Internalizing ‘badness’

A child will love a parent and long for their love..They will try to make a parent right no matter what they do. Often they will make excuses for abuse or feel they should have done something to prevent it, even if, at that time, there is no way at all that was a realistic option..

The tendency to idealize the parent and make ourselves wrong also comes down to a fact my therapist shared with me today, that it is easier for a child to hate themselves than to hate a parent. As kids we could not survive without our parents and so we have to do all we can to revolve around them.. If we are sensitive too we may also be carrying their more vulnerable side, something they can NEVER REALISE. The following video from The School Of Life shows how a child internalizes that sense of being bad or unlovable in childhood.

Later in life we may attract similarly unloving relationships and struggle to change that person, a fact that is bound to fail and may trap us in ignorance and a great deal of inner pain for many years into adulthood.