There is a battle taking place inside of you

Have you ever been able to name the internal struggle that goes on inside of you. There is a young self and adult self that battle one another.

Doc David

Transcript

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Let's talk about an internal struggle that you might have going on.

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You are listening to Head Shrink Inc. Your Answers to Life, Relationships, and Daily Living.

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Hello all. Happy New Year. It is a new year. It's rainy, cold. And wherever you may be, um, you might have experienced a lot of snow and freezing. Hopefully, that's slowly going away because it's makes life kind of miserable when you have to experience that. Um, so today I want to talk about an internal struggle that a lot of people know they have going on, but they don't realize that they can't really put a name to it. And I wanted to put a name to it. Um, I did TikTok, so yes, I have a TikTok. I'm an adult man and I have a TikTok, so yes, that's a thing. Um, so come come over and join me on TikTok, Dr. David Simonson. You'll find me talking about this kind of stuff over there. Um, so there's this struggle that happens for people, and it relates to this thing that I used to think was kind of this phony, goofy thing called an inner child. And um it was, I used to think that was kind of a goofy thing prior to my um schooling as a therapist and then my work with people over the years, and I'm gonna see if I can define it a little bit more accurately um and put put words to it where it's doesn't seem so weird and new age-y, um, because that's I I grew up in a time in the 80s where the new age was all the rave, and I grew up in a home that was not new age, and so then anything that was new age and weird was weird and don't give it any kind of credence. So um I'm still a little bit like that, but not as much. Um so a lot of times I meet with people and and we talk about a lot about traumatic things that have happened to them, and usually the trauma that people experience is stuff that took place when they were younger, right? So ages zero to maybe zero to eighteen essentially, um, until they moved out of the home that they were being raised in, and um, or the foster home, or wherever, right? Wherever you were raised. And so I usually define that period of time as uh kind of a mid-range, I call it the 12-year-old self. And a 12-year-old is just a point in time, it's not like the specific age of being 12. And so, for example, people may have had a traumatic incident when they were eight that really impacted them negatively, and so when I say that when I say 12-year-old, it encompasses that age between zero and eighteen, essentially, when you were a kid. Um, and so so that's kind of a general rule. Then when I talk about adults, I mean that's kind of where we are present day. So I, you know, when I talk about an adult competent you, that's present-day you. And so a lot of times what happens, people experience trauma, and trauma can be um, I know it's like a really fashionable word to fashionable thing to say um nowadays, at least in my world it is. Um, and trauma could be anything that happens to you, it could be like pretty significant stuff like physical abuse, sexual abuse, um, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse. It could be any number of things that someone experienced when they were younger. It could also be something as simple as you had a couple of experiences where a parent um was really mean to you and you just and then never made things right. And so then that was an experience that created trauma for you. Regardless of what it is, um that trauma does something to you, and it's gonna be different for every person. Um it was really interesting. There's a there's a TV show out called Fargo. If you haven't watched it, I encourage you to watch it. It's a great show, it's super quirky. Um, and so last night my wife and I just finished the season five, I think it is. Um, it was a great the ending was kind of weird, and so I I had to go to the internet to see what the ending meant. And I mean it's such a it's such a great ending, and it's it's about trauma, right? It's uh how can some people experience trauma and then they identify that throughout their life as I'm a trauma victim, and then other people experience trauma and they move on from it and they don't let it define them. Anyways, it's a it's a great um show, you should go watch it. And so that's what we're kind of talking about today. We're talking about how trauma can really define you or it can really um not define you. And so what happens, a struggle that I talk about is the struggle between the 12-year-old self, which in the 80s or the 90s is called the inner child, but I I call it the 12-year-old self. So it's a struggle between the 12-year-old self and the adult self. And a lot of time, most of the time, honestly, um, when I'm talking to people in my office, most of the time, people, when they're faced with a difficult thing in their life, and usually it's in significant other relationships, present-day relationships with a partner, maybe at work or with a kid that you're raising, that 12-year-old self shows up and you listen to it, and it tells you how to act in those moments. And typically the 12-year-old self is not a person that you should be listening to, it's a person that you need to kick out of your life. Um, because the 12-year-old self is the one that leads you to get enraged, leads you to make choices that aren't best for you. The adult competent self, which is who you are present day, is the one who