The water of the Iguazú River; it was taken at the border between Argentina and Brazil, on the Argentina side in November 2022. Photo by Dang Bao Nguyet.
While childhood trauma, particularly what has been expressed through our long -term memories of negative emotions and the suffering behind between our parents (and/or people substituted for them) and us during our childhood period, sounds harmless, hence is impossible and untrue to hold them accountable for our life, in most cases, our present is shaped by the prominent, chronic, permanent emotions that characterized the relationship/ interaction between our parents and us during our childhood.
Why so? Because:
First, we learn about love - and various forms of its opposite emotion - from observing and interacting with our parents. This principle is also applicable to our own parents. Unconsciously, these childhood emotions significantly determine how we would treat ourselves and others.
Across different depression cases that I had the privilege to help, the above-repeated pattern is observed. While we tend to pass on the good memories such as care, protection, kindness, and compassion from our parents to our children, we also pass on the suffers we have as a child to them, even if these sufferings have been covered more elegantly and sophisticatedly in the positive mindset "what I did not like or had missed from my parents, I will offer it to my child". As long as the suffering, particularly the emotional denials and the subsequent care requirement behind those early suffering, are not recognized and addressed within ourselves, the circle of suffering will continue.
Written by Dang Bao Nguyet.
