Triumph over Troubled Childhoods: Krehbiel's 10 strategies to Help Adults

According to recent conclusions from a decade-long study by the Center for Disease Control and Kaiser Permanente Hospital, 60% of American adults were affected in some way by adverse childhood experiences. ACE’s were defined as dysfunctional behaviors displayed by parents, such as emotional and physical abuse or neglect. ACE’s leave an imprint on children and impact their ability to cope effectively in adulthood.

Negative childhood experiences leave scars in need of healing. Some adults are capable of processing their past more adaptively than others. Often, adults will cling to childhood scripts that no longer are necessary or helpful. Some of these basic childhood assumptions that get activated are:

• I must perform admirably at all times.
• I am responsible for all the bad things that happened to me and I should be blamed for them.
• I must avoid conflict at all costs because it is risky.
• Other people's opinions and beliefs are more important and convincing than my own.

Adults from troubled childhoods need to learn how to process the perils of their past as opposed to denying one's story or ruminating about it. This search to heal from the vestiges of worn out thinking and behavior takes courage and persistence. Here are 10 strategies to assist adults in leaving behind the negative interpretations of childhood:

1. Give up the magical illusion that somehow your parents will morph and become the loving, caring adults you have always yearned for.
2. Write a letter to the abusive parent. Share your deepest feelings about what you experienced as a child. Don't hold back. Do not deliver the letter. This exercise is designed to therapeutically assist you in releasing pain from the past.
3. Consider your earliest childhood recollection. Where were you located? Who was with you? What were you wearing? How did you feel? What beliefs about your life are captured in your story.
4. Listen to your inner critic. This is the voice (derived from a parent) that speaks in harsh tones and provides disparaging messages. Let it speak and learn to understand the nature of its noise. Learn to detach from its contents.
5. Rationally respond to the inner critic. If it says, "How could you do such a stupid thing," respond by exclaiming, "We all make mistakes. This experience doesn't define who I am. I will do better next time."
6. Learn to make realistic appraisals about who you are and what you do. Leave behind, the tyranny of the, I should have, I ought to, I must not, and so on. Think in terms of preferences rather than absolutes. For example, "It would be nice if my business partner thanked me for a job well done, but is not essential." Another realistic, thoughtful appraisal might be, "What role did I play in this problem, if any?" Get out of self-blame because it is not helpful in solving problems and only serves to victimize you.
7. Learn to set more realistic boundaries. Quit giving your power away to other people. Start asserting yourself, telling others what you need and want. If you confront potential conflict, people will respect you, not abandon you.
8. Your troubled childhood was not your fault. Let go of the need to blame yourself for a problem you didn’t create. It never was about you!
9. Find supportive friends that you trust that can help you role-model more intimate, connected behavior. Understand that your past doesn't need to have power over you in the present. Remember, your friends are not your parents. You can learn to selectively disclose information to others, letting yourself be more emotionally transparent.
10. Forgiveness is a process, not an act. Hopefully, at some point, you will be able to forgive your parents for being less than perfect and causing you harm.

Overcoming a troubled past and learning to live a triumphant life takes time and patience. Seek counseling support if you feel stuck in trying to handle your thoughts, feelings and relationship issues. There is hope and healing for those who courageously seek to transcend the difficulties of a troubled childhood.

Clinging to the Comfort Zone: Our Belief in Beliefs

John came to therapy as a troubled young man. In every way, his life was a series of successes. He was a kind, caring individual who was passionate about life. In spite of the emotional unavailability of his parents, he cruised through high school with exemplary grades. He graduated at the top of his class in undergraduate school and entered a law program. He completed his law degree and easily passed the bar examination. He fell in love with Kim, who was completing her MBA and was successfully working for a computer software company. They planned a huge wedding with the support and blessing of Kim's parents.

John's parents were dead-set against the marriage. His mother was morally outraged that John and Kim were cohabitating prior to the wedding. John was deeply disturbed by his mother's attitude and made numerous overtures to explore the issue with her. Although neither parent attended church, they were adamant that living together out of wedlock was religiously immoral and offensive. Through a flurry of e-mails, John's mother made disparaging comments toward John and rambled on about his fiancé being nothing more than a low-class tramp.

John's parents were indignant and cut off contact with John and clearly indicated that they had no intentions of coming to the couple's wedding. Sadly, their beliefs had rigidly risen to the level of taking precedence over their connection with their own son and future daughter-in-law. They clung to their beliefs in such a way that the rules mattered more than their most intimate relationships.

Beliefs can be defined as preconceived notions about the way the world works that lead one to rigidly embrace a value system to maintain living in a comfort zone. John's parents clung to certain beliefs that reinforced a worldview that was inconsistent with most people’s reality. In other words, they believed in a belief, because they internalized it as an altered form of reality. Their belief kept them feeling safe until it came in conflict with their son's experience. Now it served to sever their relationship with their only child.

We can see this cognitive dissonance (conflict between belief and experience), in many different situations. We have CO2 emissions pouring out of the smoke-stacks of factories, while reactionaries maintain that climate change is not connected to human behavior. We have clear-cut evidence to support evolution and yet there are those who espouse contrary theories to minimize their inner conflict.

Beliefs play a role in keeping life simple and explainable. Faith, however, operates differently. Faith is an unreserved opening to the truth wherever it may be found. Faith requires questioning, being open to complex challenges, and grappling with conflict and paradox. With faith-based thinking, we cannot always reconcile various pieces of reality.

People who cling to their beliefs rather than faith lack depth. They are afraid to step outside the confines of their preconceived assumptions. Such rigidity provides a false sense of security in an insecure world. To demonstrate integrity, one must let go of belief-based tunnel vision and transcend religious dogma in the pursuit of finding the truth in one's experience.

