SPEAKER_00 0:02

We talk a lot about childhood bullying. Kids at school. The mean girls, the boys who picked on you, the people who called you names, the people who excluded you, the people who made you feel ugly, stupid, different, too fat, too skinny, too dark, too loud, too quiet, do something, no matter what it was, it was too bad. But what happens when your first bully wasn't even at school? What happens when the person who first made you afraid lived in your house? What happens when the person who made you feel small and somebody that you love? What happens when you couldn't go home to get away from the bully because the bully was home? And before somebody gets defensive, listen to me. This episode is not about sitting around for the next few minutes talking about how terrible everybody's parents were. It's not what we're doing. Some parents were doing the best they knew how to do, and then some weren't. Some parents loved their children deeply and still hurt them. Some repeated what had been done to them. Some apologized later, some never did. Some changed, some didn't. Life is complicated. Families are even complicated. But here's what we're not going to do. We're not going to make childhood pain disappear just because acknowledging it makes adults uncomfortable. Because a child doesn't experience your intentions, a child experiences your behavior. And sometimes the place that was supposed to teach you safety was the first place you learned fear. Let's talk about it. Welcome back to the Quietest Kept Podcast. I am Shanti B, your master certified mental health coach, author, speaker, and journal babe. And baby, today is personnel. If you have read my book, Quiet is Kept, you already know why. I have writtenly, I have written openly about my childhood. I've written about physical abuse. I've written about my relationship with my mother. I've written about my father not being physically present the way I needed. I've written about not growing up with a lot of affection. I've written about being bullied and rejected outside the house, too. So when I talk about childhood wounds, I'm not talking about some textbook shit I found yesterday. I'm talking about things I have had to sit with, things I had to journal through, things I talked about in therapy, things I've had to understand differently as a grown woman. And one of the biggest things I've learned is this you can understand why somebody became who they became and still tell the truth about what their behavior did to you. Those two things can exist together. So let's get into it. Think about yourself as a child. You didn't know words like emotional neglect, hypervision. I can't even say the damn word, but you know what I'm trying to say. Dysregulation, attachment, trauma response, chorus of control, psychological aggression. You didn't have all those words. You were a kid. You had, oh mama mad, daddy and I coming. I better be quiet. Don't make them mad. Don't cry. Nobody cares. Stay out the way. Be good. Maybe if I do better. Maybe if I get good grades. Maybe if I don't cause any trouble. Maybe if I make everybody laugh. Maybe if I'm helpful. Ooh, maybe if I'm perfect. Maybe then everything will be okay. Children create meaning from their environments. And here's the problem. Children tend to make things about themselves. If a parent is emotionally unavailable, a child doesn't necessarily think, my parent has unresolved trauma and limited emotional capacity. Girl, please. That child thinks, why don't they want me? If affection isn't given, the child might not think. This adult has difficulty expressing affection because affection wasn't modeled in their family of origin. The child's gonna think maybe I'm not lovable. If a parent keeps leaving, the child may think people leave me. If the home is unpredictable, the child learns. Pay attention to everything. And then we grow up carrying conclusions we made before we were old enough to understand what was actually happening. Now I can look at my childhood differently now than I could when I was living it. As a child, I wasn't analyzing family systems, I was living my life. I knew what hurt, I knew what scared me, I knew what made me feel unwanted, I knew what made me angry, but I didn't necessarily understand what those experiences were creating inside of me. And later through therapy and journaling, I had to start connecting dots. I grew up without a lot of affection. No constant, I love you, no hugging all the time, no sitting around processing feelings, and then I became an adult who didn't necessarily know what to do with feelings. Imagine that. We learn emotional language somewhere, and if nobody teaches it, sometimes you spend adulthood teaching it to yourself. I also had to look at a physical at physical discipline and abuse, and this part was very uncomfortable because I had to acknowledge ways that the things I experienced affected the way I parented, and that's the part of generational healing people don't put on cute Instagram graphics. Sometimes breaking a cycle starts with realizing, oh shit, I repeated some of that. That is painful