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We reached out to Laura Cavanagh, a psychotherapist and psychology professor at Seneca College in Toronto, to learn more about childhood memories and their effect on our lives. "The poet William Wordsworth once said 'the child is the father of the man,' and Sigmund Freud — who is probably the most famous figure in the field of psychology, living or dead — certainly agreed that this was true," she told Bored Panda. "What Freud meant by this was that the early experiences of childhood have a profound, lifelong impact upon us, determining our developmental trajectory and course in life."
Psychotherapist Cavanagh pointed out that the idea of our early years being formative is widely accepted within popular culture, so for many of us, it seems like common sense. But in reality, things are a bit more complicated.
"It is only relatively recently that we have understood the dramatic impact of early childhood experiences," she said. Since memories from our infancy and toddlerhood are pretty patchy, it led many to believe that what happened in that period of our lives is less important compared to events from middle childhood, adolescence, and beyond. "Freud flipped this notion on its head when he theorized that not only were our early years critically important but that they would continue to shape us for the rest of our lives," Cavanagh added.
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Studies show that Freud was right. According to the professor, he may have overstated by saying that our destiny was more or less set in stone by the age of five, but was certainly correct about the outsized influence of those early years. "Research in the field of developmental psychology, particularly in areas of infant attachment (which looks at how parent-infant bonding in the first year affects our developmental trajectory), has shown that these early experiences affect us throughout the course of our entire lives."
When it comes to disturbing and haunting childhood memories, they have a profound effect on our lives. "Whether we consciously remember these events or not, they are stored in our bodies and wired into our brains. They have the power to affect us, even if we aren’t able to recall them consciously. Frightening and traumatic experiences in childhood literally rewire our brain, so these memories have a profound effect on our behavior, even if they remain buried in our unconscious," Cavanagh told us.
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While people say that kids are resilient little creatures, this is not actually the case. There’s often a delayed effect between when a child experiences a stressor and when the result of that stressor is evident. "Freud actually recognized this phenomenon: he said that middle childhood was a 'latency period' where everything seems fine, but you won’t see the impact of negative early experiences until adolescence or beyond."
Cavanagh mentioned an important case of research on the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) by a physician Dr. Vincent Felitti who noticed that many of his obese adult clients reported abuse in childhood. "His patients recognized that their weight was a problem, but they also spoke of it as having once been a solution (for example, having gained weight to be invisible or to no longer be seen as an object of sexual desire)," she noted.
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Professor Cavanagh, who has extensive experience working with addictions, sees a similar pattern with clients opening up about substance abuse. "They recognize that it has come to a point where it is destroying their lives, but they will often speak of how it started as a coping mechanism that worked for a time – to deal with haunting childhood memories, to cope with pain, or to manage anxiety."
"Felitti's peers were extremely skeptical of his observations, but Felitti was sure he was on to something important. He conducted a large-scale study on the impact of childhood abuse, and, later, other adverse childhood experiences," she continued. "He found that [ACEs] were correlated with a range of negative outcomes in adulthood — outcomes related to physical health, mental health, and psychosocial well-being." If you’re interested in your own ACEs score, be sure to check it out right here.
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"What I find with my clients is that it is not so much that people can’t recall their unpleasant childhood memories, but that they have difficulty contextualizing them. People will minimize what has happened to them, underestimate the seriousness of what they experienced, or compare themselves to someone that they think had it 'worse'. Talking about it helps to put it in context. When people are able to acknowledge a memory as painful, it makes it easier to process how it impacts them today, and how to let it go."
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Some guy came in while I was looking at the sweets and started talking to me, it was a long time ago I can’t remember the conversation but I remember parts of the more creepy bits.
And being the glutinous 10 year old I was I accepted, payed around £20 on sweets alone.
My heart dropped for a second since again never seen this man before in my life.
I stupidly (probably put other kids in danger if this man had bad intentions.) said I went to a school down the hill from my actual school.
If my parents knew who this man was and he lived around the area he’d probably know where I stayed so why did he ask?
I replied next to the train station (opposite) and again he replied with another answer that scared me.
(It was mid summer between 7-9pm so still light enough I could see)
I declined and told him my dad was waiting for me.
She did question me about where I had gotten the stuff from I lied and said I found money.
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She stressed that trauma is defined more by the effects it has on a person than its outward features. "Of course, its effects depend on the person who experiences the event — their particular psychological vulnerability and neurological wiring. Because children’s perceptions are filtered through their own context, events may be traumatic because of how they were presented to a child — either explicitly or implicitly."
For example, if a child loses a pet as a result of an accident, it may not be traumatic in nature. "While sad, it is a normative event, part of the ups and downs of life," Cavanagh explained. But if the child is blamed for the accident, the guilt and shame they experience may be overwhelming and can lead to trauma and a lasting psychological impact. "It is not so much about the loss of the pet, but the context surrounding the experience. So while the person might say, as an adult, 'well, lots of people lose a pet in childhood,' the reality is that not many people face ongoing hostility and blame from their family around this loss. It is the context surrounding the event that can lead it to be traumatogenic."
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Apparently my friend somehow pulled me out after I fell in but honestly I don't know how another 3 year old could do it, I don't remember anything else about it, I'm not sure where mum was and dad was at work.
For years I had nightmares about rust coloured clouds ballooning up, dark rusty clouds....it took me 30 years before I clicked it was the rust being stirred up by me trying to get out of that drum.
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We were playing and he came to look our treehouse, complimenting it and kneeled to the "door". Then he asks if he could show us something and pulls his d**k out. He asks if we want to touch it, go on, you can touch it. We wouldn't. Then he "peed" in front of us and I remember thinking how strange it was that his pee wasn't yellow, it was white.
After all, the first step of the healing process is admitting they impacted our lives by sparking fears or causing a toll on our mental health. Because when we bring hurtful memories to light, they lose their power. "When we talk about our traumatic experiences, it moves those memories from the 'survival' part of our brain to our logical, rational cortex. It doesn’t mean that those memories are no longer painful, but they don’t have the power to send us into fight-flight-or-freeze anymore."