Grieving the Childhood You Didn’t Have | The Healing Conversation Many Adults Need

What if the sadness you’re carrying isn’t about what’s happening now—it’s about what was missing then?

In this episode, we’re talking about the hidden grief many adults carry from childhood: unmet emotional needs, growing up too fast, feeling unseen, and mourning the love, safety, and support we deserved. Together, we’ll explore how acknowledging that grief can become the first step toward healing.

This episode is for anyone learning to give themselves the compassion, understanding, and care they may not have consistently received growing up. 

Transcript

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I'm your host, Tierra, and this is Rude Thoughts Podcast. Welcome to episode three of our short series on inner child healing. In this week's episode, we're going to be talking about grieving the childhood that you didn't have. Many people may not recognize childhood grief because nothing super dramatic happened that people could easily see. But the truth is there are several things that cannot easily be seen, or may not necessarily be seen, that you can still grieve. You can grieve emotional neglect, absence, instability, lack of affection, lack of protection, not being understood, growing up too fast, constantly feeling unsafe, or never being emotionally seen. So let's get into talking about what are some of those invisible losses that many people carry. One of those losses could be losing your childhood to survival. This can look like a child having to grow up too fast or parentification, which is when a family dynamic with the roads are reversed and a child is forced for whatever reason to take on the responsibilities of an adult, basically becoming the mature one in the home rather than getting to actually be a child. A second loss could be losing emotional safety. Now, this happens when a child had to frequently walk on eggshells, usually stemming from unpredictable environments. It can show up as a fear of conflict because your environment was emotionally unstable, particularly with children who never knew what version of people that they would get on any given day. A third loss could be losing the ability to be vulnerable. Some children, especially some boys, grew up in environments that was not a safe space, especially for emotions. Some children learned that emotions were weakness and crime would get you punished. A lot of the same children that experienced that became adults that shut down and have a hard time actually resolving conflict in a healthy way. They can struggle to trust or either actually hide their needs. And the fourth loss is losing a sense of yourself. This is actually a really big one and a really important one. Because children who grew up in a dynamic of having to take on adult responsibilities often tend to lose a sense of themselves. They then show up as adults who are either people pleasers, caretakers to everyone except themselves, performers, or even overly independent. And actually, that overly independent part, that's something I had to work on myself. I think I may have mentioned that in a few episodes back, but I've had to learn, I actually still am learning and practicing not being overly independent and actually allowing someone to be there for you, allowing someone to show up for you. A lot of people who had these experiences or either are having these experiences tend to minimize their pain. And there is usually a reason behind that. The bottom line is that many adults invalidate themselves or make their own experiences seem small because they always think that others had it worse. They compare traumas and somehow convince themselves that pain only counts when it was extreme. People who minimize their own pain often say things to others like, oh, you're too sensitive. At least you have food or clothes, or either that's just how parents were back then. But you should know that pain does not have to be extreme to leave an emotional impact on someone. Another thing that I want people to know is that a child can be materially provided for and still be emotionally neglected. If you don't take away everything from this episode, one thing that I do want you to take from this episode is that it is possible to love people and still acknowledge the hurt. Two things can be true at one time. Someone may have loved you and still lack the tools to care for you in the way that you need it. You are listening to Brilliant Thoughts Podcast with your host, Tiara. Follow and leave me a review. So now let's talk about what unprocessed grieving looks like in adulthood. In this segment, the whole purpose of it is just to help you to recognize hidden grief responses. So maybe if you see these responses in yourself and others, you can sort of kind of recognize what's going on. You could disconnect instead of actually feeling, or you could struggle to actually rely on anyone for anything. You could become a chronic people pleaser because you fear disappointing others, or you could struggle with self-worth or emotional regulation. You could have a difficult time receiving love because love feels unfamiliar, or survival mode becomes your normal state. And I want to focus just a second on the part about people having a difficult time receiving love because it's so unfamiliar. Because that's a situation whereas, and I'm gonna speak particularly about marriages right now, that's a thing whereas no matter how much you do for a person, no matter how much you try to show love, in whatever way you try to show that love, if someone isn't used to that or that feels unfamiliar to them, they're gonna resist. You can't outlove them to the point to make them finally realize how much you love them. That is a situation where that person has to be willing to do the work on themselves in order for them to come to a place where they can receive love. And this doesn't just show up in like marriages. For example, I had this friend who she would date and everything, but as soon as things start to become too serious, she would get scared and she would pretty much just back out or sabotage the situation. With no direct reason why. It was just a situation whereas this particular person had become so familiar with toxic relationships, so that when something else came along that wasn't toxic, it was more healthy, they perceived it as boring. But it wasn't boring, it just wasn't fighting going on and chaos going on. So if you are that person and this does sound familiar to you, it would probably be beneficial for you to work on that because more than likely, if you're probably dating, you're probably looking for a mate or something like that. But it's going to be really difficult to actually find someone who is good for you if you run away or you get uncomfortable when you do have healthy situations. Because we know that you can never escape grief, adulthood does sometimes become that place where childhood grief finally catches up to us. You are listening to Brilliant Thoughts Podcast with your host, Tiara. Follow and leave me a review. So let's talk about some methods that you can use to heal so that you can finally stop being stuck in the past. So I'm gonna give you nine different methods. You can try all of them if you want to. You can pick the ones that work best for you. Whatever you want to do, I just want to make sure that you do have options. So, number one, acknowledge the pain. Whatever that pain is, just acknowledge it. Don't keep hiding it and saying it doesn't exist and you wasn't affected, just acknowledge it. Number two, allow grief. Number three, be the parent to yourself that you need it. Listen to that one again. Be the parent to yourself that you need it. That will make you feel tremendously good. And not only will it help you feel good, it'll also help you to choose better partners. Once you start being good to yourself or and being a parent to yourself that you need it, or being a partner to yourself that you want, you actually attract better partners. Number four, set boundaries. Number five, try therapy. Number six, try reaching out to your community. Find your support team. It can be strangers, it can be trusted family, trusted friends, whoever that is. Number seven, have self-compassion. Number eight, learn and practice emotional regulation. And number nine, create healthier relationships. And remember, healing doesn't erase the childhood you had, but it can help you to stop making it your identity and stop carrying it along. I'm your host, Tiara, and this is Really Thoughts Podcast.