inside view’ I suppose. I’ve been successful in some areas of life for sure, but at the age of 50+ I still struggle

@MamaAlwaysknowsbest ohh aren't you extremely insightful and witty? Have you contacted any medical journals yet?

Just self control the depression,PTSD, attached disorders, anxiety and trauma out of you.

How did no one figure that one out yet?

Almost like I sought out a person who treated my like how I was as a child. Ignored, disinterested,not valued, not loved., getting shouted at for no reason. It's honestly astonished. It's as though subconsciously I chose that,but I don't know why I would.

Because familiarity is our comfort zone. Even when the familiar thing is bad for us. To progress to a better life you have to step outside of your comfort zone, lots of people find this incredibly difficult. If your comfort zone is full of a lot of things that are toxic, you've got a lot of hard work to do just to get to a baseline that people who have never had that toxicity in their lives have as their "normal" and their comfort zone.

The way I see it, you can't change your childhood but you can take steps towards changing your adult life, learning to make better decisions and choose the non-toxic option. It doesn't have to be dramatic either, although it can be if you want.

You mentioned not loving your husband, so you could start the divorce process tomorrow. Or you could look at how to alter your week to carve out some me-time to start a new hobby, to raise your confidence in yourself, whilst accepting that your husband is going to make that difficult and kick back against the new you. As he's abusive that likely means an increase in abuse, so the chances are you'll divorce anyway one day. I know it sounds daft, but if it suits you to choose to stay in an abusive relationship for some reason eg until you've got a job or a qualification etc then you can choose to do that.

It's your life and you can choose to do what you want with it because ultimately you do control your own life, realising that is the first step to changing things. I used your marriage as an example but you can apply it to all areas of life. If you can't face changing big things, start small. Look at your life and decide to change something for the better, it all adds up to the bigger picture improving. Eg a person who smokes will have more disposable income if they quit, meaning more chances of being able to eg pay for driving lessons to increase independence or save for a dream holiday they've always wanted to go on.

So many bad things have happened in my life but I found the key to survival is to look at what can be changed. The things that seemingly can't be changed, look at the barriers to the changes and see if/how those can be changed, there's probably a way, although you might decide it's not the best choice for you to make. If you want life to be different you have to change things.

I think it's possible to change a sometimes faulty decision making process by committing to being kind to ourselves. It's not the same as being selfish and ignoring other's needs, it's deciding whether that particular other person's needs are my responsibility in that particular situation and, whether they are or aren't, asking myself as I make any decisions on what to do "am I being kind to myself?". Otherwise I find all decisions end up being about others and leaving my own welfare out of the equation.

I don't believe going through adversity makes a person stronger. It can make a person more resilient upto a point, beyond that though it makes them damaged. Then they survive and make a good life (if they do) despite the damage that was done, not because they're somehow stronger for it.

I have a lovely relative who, unable to have their own children, fostered many and adopted 4. They specialised in teens.

This all occurred outside the UK.

Two of their children, a sibling pair, live ordinary happy lives. They were adopted after their perfectly decent parents were killed in an accident and no relative could /would take them.

Two of their adopted children came from violent and abusive backgrounds. Whilst they adored their adoptive parents, they could never seem to overcome those early years. Both were in and out of prison. One had a drug and alcohol problem, the other a drug problem. Both had children in their teen years; my relatives were heavily involved in supporting those children. Both died before age 50.

My relative once said how terribly sad they were that they had been unable to really make a substantial difference to their two troubled children. I pointed out how much better their lives were after their adoption, and also, how brilliantly the grandchildren have done despite having "chaotic" parents - because my relatives were always a stable calming influence in the children's lives from birth. My relatives couldn't "save" their children. But they undoubtedly saved their grandchildren and all the generations to come from the cycles of trauma and abuse.

We do know from attachment theory that the first 3 years are crucial, and having one solid, reliable, caring presence during that time is protective. Not 100 percent protective, but makes your ability to succeed in life much more likely.

'Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.'
Anyone remember Seven Up?

No but I will forever remember brother saying this quote to me.

The way you're brought up can have a big effect on what beliefs and attitudes you hold.

What alot of people don't realise is that these things aren't fixed, and you can change them.

Your life doesn't have to end up shit just because you had a shit childhood. Unfortunately many don't realise this, and so end up blaming their childhoods for alot of their problems.
I'll be unpopular for saying that, and I'm not saying that as a criticism, just that those who weren't brought up well will find it harder to adopt healthy beliefs and attitudes.

My mum was emotionally neglected as a child, unloved and ignored.
My gran was 16 when my mum was born and no one knew she was pregnant, maybe she didn't herself. Mum was brought up by her grandparents who ran a business so they would have been busy. Her grandparents divorced not long after. Her gran wasn't very loving and her mum got married and had further children but didn't have mum to live with her.
DM and DGM were always falling out and she never told DM who her father was. She eventually gave hints that it was the local landowner. i believe that she was groomed by this man age 45 to her 15.
All of this affected DM very badly, I think she definitely has narcissistic traits and I'd say it pretty much ruined her life (and DDad's). Not sure how much she could have managed to do things differently or whether it was inevitable.

