8 Signs You Had An Unhappy Childhood Even If You Didn't Realize It At The Time
The realization may not hit you until later in life.
Nazarii Ortynskyi | Shutterstock A large portion of people's childhoods are shaped by how their parents and caregivers treat them. Their actions and attitudes impact young people's perspectives on the world and their perceptions of themselves.
Much of what happens during our childhood is actually out of our control, which is why it can be hard to initially notice the signs you had an unhappy childhood, even if you didn't realize it at the time.
As we grow up and grow into ourselves, we tend to compare our experiences to other people's. This comparison allows us to discover whether or not we had healthy childhoods. Sadly, many people come to realize that their childhoods weren't as happy or peaceful as they thought.
Here are 8 signs you had an unhappy childhood, even if you didn't realize it at the time
1. You don't want to accept help
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No person is an island, which means that we all need outside support from time to time. Yet some people struggle to ask for help, due to their preconceived notions of what asking for help means. If you struggle to accept help, it could be a sign you had an unhappy childhood, even if you didn't realize it at the time.
It's possible that you grew up with neglectful parents, so you were forced to become self-reliant from a young age. You couldn't rely on your parents to take care of you, so you learned to take care of yourself. As a result, you might push away help in adulthood, because you feel uncomfortable letting other people support you.
You might have been raised by parents who saw asking for help as a sign of weakness. In order to survive your unhappy childhood, you fit yourself into their mold by denying that you ever needed extra assistance.
Now that you're grown up, it's hard to shake that mentality, so you find yourself shrugging off anyone who offers their help. Taking care of yourself is deeply ingrained in how you define yourself, which is why you don't want to accept help from other people.
2. You dismiss your own emotions
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Another sign that you had an unhappy childhood but didn't realize it at the time is that you ignore your own emotions. If you were raised in an emotionally unsafe environment by parents who didn't have the skills to process their own emotions, let alone anyone else's, you probably grew up to be dismissive of how you feel.
As a child, your emotions were likely invalidated or minimized, to the point where you tamped down your true feelings, burying them so you wouldn't have to deal with them. Bottling up your emotions or downplaying how you feel is a coping mechanism that indicates you weren't allowed to express hard feelings as a child.
Having unresolved trauma from childhood can affect the way we form attachments in adulthood. Therapist Eli Hartwood explained that "We go through hurtful things in childhood that we don't know how to process — even if that hurt is covert, even if it's just a parent who doesn't look us in the eyes when we're crying."
Hartwood noted that our parents' attachment styles and their relationship to their own emotions deeply impacts us, way past childhood. "We tell ourselves a story to get through that experience and the story that the average person tells themselves about the insecure attachment style with their parents is ‘it wasn't that bad,'" she said.
If you find yourself pushing away your feelings or trying to convince yourself that you're okay, even when you're not, it could be a sign that you had an unhappy childhood, where you weren't given the space you needed to express yourself.
3. You're a perfectionist
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Making mistakes in childhood is unavoidable. After all, doing things wrong is how we learn.
Some parents are accepting of their kids' mistakes. They understand that failing is part of learning how to be a fully-realized person. They act as guideposts for their children, letting them know how to do the right thing without shaming them or blaming them for being wrong.
But other parents are overly critical of their kids' mistakes and instill in them a deep-seated fear of failure that follows them into adulthood.
Maybe your parents didn't allow you to make mistakes without judgment. Maybe they expressed their love conditionally, meaning that they withheld affection when you did something wrong. It's highly probable that you internalized that messaging and became a perfectionist as an adult.
Life coach Ellen Nyland defined perfectionism as "The relentless pursuit of flawlessness and the setting of unattainably high standards, often accompanied by self-criticism and fear of failure."
She explained that perfectionists get caught in a cyclical trap: They have impossible expectations for themselves, and when they fail to reach them, they believe the lie that they're unworthy. As a result, they feel like they're never good enough.
