I am working through a series on unmet needs. The series begins here. I am using the book Beyond Integration: One Multiple’s Journey (Norton Professional Books) by Doris Bryant and Judy Kessler as a guide because the authors did a wonderful job in identifying the unmet needs that result from abuse during each stage of development. All identified unmet needs and reactions of child abuse survivors are from Chapter Four: Lost Developmental Stages.
Authors Bryant and Kessler identified the following three needs for children from ages six to twelve:
- Competence
- Intellectual and social skills
- Experimenting with ways of doing things
Children who are abused between age six and twelve experience isolation, which wreaks havoc on their ability to develop social skills. I had no clue about how to interact socially during this time in my life. It’s not like I could go up to another kid and say, “I was taken from my bed at the full moon, assaulted by a bunch of people in black robes, and fear for my sister’s life. So, how was your weekend?”
I was fortunate to have a group of girls take me under their wing. I was the shy and quiet friend who just went along with everything. My family moved away when I was 11, which got me away from the cult but also cost me my friends. It took me years to learn how to make a friend after that move.
The authors identify the following resulting internalized messages:
- I can’t think/act for myself.
- I’m stupid/wrong.
- If I fail it’s my fault.
- I’m a bad person.
- I must try to look right.
Yes, I definitely internalized all of those messages. Even though I was objectively smart (graduated in the top 10 of my high school class of over 300 students, earned an academic scholarship for college, and earned a degree from a Top Ten graduate school), I was convinced that I was “stupid.” Even my intelligence was a “bad” thing.
I spent most of my life mirroring what other people did to get them to like me. I still do it today, although not consciously. I have picked up some of my newer friend’s mannerisms, but I only recently became aware of this in myself.
I have worked very hard to overcome these messages, and I have been much more successful in doing so than with the unmet needs from age three to six. I have learned to trust my intuition, which has given me the courage to think and act for myself. I have used positive mantras to undo many of these internal messages. I also consciously chose to stop thinking negative thoughts about myself, such as “I’m a bad person.”
Analyzing my own unmet needs for this series has been enlightening. I suffered from ritual abuse from ages six through eleven, so I would have guessed that those lost stages of development would have more of an impact than from age three to six, which was mostly the mother-daughter sexual abuse. I am surprised to learn that I am still most affected by my unmet needs from my younger years. I guess it is not a matter of how much I was impacted but which unmet needs I have succeeded in healing versus the ones that I have not.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
Faith,
How would these needs manifest differently if the abuse was outside the home from ages 3-8 ish? Would the internal messages be different?
If home was where we were safe, (clothed, fed, bathed, looked after, dare I say loved, wanted, needed, and respected), and the neighborhood and others in it were the abusers would the messages internalized be different?
I am not sure what differences there would be. Ongoing abuse is ongoing abuse, so I would expect there to be a lot of overlap. There is also the issue of the parents not keeping the child safe. Even though the parents did not know, the child had the expectation of the parents having the power to keep her safe and then letting her down.
Good question!
– Faith
[…] Ages 6 to 12 […]
Faith,
I am having a hard time with this information you have written. I don’t know that I have any (or many) of the internalized messages, even though (according to parts) I was abused physically and sexually from 4-8. I don’t know what to do with the information. Maybe I am not the person who has the internalized messages.
I realize I have always considered myself a second class citizen, low life, scum of the earth, but would hide it and my knowledge of it from others around me.
Anyway it seems there is more ammunition I can use to go against myself. I will talk with my T about it, and see if he has noticed the internalized messages.
Habersmack,
It is okay (and good!!) if you did not internalize these messages. I never really internalized that I must try to look right. Instead, I mirrored other people, not to “look right” but so that they would like me. Does that make sense? So, it was more of a message of not being good enough just the way that I am.
As for thinking and acting for myself, in some areas I have never had an issue (such as academically), but in other areas, I was very reliant on other people’s opinions before acting.
It might be that any internalization of those messages is held by some of your parts rather than by “you” (whichever part of yourself that you identify as “me”).
Don’t let this series make you feel invalidated. Take what applies to you, and leave the rest.
Take care,
– Faith
I’ve subconsciously taken on mannerisms and speech patterns (including regional accents) of other people, once I’ve been around them long enough to consider them friends. Long ago I recognized this about myself, but had no idea why or where it came from, just that it happened. Now, it makes sense!
I guess there are a lot of layers of the effects of abuse. It’s easy to recognize the common ones, like depression, fear, difficulty trusting, abandonment issues, and so on. But beyond those, it seems there’s so much more that was influenced, things we don’t even realize.
i am having such a hard time… i am bad … all the things you have written are true… for me… it is my fault somehow.
(((( Zoe ))))
This information can help you identify negative messages that you internalized. It doesn’t make it “your fault.” The fault is with your abusers.
Hang in there.
– Faith
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