A child that has suffered trauma and abuse in one form or other has had to adapt to the stressors and hurt. It doesn’t matter if the abuse was emotional, physical, or sexual, that child has been damaged in his or her development. In an abusive environment, a child has only got one option to focus on the outside world. After a while, the child loses the ability to look inwards and develop their own self-esteem. By looking deeply into how a child’s dependency needs were not being met, we find our wounded inner child. A child’s normal development is stunted by abuse. For example, their feelings of anger and pain are being suppressed and their needs are constantly rejected and belittled. That innocent child is forced to develop a new false self as a coping mechanism in order to survive. This child eventually grows up into an adult without self-esteem, and identity and has difficulties in communicating and setting boundaries with others. That adult is carrying a wounded inner child and is affected in their behavior from this hurt.

How can you be intimate with a partner if you have never had love and don’t have self-esteem? How often do you trust others around you? How can you communicate with people if you don’t know who you are? How often do you live in your own “theater” because you don’t know what you need? How many times have you had a tantrum when things don’t go your way? How many times have you turned to drugs/alcohol/gambling/overeating/excessive physical activity or shopping to numb the hurt? Until you address this hurt, your “inner child” will carry on “disrupting your life”. The core problem is that the wounded child is deep in your soul. We sometimes regress into those childish behaviors in response to certain events. As survivors, we don’t know any other way because we never got those needs met in our childhood.

There is a lot of literature available about how survivors of trauma and abuse can heal from within by reaching out, deep into our souls to find our “inner child”. Author – John Bradshaw, a New York best-selling author and founding father of the Self-help movement, was a pioneer in this field. His research, books, and lectures about healing our “inner child” was the first in the field. His remarkable insights into this particular research have yet to tally up with the healing of Complex PTSD which is currently not a commonly diagnosed condition. Healing that terrified and traumatized inner child is like going deep into our souls and repairing the damage at the source. John Bradshaw has lectures on YouTube and DVD’s about his research on healing our inner child. While he was alive, he spoke all over the world and his passion is informative and helpful. I have found his research invaluable in my own healing. His insights have not only helped me come to terms with my flashbacks but also with why my character is shaped the way it is and how I can help myself. It is so much easier to take charge of my own healing and know how to do it than go to a therapist. Although it is good to have a therapist as a backup in the right direction of healing.

As survivors’, we know what it is like to live with Complex PTSD. For many of us, we have struggled for years, decades even! We know what it feels like when being triggered by a flashback in the worst possible place in time and yet we survive. We live through each day. Most of us move forwards but then the days come when we move backward through the rollercoaster that is life. The flashbacks keep on coming. In my opinion and from my own experience, healing from sexual abuse and trauma is a bit like the grieving process. The difference is that you are not grieving for someone who died but for your damaged soul, shattered by abuse. At first, a survivor is in shock and total disbelief about the fact that the trauma even took place. Next, you go through a denial phase where you tell yourself that it never happened. After that, the guilt and the pain sets in and you become numb with the knowledge that the abuse happened and it hurt then and still hurts to this day. Following this is the bargaining phase, the anger at the abuser and all the people around you who should have seen and stopped it but chose not to. A survivor goes into a deep depression as reality hits home and finally, you accept that this was your childhood. You were abused in the worst possible way. It happened and yet you are still alive.

There are lots of ways to treat survivors suffering from Complex PTSD. As survivors, most of us are all familiar with psychotherapy (talk therapy) and we may have tried other treatments within therapy sessions, like trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and even hypnosis. Some of us have tried theatre, movement, mindfulness, and yoga. We may have been given medicines treating the symptoms of CPTSD, like anti-depressants, anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic medicines. All of these treatments work to some degree depending on the individual and their symptoms. We are all unique in the way our childhoods shaped us into the adults we are today. Our healing is also unique.