because you love your children. You would never intentionally say, Let me pass my pain down on my kids. But that's the thing about unexamined patterns. You don't always intentionally pass them down. Sometimes you simply do what feels normal until you learn something different, and then you have a choice. When love and fear live in the same house, that is something that's complicated for children because the person hurting you may also be the person feeding you, taking you to school, buying Christmas presents, doing your hair, paying bills, making you laugh, taking care of you when you get sick. Children don't always experience people as good, bad. They experience contradictions. I love you and I'm scared of you. I need you and you hurt me. You take care of me and I don't feel emotionally safe with you. That contradiction can be confusing and it can teach something dangerous that love and fear belong together, that somebody can love you and repeatedly hurt you. And your job is to simply understand. And what if we don't examine that belief, baby? Guess where it can show up later? Yeah, in your relationships. Now we all know October is the domestic violence awareness month, and this is where I want to connect our October conversation because children don't have to be the direct target of intimate partner violence for violence in the home to affect them. Witnessing violence in the home is recognized as an adverse childhood experience. Think about what a child may be observing. One parent controls the money, one parent has to ask for permission, one parent calls the other names, somebody throws things, somebody threatens somebody. Everybody gets quiet when a certain person walks in the house. Mama changes what she's wearing because somebody got mad. Daddy stops seeing certain friends because his partner doesn't like them. Someone is constantly checking the other person's phone. Somebody apologizes when they didn't do anything wrong just to calm things down. Maybe violence happens, maybe threats happen. Maybe the child hears it through the wall. Maybe the child sees the aftermath. And children are learning, not necessarily because anybody sat them down and said this is love, but because children learn relationships by watching relationships. And I need to be very clear here. Growing up around violence does not mean a child is destined to become abusive or destined to be abused. That's not what I'm saying. Risk is not destiny. Plenty of people experience violence as children and grow up determined to build something completely different. And childhood trauma does not excuse abusing somebody as an adult. We don't get to say, well, that's what I saw growing up.

unknown 9:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

They may help explain where something came from. Now what are you gonna do about it? Because adults are responsible for their behavior. Now let's put some research behind this conversation. Adverse childhood experiences, otherwise known as ACEs, are potentially traumatic experiences that happen before age 18. And this includes experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect. It can also include witnessing violence in the home or community. And nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults report experiencing at least one type of ACE before age 18. Why does that matter? Because childhood adversity can have long-term effects on health and well-being. And this isn't about saying you had a bad childhood, therefore your life is ruined. Absolutely not. We're talking about risk. We're talking about understanding. We're talking about prevention. We're talking about why safe, stable, nurturing environments for children matter so much. And we're talking about why healing matters too. Your childhood can shape you. It does not have to sense you. Now let's move beyond physical violence. Because some people's first bully never hit them, never laid a hand on them. What they did was criticize them constantly. Nothing was good enough. Why can't you be more like your sister? Why are you so sensitive? You too loud. You're too emotional. You are lazy. You stupid. You're gonna be just like your daddy. Nobody's gonna want you acting like that. You need to lose weight. You need to gain weight. Your hair looks a mess. Stop crying before I give you something to cry about. And maybe the adult forgot saying it. But guess what? The child didn't. Because eventually the adult doesn't even have to be in the room anymore. You learn to bully yourself. You look in the mirror, ugly. You make a mistake, stupid. Somebody rejects you? Of course they did. You get an opportunity, you're not qualified. You succeed? Oh, you got lucky. Do you see what happened? The external voice became internal. And now you're 40 years old talking to yourself the way somebody talked to you when you were 10. Hey, they moved out. Why are you still letting them live rent-free in your head? Now some of y'all can walk into a room and know something is wrong before anybody says a word. The tone changed, face changed, energy changed, the door closed differently, footsteps