Breaking the habits of perfectionism takes time and commitment. Shedding your perfectionism means you have to treat yourself gently. You essentially have to reparent yourself, giving yourself the acceptance to mess up that your parents never provided.
4. You over-explain
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Over-explaining is a sign you had an unhappy childhood. If you feel the need to justify everything you do and say, it could be an indication that you weren't trusted as a child. Because your parents questioned your actions and opinions, you never learned to trust yourself completely.
Instead of teaching you how to listen to your intuition, your parents instilled the idea that you couldn't make decisions for yourself. As an adult, you second-guess what you want, and you often feel helpless or indecisive. You might even rely on other people's opinions to form what you think.
Over-explaining is often the result of having an unhappy childhood, one in which your self-doubt crystallized, so you carried it into adulthood.
5. You're hyper-independent
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Being raised in an unsafe household often leads people to believe that they can only rely on themselves. Developing a sense of hyper-independence is a natural reaction to instability and emotional neglect.
As a hyper-independent person, you believe that you don't need anyone but yourself to get by. You avoid opening up to others, because being vulnerable might lead to being hurt. If you weren't adequately cared for or protected as a child, you probably absorbed the message that the people who were supposed to provide you with safety were only going to let you down.
Hyper-independence is often a reflection of having unmet needs during your formative years. It can feel scary to let people in and see the real you, so you build up walls to ensure you won't be hurt again.
6. You have imposter syndrome
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Having imposter syndrome could be a sign that you had an unhappy childhood, even if you didn't realize it at the time. Certified professional career coach Michele Moliter described imposter syndrome as a "mysterious mind trap."
Imposter syndrome often manifests as a negative feedback loop that plays over and over in your brain, telling you that you're not good enough, that any success you've had is a mistake, and that sooner or later, everyone's going to find out who you really are: an undeserving fraud.
Moliter noted that imposter syndrome is rooted in feelings of inadequacy, which can arise from your family of origin. She explained that people often develop imposter syndrome as a reaction to their childhood, especially when "Your parents, guardians, or other family members may have been overly critical of you or put too much emphasis on being a high achiever."
You might have a hard time accepting praise or believing compliments because you have low self-worth, despite all your accomplishments. Imposter syndrome is hard to shake, as it tends to get louder the more we try to ignore it.
Recognizing when you fall into a pattern of negative self-talk is the first step to freeing yourself from imposter syndrome. Telling yourself that you are worthy, just by virtue of being yourself, is one way to break the vicious cycle.
7. You're a people-pleaser
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Everyone deserves to be validated on both an emotional and practical level, yet if you were denied validation in childhood, you might spend your adulthood seeking it out. Being a people-pleaser is a sign that you had an unhappy childhood, even if you didn't realize it until you were an adult.
As a people-pleaser, you aim to avoid conflict and meet other people's needs before your own, in part because you don't believe that you deserve to show up for yourself. People-pleasers seek outside approval, which is a habit they may have learned if they had an unhappy childhood.
Children who were raised in an environment where love was conditional often become adults who try to make everyone else happy, as their parents withheld love as punishment. While people-pleasing behavior is deeply rooted, that doesn't mean it's impossible to quit. Practice putting yourself first, saying "no," and honoring your own boundaries in order to heal.
8. You have a hard time relaxing
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If you have trouble letting yourself relax, it could be an indication you're hyper-vigilant, due to having an unhappy childhood, even if you didn't realize it when you were younger.
It's possible that your childhood home was full of tension. Maybe your parents yelled at you whenever they deemed your playing was "out of control." Maybe having fun wasn't made into a priority, and you were expected to be quiet, calm, and serious at all times.
Being raised in a stressful environment can lead to an anxious adulthood. You might feel like you're always on edge or waiting for the next bad thing to happen, due to the fact that you didn't feel safe or stable in childhood.
While hyper-vigilance isn't easy to undo, letting yourself know that you're safe now is essential to begin healing.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.