How much is your inner child still calling the shots?

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The other day, I was watching a reality show where participants were doing 'inner child' work in a group therapy setting and discussing how their childhood trauma is now shaping their lives as adults.

It got me thinking about some of the patterns in my own relationships and how they are, in some ways, a reflection of my own crazy childhood and dysfunctional family. Although my childhood was pretty much just trama-rama and it would have been impossible not to have been shaped by it to an extent, it was still very sobering to start thinking about how things from the past over which I had very little control have such a clear bearing on both my current approach to relationships and choice of partners.

So, I pose this question ... How and to what extent are you reliving patterns from childhood in your adult relationships? Group therapy time, guys!

I've already been in group therapy for several years, and have pretty much done my inner child to death. I mean, thinking about my past and how it affected and affects me.

Trauma aside, what you're calling "Inner Child', which might more appropriately be referred to as one's 'Inner Childhood' may not be as deciding a factor in the everyday life of an Aspie as the fact that because our Executive Function is stunted at around (roughly) age 12-17, our thinking and decision making processes are colored by that for the rest of our lives. So our 'Inner Child' is in fact, actually an inner CHILD.

As for actual trauma, a lot of my youthful angst was to a great extent self-induced. I think that semi-unconscious knowledge that I was always 'different' than everybody else kept me constantly stressed, on edge, depressed and fundamentally unhappy.

I had an extensive period in my mid-20's where I was trying to defeat my AS by blunt force, no matter what the cost. In that time I think I did a bit of violence to my own nervous system.

In the past several years though, whether its been creating music or emotional self exploration, I've been going back to certain childhood emotions that I had - emotions that fit and translate very well into the adult world but these were pictures/images in my own mind or in dreams that seemed to show and indicate my own unique character/nature. I've been unlocking that more in my creative endeavors and using the sort of....well... chase and further development of these types of images and emotions, call it an identity-building exercise.

As for it being the inner child taking over... I think that term is too fixed. I had an aunt who, when I was five or six, was in her 80's with grandchildren. She was very much an old-worlder, grew up in the depression era, would remind you of a cross between mother Angelica and a female John Wayne (she had 14 kids and my dad used to joke that if people were getting rowdy and someone said she was coming - they ran!). That said though, I asked her back when I was eight - what is it like being 70/80/etc., ie. how did she feel any different than when she was a kid? Her answer - everything aches a bit more, less energy, but essentially she still felt the same way internally as she did when she was that age. Obviously we all go through batches of incoming information where our take on self changes or where the way we see things will change but, after the flood and after the dust settles, its really our emotions from early life - particularly the ones we find stabilizing - that I think come back into play. Adulthood IMO is just the application of self to responsibility, if someone in their 60's can watch something like Fantasia and really enjoy if not even tear up a bit remembering seeing it when they were a kid, they're still very much adults - even more so in the sense that they can be adults without needing to run from themselves. Then again that's denoting a healthy childhood, I can't necessarily say that it works the same way in other circumstances (my guess is that you'd have significantly more sensitivity to both the positive and the negative from that time). Overall I think your own emotions, likes, and dislikes will guide you more accurately than anything else - depending on how closely you're willing to listen to them.

I think whatever terminology is used, growing up in a dysfunctional family presents challenges for anyone, NT or Aspie. Whatever form the dysfunction takes, addiction, abuse, neglect, etc., it can teach a person that dysfunction is the norm. It can drive them to re-create the dysfunctional dynamics of those early primary relationships in the intimate relationships of their adulthood. It can create a lifetime of suffering, if not healed.