sound different, you notice everything. And people might call you very intuitive. Maybe. You may genuinely be intuitive, but also ask, did I learn to play close to pay close attention because paying attention helped me stay safe? If you grew up around unpredictable anger, you may have learned to monitor adults. What mood they're in. Is today a good day? Should I ask now? Should I wait? Do I need to be quiet? Is something about to happen? Then you grow up and you're still scanning. Text message has a period instead of an exclamation point. What's wrong? Partner is quiet. Are you mad at me? Your employer sins, can we talk? Now your whole nervous system is writing a resignation letter. And sometimes nothing is even wrong, but your body remembers what unpredictability used to mean. Let's talk about the perfect child. There's the child who tries to earn safety through achievement. Straight A's, no trouble, always responsible, always helpful. Never ask for anything. Oh, adults love this child. They say, Oh, she's so mature. Maybe she had to be. Or he's so responsible. Maybe he didn't feel like he had a choice. Sometimes maturity is development. And sometimes what looks like maturity is a child carrying responsibilities that shouldn't have belonged to them yet. And then they grow up and can't make a mistake without feeling like the world is ending. Perfectionism, overachievement, and prostor center, constant proving, never resting, and everybody praises them. Meanwhile, they are tired as hell. And that's why I keep saying some survival strategies look very impressive on a resume. Now, what about the funny child? Always joking, making everybody laugh, breaking attention, turning painful shit into a joke. Humor is beautiful. I love laughing, but sometimes humor is also protection. If everybody's laughing, then maybe nobody's fighting. If I'm funny, maybe they'll like me. If I make the joke first, you can't embarrass me. If I laugh about what happened, maybe I don't have to feel it. And again, the point isn't to diagnose every personality trait. Sometimes funny people are just funny. But healing asks, do I have access to the full range of me? Can I be funny and sad? Strong and tired, independent and supportive, successful and unsure? Can I exist without performing the version of me everybody likes best? Oh now here's the invisible child. Some children survive by disappearing. They don't need anything, they don't make noise. Stay in your room, handle it yourself, don't bring problems home, don't ask for help. And adults reward that too. She never bothers anybody. He keeps to himself. Oh, they're low maintenance. But what does low maintenance actually mean? Sometimes it means I learned early that having needs didn't feel safe. That somebody genuinely wants to love you and you don't know how to tell them what you need. You always say nothing. Then you're mad because they didn't know. Of course you're gonna have needs. Now here's where I want to bring compassion into this. Because some of our parents were wounded children, raising children. Some were abused, some were neglected, some lived through poverty, racism, violence, addiction in the family, their own abandonment, their own grief, their own trauma, and never got therapy. They never journaled, they never had emotional language, never had somebody ask, what happened to you? So they raised children with whatever tools they had. I can have compassion for that, but compassion doesn't require dishonesty. Because both things can be true. My parent was hurting, and my parent hurt me. Understanding the first doesn't erase the second, and acknowledging the second doesn't require me to hate the first. That, my friends, is grown healing. So here's your hard truth of the week. Someone can love you and still hurt you in ways you have to heal from. Because some of us think acknowledging the hurt means we're saying there was no love. Not necessarily. Life isn't always this simple. Maybe they loved you with the capacity that they had. Maybe they didn't know better. Maybe they didn't know better. Maybe they were overwhelmed. Maybe they were repeating something. Maybe there's context you still don't know. But your healing does not require a courtroom verdict on whether somebody was a good or bad person. Sometimes you simply need permission to say, it hurt me. And that's enough. And let me put this right here. This phrase, but other people had it worse. Please stop saying that. Please. Pain is not the Olympics. Somebody else's childhood being worse than yours doesn't make yours painless. You do not have to earn the right to heal by proving your story was horrible enough. Maybe you had food, you had clothes, you had Christmas, vacations, a beautiful house, and still didn't feel emotionally safe. Maybe your parents sacrificed tremendously for you, and there are still things you needed to heal. Gratitude doesn't require denial. You can say, my mother did this beautifully, and this still hurt me. My father gave me this, and I needed something else too. That's not being disrespectful, it's complexity. Now let me check the