Children coming to this world need one thing: unconditional love. Growing up feeling loved without conditions attached creates a healthy personality capable of healthy, loving relationships to oneself and to others. Children who are not given unconditional love, who are deprived of it, neglected, harmed or even abused, feel that something must be wrong with them. They will develop what is called self-love deficit disorder. It will carry on into adulthood and if left unrecognised and unhealed, it will persist for a lifetime, manifesting in unhealthy behaviour patterns and painful relationships.
Children are sensitive to traumatisation until the age of about sixteen. The younger they are, the more sensitive they are and the more devastating the effects of traumatisation can be. Those who are harmed more severely can develop irreversible personality disorders, such as narcissism, sociopathy or psychopathy, characterised by a grandiose personality and low levels of empathy, even deriving pleasure from hurting others. Deep inside, these people have encapsulated the deeply traumatised child in a protective shell and developed a false personality. This fake persona is perfect, flawless, better than the others. That was the only way the child could survive its ordeal at the time. The trouble is that in adulthood, the false personality persists. People with such personality disorders are not capable of self-reflection and sadly, cannot be healed. Sadly, they are also incapable of unconditional love.
In my opinion, trauma is the cause of evil behaviour and traumatisation of others, especially children, is the "evil" in human culture.
Where does trauma come from? Adults who live in fear, stress and violence traumatise their children. By action or omission. Since human history has been full of violence, I believe that most of the current world population has experienced a lack of unconditional love in childhood and has the self-love deficit disorder, to a smaller or larger extent. Self-love deficit disorder is also called codependency, because people who doubt their own worth and lovability are dependent on outside validation, a confirmation of their value. Not being able to find security inside of ourselves, we look for something to hold on to, to depend on. Most often this will be relationships in which the parties are dependent on one another in an unhealthy way, creating pain and suffering. This "something to hold on to" can also take on the form of alcohol, drugs and other addictive substances or things, such as social media.
In relationships, codependent people can be divided into dominant "takers" - those with low empathy, and "givers" who are highly empathetic, have weak personal boundaries and are willing to nurture the takers. The two attract one another, as they have complementary energies. In simple terms, a narcissist will attract an empath and vice versa. The children of such parents will not receive unconditional love; they will experience some form of emotional or physical neglect, harm or abuse, a result of what their parents have carried on into adulthood from their own childhood trauma. And so the situation spirals on, from one generation to the next.
You can try and analyse your family of origin. Who were the takers? Who were the givers? Why did they become who they were? What was happening in the world then? Were there wars? Natural disasters? Accidents? Was there illness or abuse in the family? Which of their children grew up to be takers and which became givers? By studying your ancestry you might gain good insights into how codependency arises and gets handed down through generations.
People who survive neglect or abuse at a young age develop strong coping and survival skills. While some unfold particular talents and artistry in their lives, those with lower levels of empathy and personality disorders (unfortunately) often make it to leadership positions in the world today. For others, the experience of childhood suffering has given them amazing abilities to heal others.
The good news is that for the past several generations since WWII, the world has become a safer and better place. Despite the human population increasing more than threefold, from 2.5 to 8 billion, the overall level of violence is decreasing, as measured by the number of wars waged and civilians killed around the globe[1]. This has allowed new generations to grow up in decreasing levels of fear, stress and violence, making it possible for people to give more kindness and unconditional love to themselves, to each other and to their children. As a result, humankind is slowly healing from its self-love-deficit disorder.
We can actively speed up this process. Once we become aware of our codependency, we can start working on self-healing by giving ourselves the unconditional love which we lacked when we were small. By being kind and loving to ourselves, by practicing self-love and self-care, by unlearning our unhealthy behaviour patterns, by adjusting the way we interact with others and the world around us. It takes some time, but it is very important. It can save lives. There are some excellent therapies out there. Find one which suits you. For me, it has been Codependents Anonymous (www.coda.org) and Systemic constellations with figures. We are all on a journey toward a kinder, more loving, more humane society. The results can be seen all around.
(This post was written before the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022. As of September 2024, the numbers are still on the side of the world becoming a better place. Please join the community of people healing themselves, so that together, we can prevent the spreading of trauma in the world.)
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