I’ve done a lot of research on understanding and healing the “inner child”. It means going back to those horrific moments and giving that child exactly what they crave at that moment – love and reassurance. It also means understanding that because of the abuse, your developmental and basic needs were not being met and that this has had a huge impact on your current life. This was a big lightbulb moment for me as I started to understand myself and the way I am in a deeper way. How many of us survivors have tried healing from deep within by connecting our present selves with our traumatized inner child?  It involves going back to those moments in time when the trauma happened and seeing that hurt child. Grieve with your younger self for all those horrific experiences. Grieve together for all the neglect and ignorance you suffered as a result of the abuse. What does it feel like at that moment? What does your wounded self need from you? If you could go back in time as the adult you are now, what should have happened instead of the abuse? Try and reach out and talk to your “inner child”? Reassure him/her and let them know that they are loved and will be safe one day.

As part of my own healing, I made a timeline of my childhood and my life. I noted specific painful trauma events that stood out for me. Those times that were the most painful and where I felt the most alone are where I started my focus. I went back to each one and wrote exactly what happened and how I felt holding nothing back. It is best to be brutally honest here. Write it all down, and pour it all out on the page in huge black letters if you need to. What have you got to lose? My childhood soon stood out like a huge thorn and it became blatantly obvious to me how much hurt and pain I had had to survive. It was all there, out in the open, raw and unedited. The story of my childhood. It brought out the spectrum of emotions that I could imagine and some that I didn’t expect. I wrote those down too, how it all affected me. I felt the world needed to hear me at a long last after being ignored for so long. These events eventually became the backbone of my memoir: The Sex-Offender’s Daughter A True story of survival against all odds, which I published last year. Once I had written about my childhood I took a break and focused on my present life for a while. I took a break and let the trauma of my past stay there. However, the nightmares kept on coming and despite intense therapy sessions to work out why I still felt miserable when I should have been “healed”, I realized that I had only scratched the surface of my healing. That is when I started to look into John Bradshaw’s research on healing my wounded inner child.

Healing your inner child takes time. It is not something that can be rushed and it is painful. It is the most effective when going through each developmental hurt one at a time. Focus on how that pain and to hurt affected you and how it is still affecting you now as an adult. Never rush healing.

In the meantime, as you are healing, don’t forget to ask yourself:

How are you feeling today?

What is on your mind?

Do you have any stress or tension in your body?

What can you do to feel better?

Take care of yourselves. Remember you do matter.

Inner Child literature, all available on Amazon.com:

1. John Bradshaw, The Child in us, How do I find myself?
2. John Bradshaw, Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child
3. Cathryn Taylor, Inner Child Workbook: What to do with Your past when it Just won’t go away
4. Mary McDonald, The Inner Child Workbook: Recovering your Inner child
5. Virginia Jacobs, Healing Your Inner Child: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Strategies to Address Abandonment Trauma, Past Wounds and Childhood Emotional Neglect
6. Faye Mack, Reclaiming Your inner child: Wounded or not
7. Robert Jackman: Healing Your Lost Inner Child
8. Don Barlow, Inner Child Recovery Work with Radical Self compassion

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

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Elizabeth Woods

Elizabeth Woods grew up in a world of brutal sex offenders, murderers, and inconceivably neglectful adults. She suffered sexual abuse throughout her childhood and witnessed unspeakable events. Elizabeth survived in an environment where most people would not. She is now able to help other survivors heal from trauma through her writing and blogs. Elizabeth is passionate about spreading awareness of what it is like to survive after trauma. There is always hope.

Elizabeth is the author of several books and has written her memoir, telling her childhood story: The Sex-Offender’s Daughter: A True Story of Survival Against All Odds, available on Amazon Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Offenders-Daughter-Story-Survival-Against-ebook/dp/B0BBSV97VF/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=0pSdX&content-id=amzn1.sym.cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&pf_rd_p=cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&pf_rd_r=134-9913214-5397651&pd_rd_wg=MPpMc&pd_rd_r=d375a758-2d9b-4c6e-9aee-52c1f5a4e6f7&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk

Elizabeth is also the author of “Living with Complex PTSD” and the Cedar’s Port Fiction series: “Saving Joshua”, “Protecting Sarah”, “Guarding Noah” and “Bringing Back Faith” available here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQRNST2B?binding=kindle_edition&qid=1711883073&sr=8-2&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tkin