the avoidant and emotionless way your child self used to cope with trauma, is not your identity https://twitter.com/CarolineMoss/status/1198748131556499456

expanding on this, as children when we faced trauma we dealt with it the best way a child could; to freeze, to immediately forget, to not speak of it, to escape to a fantasy world in order to avoid processing or understanding what we’ve just experienced

this avoidant, passive and dismissive behaviour continues into adulthood cause it’s the best way we know how to cope. we may avoid confrontation, practice bad communication or commit to toxic relationships/friendships because our self-esteem was never built

if you’re a passive person you’ll believe “if I say how I feel people will think I’m a bad person and will hate me”, if you’re aggressive/confrontational you’ll believe “what I say is the right way and if you don’t like it then go away”

a passive person was the child who was not asked how they were, or was too scared to tell anyone what they experienced. a confrontational/aggressive person was the child who no one believed or was always dismissed and now wants to be heard

a balanced person is the child who was nurtured well and was shown healthy anger and boundaries. most of us may not be able to say we are balanced but we can become our own parents, teach ourselves how to be balanced

we can teach ourselves boundaries, we can listen to ourselves and BELIEVE ourselves when we admit there is something wrong. we can teach ourselves how to communicate and dwell in healthy relationships. we’re not our child selves anymore. we don’t have to be.