other side too, because the internet loves extremes. Your parents were imperfect, quick to say toxic. They told you no. Oh, they're a narcissist. They disregard, they disagree with you. Oh, she was emotionally abusive. No, we're not doing that either. Parenting is hard. Parents make mistakes. Children can experience disappointment without it being trauma. Every uncomfortable childhood memory is not abuse. And you don't need a clinical label for somebody in order to decide something affected you. Sometimes we need to stop trying to diagnose every damn body and describe the behavior instead. What happened? How did it affect me? What do I need now? What am I going to do differently? And that's enough. And now this can hit different when you have children because sometimes you're parenting and suddenly you're looking at your child thinking, I was this age when that happened to me. And honestly, that can mess you up because adulthood gives you perspective, childhood couldn't. You look at a seven-year-old and realize how little seven is. You look at a teenager and realize, oh my God, I thought I was grown. I wasn't grown, I was a baby. And sometimes parenting your children brings grief for the child that you were. But here's where accountability comes back. Don't let that grief become an excuse to make your children responsible for healing you. Your child does not owe you the childhood that you didn't have. You get to give them something different without expecting them to repay you for it. I tell my clients all the time, you don't owe your parents a damn thing. You did not ask to be here. And breaking the cycle doesn't mean being perfect. And this matters because cycle breakers can become perfectionists too. I would never make my children feel what I felt. That's a great intention to have, but you're human. You're gonna mess up, you're gonna lose your patience, you're gonna misunderstand, and you're gonna say something wrong. The goal isn't to never hurt my child, that's impossible. But the goal is can I recognize harm? Can I apologize? Can I repair? Can I listen? Can I learn? Can I create enough emotional safety that my child can tell me, Mom, that hurt me? And I don't respond with every everything I've done for you, that's different. Repair matters, accountability matters. Children learning that adults can say I was wrong, that matters. Because a lot of y'all adults feel like because you're an adult, you don't have to apologize to a kid for something you did wrong. Girl, please, sir, please. Alright, so here's your exercise. Think about the meanest thing that you say to yourself. Write them down. All of them, not the pretty affirmations. I want you to write down the ugly shit. The shit you say to yourself, like I'm stupid, I'm ugly, I'm too much. Nobody wants me. I'm lazy. I'm always fucking up. I'm not good enough. I'm difficult. Nobody loves me. And beside each statement, I want you to ask whose voice does this sound like? Where did I first hear this? Who made me feel this? Was it actually said? Was it implied? Did I learn it at home? School? Church, a relationship, and then ask, do I still believe this or have I simply repeated it so many times it feels true? And there lies the difference. A familiar thought isn't necessarily a factual thought. Alright, get your pen and pad here, your journal prompts. Number one, and I want you to be gentle with yourself on these. Number one, I don't want you to judge yourself, and I don't, I just want you to observe. Number one, what did home teach me about love, safety, anger, affection, and conflict? And which of those lessons do I still carry today? Number two, what did I have to become as a child to feel safe, accepted, loved, or less likely to be hurt? Quiet, funny, perfect, independent, invisible, helpful, strong. Number three, what negative belief about myself may have started with the way someone spoke to me or treated me when I was young? And what evidence do I have today that challenges that belief? Number four, where am I recreating something familiar from childhood in my adult relationships, parenting, friendships, or relationships with myself? Not because you're doomed, because awareness gives you choices. And the last one, number five, what does the child I used to be need, the adult I am today, to stop tolerating, start practicing, or finally believe? This one I want y'all to sit with. Alright, so what I'm unlearning this week. I'm unlearning that understanding somebody's pain means I have to minimize what their pain did to me. I'm unlearning that. I'm unlearning that understanding somebody's pain means I have to minimize what their pain did to me. No, that is not what that means. I can have empathy for your story without abandoning mine. I can understand that you didn't receive love properly and acknowledge that you didn't know how to give it properly either. I can understand you were surviving and admit that I was surviving you. Both can exist. And maybe that's where healing becomes less about blame and more about truth. Now, before we move on, I need to say something directly to parents. If