Child Abuse: Can Someone Embody Their Parents Shadow If They Were Abused As A Child?

Now that someone is an adult, what they may find is that it is hard for them to feel good about themselves. They could have the tendency to feel worthless and as though they have no value.

As a result of this, they are likely to often feel low and depressed and they may even think about ending their life from time to time. Considering this, their time on this planet is typically not going to be very pleasant.

A Miserable Existence

By being this way, they could have a high tolerance for bad behaviour. Therefore, when they are mistreated, they might just absorb it and not get angry or do anything about what has taken place.

This can mean that they have a number of relationships that are not very loving and supportive. These people could put them down on a regular basis and treat them like dirt.

A way of life

If they were able to step back and reflect on how they experience life, what they may find is that it has been this way for as long as they can remember. This can then just be seen as how their life is and that’s all there is to it.

Still, they may hope that it will change one day and that they will be able to feel good about themselves, be treated well and experience good things. Part of them might even want to be saved, with this being seen as the only way that their life will change.

Looking Back

If they were to look back on their early years, they might not be able to remember much. Then again, this could be seen as a stage of their life that wasn’t that bad or they may say that it was largely enjoyable.

Alternatively, they may prefer not to think too much about this stage of their life, due to how it makes them feel. If this is the case, they will be pleased that this stage of their life is over.

A Closer Look

Irrespective of whether they can’t or can remember much about what happened when they were younger, this may have been a time when they were treated like dirt and as though they were nothing. This would have meant that they were not cherished and treated like they were a valuable human being.

One or both of their parents would then have neglected and abused them, and this may have included physical, verbal and emotional abuse. By being treated in this way, they would have been deprived of the nutrients that they needed to be able to grow and develop in the right way.

Totally Undermined

This would have stopped them from developing a felt self of safety, security, worth, deserving and love. Instead, they would have developed a felt sense of vulnerability, insecurity, worthlessness, undeserving and being unlovable.

The reason for this is that they were egocentric at this stage of their life, which would have caused them to personalise what took place. Ultimately, their brain simply wasn’t developed enough to allow them to see that it wasn’t that they were worthless, unlovable and bad; it was that one or both of their parents was a deeply wounded human being.

Beyond The Act

The parent who treated them like they were nothing, assuming that it was one parent, may have generally come across as confident, faultless and as if they had it all together. Thanks to this, most of the people in the outside world might not have realised what they were like behind the scenes, so to speak.

What is clear, however, is that how they came across will have been nothing more than a facade, as if they were actually a well-adjusted and together human being, they wouldn’t have treated their child in this way. No, what they would have done is built them up and prepared them for the real world.

Going Deeper

What this is likely to illustrate is that, at a deeper level, they were carrying a lot of darkness. So, beyond the idealised false self was likely to have been someone who felt totally worthless, unlovable and hated themselves.

But, as they were estranged from these feelings and certain parts of themselves, it caused them to project this side of themselves into their child. This would have been something that took place unconsciously.

A Disordered State

Most likely, this parent had also been treated in a very similar way during their formative years. This would have greatly wounded them and damaged their ability to self-reflect and empathise.

By not being in a good way, they wouldn’t have been able to realise that they were seeing in their child what they had disconnected from inside themselves. Mistreating their own child would have been a way for them to unknowingly keep their own wounds from entering their conscious awareness.

Wide Open

If at this age, they were not like a sponge that soaked just about everything up and they were not in an underdeveloped state, they wouldn’t have been as severely wounded by their parent’s toxic projections. Nonetheless, what this emphasises is that how they were treated wasn’t personal; it was simply a reflection of what was going on for this parent.

This parent was carrying so much toxicity that it had to spill out somehow and onto at least one person. The truth is that there is nothing inherently wrong with them; they are not worthless, unlovable or bad.
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Awareness

If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.