People don't realize how much their childhood affects them today.
They may have a lot of anger, depression, anxiety etc and they don't make the connection to the root cause.
I have read A LOT of Christian psychology books over the years so I would like to share what I have learned on this topic. It has helped me a lot.
On a side note: I had considered becoming a Christian marriage and family counselor someday, but I would have to pass the GRE to get into grad school and that darn test seems to be almost impossible. lol The math on that my goodness. I'm not a math person at all. :( So I will have to just always write to help others and maybe write books about all of this someday. :) That would be nice. May God open the doors amen. :)
Regarding childhood affecting us now, for me, just realizing that a lot of anger I may currently have may not be my husband's fault, but my dad's fault for what he did. My dad sexually molesting me birthed in me an amazing amount of anger and distrust of men.
Both were dormant, or shoved down, swept under the rug, as counselors would say, for quite awhile until I fell in love the first time.
There is something about falling in love that makes you open up, like flowers after a hard rain, and everything that you've been hiding comes out.
Anger is caused by any kind of abuse or neglect. We get angry as a natural way to protect ourselves. Anger is from God. God got angry several times. Just got angry several times. It is not from Satan, as much as we would like to think that it is lol. Anger is an alarm system going off inside of us to cause us to require that people treat us better, to cause us to change something.
It is the fight or flight thing. Either run away from the abuser or fight, not physically hopefully, but that is why people have fights and wars. Someone is disrespected and they need to gain that respect back in order to have a relationship with the other person. Because without respect on both sides there can be no relationship, there can be no real love.
And have you noticed that whenever you fight with someone, via words, texts, e-mails etc, you do seem to gain more respect from them afterwards? That is the reason for anger. To gain more respect for ourselves from others who may be disrespecting us. Those who never get angry and are always nice are the ones who are the most disrespected. There is a funny country song, "Sometimes you gotta kick a little....to be heard." lol very true. Sometimes you have to get angry to get people to listen to you and to be nice to you. Not everyone in every situation will listen to calm reasoning. Why? Because of our sin nature. We are innately selfish and want to only think about ourselves, so sometimes anger is the only thing that will get someone's else's attention off of themselves and onto you. :)
It is the same with kids. Not all kids listen to reason. Some do, but with some you need to be more harsh, more time outs etc. or spanking if it is your own kid. With other kids if you are too harsh with them it will greatly discourage them and cause them to be depressed. Different people have different temperaments and we need to be wise in how we interact with each type of person.
What could also be causing anger in yourself other another person? Often times it is something from the past. Something that happened to you or them as a child. Maybe another kid picked on them so they still have anger from that. Maybe a parent picked on them. Maybe a parent was too harsh with them. Like Col. 3:21 says, "Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged." Also lest they have anger bottled up for years that the father gave them. Fathers are supposed to be the disciplinarian primarily, but they need to be balanced so as to not discourage or embitter the child. Fathers have no idea how much whatever they do will affect that kid as an adult. Parenting is a very serious and important role. Parents imprint their kids and set patterns that will stick with the kid for the rest of their lives.
Many people have daddy issues, or issues from a father that was overly harsh. I know my dad was overly harsh with me and especially my brother. This can have a lot ramifications latter in life.
So that is also a source of anger. We always need to understand where people are coming from so we can find the root cause of something. We always need to know the root so that we can help them. Someone will not be healed from the symptoms or by products of childhood until the issues that began in their child hood are dealt with. Amen praise God for that thought of wisdom lol. :)
Next let's look at anxiety. What causes anxiety? It is usually caused by an overly critical parent. Kids who grew up in strict religious circles are ingrained with this anxiety about God and always doing the right thing. This carries over to their human interactions later in life. They may always think they don't measure up. They may always think people don't like them. This either comes from their concept of God or from how their parents were with them, either the mom or the dad. And in reality, however our parents are with us is how we then think of God as an adult, until we read the word and memorize it and those incorrect beliefs are corrected from understanding Scripture. :)
But critical parents can very much instill a fear in kids that may never go away. Some people struggle with fear their whole lives. Fear of being hurt, fear of others not liking them, fear of the future. This can also come from an insecure child hood. Maybe your parents divorced. Maybe your parents fought all the time. Maybe you were abused. Maybe you were neglected by a parent. All of these create a very unstable and insecure childhood atmosphere. This causes the person to grow up with anxiety about life and relationships.
We all grew up in somewhat dysfunctional homes, but some are more dysfunctional than others. :) We all have Satan feed us lies about things in our past. Such as if a parent left we believe the lie, "You are not loveable. People will always leave you." If a parent was critical Satan tells us, "You have to be PERFECT for people to love you." That was my lie for a long time. If we were neglected as children Satan tells us, "You are not worthy of love. You will never get the love that you need so stop trying." Satan uses the hurt and pain we experienced as a kid and attacks us with it the rest of our lives! And that is why he is a jerk lol. :) But we have to overcome these lies with the Word of God. We have to fight him off with the sword of Spirit. :) We have to "extinguish his flaming arrows" with the shield of faith. Don't let Satan lie to you anymore. Fight back! "Draw near to God he will draw near to you," and Satan will flee! Amen :)
Lastly, the other biggest issue that people struggle with is depression. What causes depression? Depression is a counter measure to anxiety. People run around like the show of the spinning plates trying to keep so many plates spinning that eventually they just crash, the person not the plates, well the plates might also. :)
Depression is your body's way of telling you, "SLOW DOWN!" Maybe you need to take more naps. Take better care of yourself. Eat better etc. Depression is a forced bodily response to someone trying to do too much. Like God said, take a Sabbath, rest etc. :)
But why do we try to do too much? Again that was probably caused by an overly critical parent, or spouse, or friend, or teacher etc. Someone that we wanted to please.
I say, give up trying to please people because they will never be entirely pleased. We all know that logically but for some reason our hearts still don't get it. Rather we need to love others as God commands, but forget about pleasing them per se. Love and pleasing are two very different things. Love does not always please the other. Sometimes love means you have to do some thing they don't really like, like ignore them if they are being mean to you. lol Love does not let someone continue in their sin. Love does what is best for the other person. :) This is referred to as "tough love."
When we really love others we find the correct balance of how to interact with them. When we really love others we are loving ourselves as well. Don't you feel bad and somewhat hate yourself when you act spitefully toward someone else? I know I do. :( But when we act out of love we in turn love ourselves more too, because we are proud of ourselves for doing the right thing. So everyone wins. It's great. :) Seek to love others, not please them. :) Amen!
May God make you and I more and more wise in these matters! May he guide us in all things with others amen! :)
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