violence, intimidation, coercive control, or abuse is happening in your home, children may be affected even if you think they don't know. Children notice more than adults think they notice. They notice fear, tension, changes in behavior. They hear things, they see things, they learn things. That does not mean I'm blaming the survivor. Absolutely not. The responsibility for abuse belongs to the person choosing abusive behavior. And if you're experiencing abuse, getting support and making decisions about safety can be complicated. So please don't hear this episode as just leave your children. That is not what I'm saying. I'm not saying leave for your children. Your situation deserves individualized support and safety planning. In the United States, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24-7. Call 1-800-799-SAFE. That's 1-800-799-7233, or you can text the word START START to 88788. And if you think your phone or internet activity may be monitored, please be mindful of digital safety when looking for resources. You deserve support that respects your circumstances and your choices. Now, if there was ever an episode that connected directly to my book, Quiet is Kept, is this one. Because you cannot understand adult Shanti without understanding little Shanti. The girl who wanted to belong, the girl who wanted to be like, the girl who didn't grow up talking about feelings, the girl who experienced physical abuse, the girl who wondered about her father's absence, the girl who learned to keep things inside. The girl who sometimes dimmed herself because being fully herself didn't always feel safe. And then the woman who eventually had to go back and understand what that little girl learned. That's why I wrote the book. Not because I wanted to stay stuck in childhood. Actually, it's quite the opposite. I wanted to understand what I needed to stop caring from childhood. So if you're listening to season three and haven't read quiet is kept yet, go get your copy. But don't just read it. I want you to journal with it. When something in my story makes you uncomfortable, ask why. When something makes you emotional, ask why. When you recognize yourself, stop. That's probably where your work is. And if you're starting to recognize childhood patterns that are still running your adult life, that's something we can work on in coaching. Maybe you understand where the pattern came from, but don't know how to change it. Maybe you know you're a people pleaser. Maybe you know you're hyper-independent. Maybe you know you shut down. Maybe you know you tolerate too damn much. Maybe you know you're still trying to prove your worth. Okay, now what? Because you know my position, awareness matters. But awareness without action will have you sitting in the same spot with better vocabulary. And baby, staying stuck and cute. In coaching, we're not spending 12 weeks putting your parents on trial. We're looking at you. What happened, what you learned, what you carried, what's costing you now, and what you want to do differently. So if you're ready for that work, learn more about working with me through Boswell Coaching and Consulting at my website, shantib.com. Now here's your quote: The child you were learned how to survive the home you had. The adult you are gets to decide what feels like home now. Again, the child you were learned how to survive the home you had. The adult you are gets to decide what feels like home now. Listen, I don't know what your childhood looked like. Maybe home was beautiful, maybe it was complicated, maybe it was painful. Shit, maybe it was all three. Maybe your parents were incredible in some ways and deeply wounded in others. Maybe you forgot about your childhood, or maybe you're still angry or grieving, or maybe you're just not realizing, damn, that did affect me. Wherever you are, you don't have to rewrite history, you don't have to exaggerate it, you damn sure don't have to minimize it. Tell the truth. That's enough. And then ask, what am I gonna do with the truth? Because healing is not about spending the rest of your life staring backward. We look backward long enough to understand what we're carrying so we can decide what we're taking forward. You don't have to keep bullying yourself because somebody bullied you, you don't have to keep abandoning yourself because somebody abandoned you. You don't have to stay emotionally unavailable because affection wasn't modeled. You don't have to confuse fear with respect. You don't have to confuse control with love, and you don't have to repeat what you witnessed. You don't have to become what hurt you, and you don't have to spend your whole life being angry at the child who figured out how to survive. She did what she knew. Thank her, love her, protect her, and then tell her, baby, I got it from here. All right, I'm Shanti B, and this is the quietest kept podcast. Keep healing, keep choosing yourself, keep telling the truth. And remember, home isn't supposed to be the place you have to recover from. I'll talk to you next time. And this is early voting day, October 19th. Get y'all asses out there and vote.