I think Aspies can face some additional challenges because of issues with empathy, "mind blindness" and rigid thinking. Anyone who grows up in a dysfunctional environment often believes that the duality of behavior they witness growing up is common. For example, believing that everybody lies. When you grow up watching parents lie - to each other, school, work, neighbors, relatives, etc., - you come to believe that there's the truth (the behavior - violence, addiction, deceit, abuse - you see at home), and there's the front - the "normal" behavior shown to the rest of the world. It's tough for an NT to come to terms with the idea that not everyone one encounters operates under that same paradigm: that a person's true behavior is ugly (and shown only in private) and decent behavior is just the front people use to get through life. When you throw in rigid thinking, mind blindness and problems with empathy, that moment of realization - that the behavior they view as "the norm" is actually extremely abnormal - becomes even more elusive.

That's not to say that healing from the trauma caused by dysfunction is impossible for an Aspie, or that every Aspie will respond to any given trauma in the same way. But it does take a very dedicated effort, the right kind of support and guidance, and the willingness to do the work. Without that, I think that inner child is going to continue to demand to be dealt with.

I take suggestions from mine, but otherwise my innerchild is pretty much told to shut up about things.

Thanks, HopeGrows, I was a little worried that I might not have phrased myself well, but you 'got' what I was trying to take a stab at in my original post.

I wish I could tell mine to shut up, Jonsi, but it seems like these patterns get so deeply ingrained for some of us that it's hard to even recognize them on a conscious level, let alone change them.

Childhood is the most important phase in any human's life and it has the greatest impact on one's personality.

I never had any adult relationship, but I can tell how my childhood played a role for never been able to get into an adult relationship.

it's a long story, so I am not going to repeat it again here, but it's almost all there in that thread: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp3442199.html#3442199

No worries - I knew what you meant. It's interesting, because I think the same issues (problems with empathy, mind blindness and rigid thinking) might also present issues for Aspies who grow up in primarily functional families. An Aspie from a primarily functional background may also believe that everyone behaves the way their family does: everyone is decent, truthful, honest - people can be trusted. Obviously, that perspective comes with it's own risks, because everybody isn't trustworthy. Forming healthy relationships in the real world requires the ability to balance general impressions of individuals with what we learn about people from interacting with them. I think mind blindness and rigid thinking can make that a difficult task (difficult, but not impossible). I also think those symptoms in particular have an impact on delayed maturity in Aspies. Since maturity is the result of integrating experiences into our own view of the world, it's much harder to integrate those experiences when coping with mind blindness and rigid thinking. (Again, difficult - but not impossible.)

My inner child runs the show.

Great thread!

My whole adult life is shaped by stuff that affected me deeply in childhood. All of it. Some of it even young adulthood. Bulying, treatment by people, being talked down to, being a laughing stock. It's all twisted my opinions of what my ideal life should be.

I can't trust people or even accept a compliment without thinking they are lying to me. I wish I never went to school or exposed to people in general. My inner child is one banged up little dude who can't wait to kick someone in the balls or spit in your drink to get you before you get him. No child should go thru the horrors of the American public school systems in working poor areas.

Kids really took advantage of my trusting nature and inability to "read" people. The other kids taught me not to trust anyone their teaching methods involved my pain, humilation, and the loss of my sanity. The adults were no better they taught me that I deserve to be picked on because I am different not doing enough to fit in with the rest of the crowd. I still have a hard time knowing what someones up to when they are talking to me. If I could stay in a room isolated from society while still having access to the internet, my books, dvds, music, and favorite food it would be a paradise for me.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5DL9zc9eqs[/youtube]
The grown up in me likes the kid in me

I guess I somehow was a child's mind trapped in the mind of an adult (and not trapped in the boy of an adult-ish youg man). I always talked like I was an adult, and I always acted like a child. I was always very reasonable, but my whole emotional life worked and still works like that of a ten year old. I have no complexity in my emotions, I only strong feelings and desires. I guess the only difference between then and now is that I have a heap more self-control and experience how to deal with difficult situations. I get along with little children incredibly well, and if it were only possible somehow, I'd love to have children of my own some day (preferably daughters with thick curly blonde hair like mine.)

Idk.

Energy-wise...yes

Impulsiveness, I try to not let them

Decision-wise....no