I had a shit childhood. Every kind of bad stuff. Parents abandoned me. Multiple care placements. Just a whole shit show. Yet somehow and I genuinely don't know how, I've raised three incredible children and gained enough strength to leave my h. He finally did something so bad I had no choice but to leave. Turns out I'm stronger than I thought. But I genuinely have no one who can say made me as I am. So it must be just in me.

But I've struggled too. Depression, anxiety, loneliness, worry.

Very good question. One I have asked about my sister. She was four years older than me. We had a really rotten childhood (thanks to a self-centered father who married a MUCH younger woman - horrible step-mother - one year after our mother died). My sister left when she was 18 and I left four years later when I was 18. If something bad was going to happen in a persons' life, it happened to her. For her entire life. She had a few successes, but not many. The pain of our childhood followed her until she died a few years ago from Alzheimer's. While I have clearly never forgotten my shit childhood - or forgiven - I managed to repress it and am having a very successful life. I always wondered why my sister couldn't get over the trauma and I could. (You don't have to say it, I know I still have the pain from it and harbor resentment, but it didn't affect my being successful in life.)

Completely agree with other pp that some people will look as though they have toughed it out and have survived but the neglect stays with you. Unfortunately I didn't have a single adult who made me feel loved and accepted as I was as a child. I suffered major emotional and medicinal neglect. It has affected all of my relationships tbh. I have always ended up in long term relationships where the other person is more in love with me, to begin with, so I can feel safe. It is hard for me to let my guard down because I didn't have a safe attachment. Many friendships have gone in the past few years and I am feeling alone apart from my husband and kids. However I give them everything, I love them with everything I have and I do so much for them so they can have a life I didn't have. But it's tough and I don't know for sure but I do have lots of regular mini meltdowns inside about things and can find life very stressful. I find it hard to cope with constructive criticism, for example, because I didn't have much positive feedback as a child.

The posters that have suggested that one can essentially overcome childhood trauma by suggesting self control and resilience are way off key and quite frankly insulting.
Also, the idea of Karma is ludicrous, it basically suggests that we somehow deserved poor treatment as kids. Sorry but no.

I think a lot of it is down to personality traits. My father as a child suffered greatly in the war but internalised it all and it coloured his whole life. He never speaks about it.

Whereas some of my friends' parents who went through the same seemed more resilient and educated others about their experiences.

I grew up with alcoholic parents and slowly realised as I was growing up that people lived differently to me. They had clean houses, their parents weren’t always drunk or fighting, they never got shouted at, they had proper beds, they did things together as a family etc. I managed to get 9 o’levels and 5 highers at school (God knows how as my home life was horrific at the time). My aunt signed my Uni application (that teachers helped me with) as my parents refused to and off I went at 18 and I never turned to look back. I stayed at Uni over holidays and Christmases or went to spend time with friends I’d made if I wasn’t working to support myself (I had 2 part time jobs). I ventured home for short visits very occasionally and nothing had changed, I never stayed overnight as I couldn’t bear to be in the filthy house. I never really dated at Uni as I didn’t want anyone to know where I’d come from or what my family were like. I graduated in 1990 and got a job starting the term after I graduated.

On my very sporadic visits home I was classed as “posh, up her own arse and snooty.” I was nothing of the kind, I’d simply seen what life had to offer and due to my job worked with people who inspired me. I kept very low contact with my family until my parents died, my siblings also have decent jobs and left the house very young although we have never spoken about why, I can only assume they wanted out of a grim situation too.

I shudder at my childhood, the filth, the neglect and the abuse. I’m truly grateful for my teachers and my aunt. Without their support and encouragement goodness knows what would have happened to me.

I think a lot of it is to do with whether a child had some kind of quality attachment figure (doesn't have to be a parent); someone who was protective / kind / loving and stable for them.

My DP grew up in really difficult circumstances with his parents, but he had a set of grandparents who loved him like he was their own and he spent a lot of time with them. He also had a very kind aunt and uncle who were very hands on with him. I can tell by how fondly he speaks about them what a positive and stabilising affect they had on his life, when his actual home was very difficult.

He is the man he is today because he knew that love from them as a child. He was having to live independently at 16 and could have gone a bit off the rails, but he had a good work ethic instilled in him by his Grandad and he went on to have a good career and he has done well for himself. I think had he not had those other family members looking out for him his outcome would not have been so good.

Agree with @Snowpaw it is so hard if you don't have that safe attachment with one adult as a child. I didn't and people have asked me how I can love my family so much not having that. I think I am hypersensitive to how I wish I had been loved and I give that love in a deep way to my family. Also I do actually really love my family funnily enough! But show it as I wish I'd been shown love, as much and as often as I can. Could do with learning to show it to myself more though. That's what I know I need to work on next.