“They Never Ask For Anything”: 51 Signs Someone You Know Had A Rough Childhood And Hard Life

They worry about anything good happening, cause there is usually some bad karma for them coming around the corner.

A thing i noticed about myself,my wife is usually happy and smiling just because. I asked her a bunch of times why are you smiling or why are you so happy when we're not doing barelly anything. She said i might have a problem because i can't understand that people can be happy just because.

Not talking about themselves. At least this is one that I’ve been told by other people who know me.

Talking about your interests, things you like, things that’s going on, isn’t safe if you grow up in an unsafe household. You learn to just not really talk about hobbies or interests. Small thing, but learned behaviour that’s hard to break.

Serious topics, like something that is troubling you? Why would you ever bring that up?

Many normal parts of your life you can’t bring up without “trauma dumping”. So basic things about your history are automatically a no-go. Maybe you have a topical revision of history you can tell people, but it’s paper-thin. Your anecdotes, stories, etc that you can tell people start at 18 instead of 4.

My friends of 1 year didn’t know I liked video games. My friend of 4 years just found out my parents weren’t biological and that I had a sibling. My friends who I could open up to have passed away. My other friends don’t know I lost friends.

My ex said he knew a couple months into dating; I said I wasn’t going to be the kind of parent who would scream at their kids for spilling milk.

I was aware enough to recognize that wasn’t right; but it was so normalized to me that I didn’t realize that it wasn’t everyone’s normal.

Being skilled or being able to do so many things

i know it could mean a lot of things, one of them is just that u were poor and couldn't pay for plumer, electrician or just when one of ur stuff broke u just didn't have the money to pay someone to fix it and learning the skill to do it urself was the easier option.

You see something go wrong. Something breaks in a spectacular fashion, that will involve an expensive replacement, because it won't be repaired from that.

And they just... accept it. They've come to expect things going wrong, so when they do, it might be a surprise how it happened, but not that it's gone wrong. It was always going to.

Chronic unemployment.

They think people with “normal” lives are the odd ones out and live in a dreamworld. Meanwhile, they’re the ones stuck in a rut thinking that rut is normal life.

Of course, this is not the case for many, but I’ve known far too many people who’ve grown up in terrible situations who think this way.

for me it’s shoes. i grew up in poverty and my mom’s rule was i could get a ‘new’ (from Goodwill/Salvation Army) pair of shoes when my current pair had holes big enough in them for my foot to go through. So even today, my sneakers have huge holes in them, but I still wear them because my foot hasn’t broken through and touched the ground yet.

They are good at making things themselves.

Staying quiet in arguments or altercations.

Strange food habits. Eating quickly, hoarding food, never throwing food away.

A lot of people with trauma internalize blame, to a debilitating or painful degree. On the other hand, people who have similar levels of trauma (but different temperaments or specific life experiences/different roles within the family or reactions to said roles) might externalize blame more than average. Nobody is the same, of course, but these are two outcomes that happen a lot.

Lost in thought or more than normal day dreams.

Constant fidgeting, squirming, pacing. That is hyperactivety, and that means that the person is struggling with maintaining peace within, often because of ADHD, (c)PTSD, or other stress.

Over-apologizing.

In women, gaunt cheeks and a receding hairline.

They’re usually quiet. Don’t get too personal with strangers. Respectful yet very short with people.

They look older than their age (whether that age is 15 or 50 or 90).

Very dark humour.