An example of this is the fundamentalist Christian, who has believed all his life that homosexuality is an abomination to God. During early adulthood, one of his children gathers the courage to come out and tell his father that he is gay. How does this father reconcile his beliefs with the nature of what his son has told him about his sexual identity? This is a difficult spiritual and emotional dilemma. This father has several options to consider in making a decision about how to view this problem. Do I disown my own child for revealing his true sexual orientation? Do I admonish my son to seek reparative therapy to change his sexual feelings? Do I take the position of hating the sin, but loving the sinner? Do I let go of the need to reconcile my son's identity with my religious beliefs, and try to enlarge my spiritual map to include the possibility that God's grace may transcend my conflict? Faith always leads us to enlarge our vision of the truth and hold conflicting ideas in tension as we seek to pursue personal growth in our quest for answers.

Like John's parents, beliefs tend to define us and our reality in a constricted manner. The rules become more important than our search for the truth and affect those we seek to hold accountable to them. Beliefs keep things clear-cut and simple in an altered reality that often doesn't match one's experience. Those who embrace such reactionary thinking are dangerous because they are unable to problem-solve from multiple perspectives and consequently have the potential to hurt people. They are unaware of the missing pieces in any argument. There is only one side to their story, and the believers embrace it wholeheartedly without doing due diligence to grapple with difficult problems and polar perspectives.


Note: This case is a composite drawn from my practice as a psychotherapist. It has been altered to protect the individual’s right to confidentiality and privacy.

How to Break Out of the Perplexing Parenting Trap

Melissa frequently screamed at her children. This impulsive, angry behavior would occur over the tiniest of infractions - spilling things, making messes, and forgetting chores. She felt guilty for mistreating her children, but was incapable of changing her perplexing parental pattern.

Parenting is an art. The role comes with no manuals. Often, adults have no perspective on how to raise their kids. Melissa had no role models or prior emotional experience to prepare her with the tool chest of strategies to use in addressing the needs of her children. She felt alone in her new responsibility.

Melissa's own childhood was troubled. Her father was emotionally vacant and her mother was aggressive, harsh and critical. She recalled her mother calling her out when she came home with less than an A on her report card. Melissa was a superior student who outperformed other family members, completing her MBA and working as a corporate manager. She was an anxious achiever, who performed to please, hoping to get the admiration and validation of her emotionally unavailable parents. As Melissa worked harder without gaining parental recognition and support, she turned her thoughts and feelings inward, believing that she was defective. Her disappointment fueled her to try even harder to win her parents’ approval.

By the time Melissa came to counseling, she was exhausted. She was tired of pleasing others, being aggressive with her kids and mistrustful of disclosing her feelings with friends and family. When Melissa attempted to confide in her mother, the conversation got flipped as her self-absorbed mom proceeded to explore her drama from everyday living. Melissa learned to keep her distance.

In the search for adulthood, children from troubled families must give up the illusion that someday their parents will morph and become the loving, caring adults they always yearned for. After much soul-searching, emotional upheaval and grieving, Melissa would need to swallow the bitter pill, recognizing that her parents would never meet her needs. Only then, could she let go of her perplexing dilemma of internalizing her parents’ negative energy. Through processing, forgiving and releasing her past, Melissa was prepared to undertake a journey to learn new, more adaptive thinking and behaving in the here-and-now.

Melissa no longer allowed her parents to have power over her present experience. She was now capable of listening to the inter-critic, a representation of her mother's complex of thoughts and feelings. She learned to detach from the contents of the critic by rationally responding with positive self-talk that was genuine.

No one emerges from a troubled childhood without the battle scars to prove it. Melissa confronted her wounds and found healing and new hope for the future. She became aware of childhood interpretations that haunted her, and no longer allowed them to get activated with significant others. Here are a few core beliefs that got triggered:

• I must perform admirably at all times.
• I must always try harder to please others.
• If I share my honest feelings, people can't be trusted to listen without judgment and maintain confidentiality.

Instead, she learned to reinterpret these childhood scripts with more adaptive assumptions:

• It's okay to slack at times. I can be less than perfect.
• I don't always need the approval of other people in order to feel good about myself.
• I can selectively choose friends to confide in. I need to allow others to experience the essence of my true self.

Adults tend to replicate the past, unless they process it. Melissa left the magical illusions of childhood behind in search for authentic adulthood. She developed more patience with her children and learned more effective parenting skills by:

• Creating more emotional involvement
• Setting consistent consequences for positive and negative behavior
• Establishing better boundaries
• Learning to take care of her own needs as a parent
• Becoming more supportive and encouraging to her children.

Melissa broke the perplexing parenting trap. Adverse childhood experiences had affected her ability to cope appropriately with her children and family. No longer believing she was at fault for what had happened to her as a child, she was released to devote more positive energy to parenting her children with success.


Note: This case is a composite drawn from my practice as a psychotherapist. It has been altered to protect the individual’s right to confidentiality and privacy.

James P. Krehbiel, Ed.S., LPC, CCBT is an educator, writer, licensed professional counselor and nationally certified cognitive-behavioral therapist practicing in Scottsdale, Arizona. He specializes in treating anxiety and depression for adults and children. He served as a teacher and guidance counselor for 30 years and has taught graduate-level counselor education courses for Chapman University. In 2005, he self-published Stepping Out of the Bubble: Reflections on the Pilgrimage of Counseling Therapy (Booklocker.com). His latest book, Troubled Childhood, Triumphant Life: Healing from the Battle Scars of Youth (New Horizon Press) is about the impact of adverse childhood experiences on adult functioning. He offers solution-focused strategies to assist adults in overcoming the perils of the past.