knows decisions that you need to make, but kind of sits back and lets the 12-year-old self take over. So some of you may be thinking, what are you talking about, David? So here's how it looks. And again, it's gonna be very different for different people. So perhaps you grew up in a home where um you were really controlled and you couldn't do things, you couldn't go wow, you had parents that were very legalistic about things, and you'd be getting in trouble all the time. And so then you would lie about things and get away with things, and and so you kind of grew up in a very rigid, legalistic, controlling type home. And so the 12-year-old self says, Man, when I get out of this place and I'm on my own, no one's going to control me anymore. I will finally be able to control myself and live the life that I think I'm supposed to be living. Okay, so that's great, that's fine. But the problem is you go into interactions with other adults, and you want to have a relationship possibly in the future, with a long-term relationship with somebody, and maybe have kids with somebody. And so that 12-year-old self is kind of ruling your life. You're you're a 20-year-old, you're just like, ah, yes, finally, I'm out, I'm away from this dysfunctional family doing my own thing. So then you get into a relationship with somebody, and this person has a different experience of growing up, and so they value, let's say, communication, and they value, hey, we should let each other know when we're gonna be at places or when we're going to places, or hey, I think that we should um have really good conversations about finances and share money and and limit what we spend our money on. So the strut what happens is that 12-year-old self starts telling you this person's trying to control you. You don't want to be controlled. Look what happened when you were controlled in the past, you hated your life, etc., etc., etc. And so that's this 12-year-old self that shows up in your present-day relationships. Your present-day competent self will be saying, Oh, yeah, it is reasonable to have conversations about finances, it is reasonable to um let my partner know when I'm going to be leaving a place, or talk to my partner about, hey, do you care if I go hang out with some friends at such and such a place? Right? That that's what a competent, reasonable adult would do. But when you come from a home where there was trauma and this 12-year-old was created, 12-year-old self was created, those two parts of you start to battle with one another internally. And oftentimes people try to solve the trauma that their 12-year-old brings up in their current adult relationships, which is why people fight often. Because you're having these two battles. Let me let me give you another example. Maybe you grew up in a home where there were no rules and it was very chaotic. People were coming and going. Maybe there was drug abuse happening in your house, and you didn't really know it was happening. But as you got older, you saw, and now as an adult, you can look back and think, oh yeah, my parents were alcoholics or my parents were drug addicts or whatever. And I'm giving you extreme cases. And um there's trauma that happens at not extreme, but just for the purposes of this conversation, I'm giving an extreme case. So you grew up in a really chaotic home. So your 12-year-old self sees these other families that aren't chaotic, sees these other families where they sit down for dinner. They have parents that will show up at events. Um, and so that's something that your 12-year-old self says. And whether you say it out loud or you just make an unconscious commitment, you you make this commitment like when I'm an adult, I'm gonna make sure I have rules in my life. I'm gonna make sure that if when my when I have kids, I'm gonna be there for them. I'm gonna be a parent that I did not have for my kids. Um, so you get into a relationship with somebody, and and think about the person I talked about, you get into a relationship with somebody that that they don't want to be controlled, but you value rules and boundaries and consequences. Can you imagine those two people trying to have a relationship with one another and those two people being controlled by their 12-year-old selves? It's like a recipe for disaster. And so it's why it's why people like me exist, so we can kind of figure this out and like connect the dots, like, oh, this is what you experienced then, and your competent self knows, like, hey, that's not reasonable, but people don't listen to their competent selves, they listen to that that 12-year-old self that was hurt and experienced trauma usually, and so then you take that into a present-day relationship, and so then you get anxiety because you value control and rules and order, and when order does not exist in your life, you start to get anxious, and then the anxiety takes over, and then you have difficulty in relationships, and so that's that's a those are two examples of the struggle that goes on for people, and there's a lot of different iterations of this. Um, and so let's say you had then have your own kids. This is this showed up in my life. Um, so I grew up in a pretty legalistic home, and so that led me to um not always be completely honest when I was a teenager, and so as long as my parents didn't know, I wouldn't get in trouble for things, and so um fast forward to present day, my kids, I you know, I'd ask my kids something, and I would immediately just and they'd give me an answer, and I immediately just assumed they were lying to me. And and one day my wife was like, our kids don't lie, why do you uh why do you just assume that they're lying? And it led me to think, oh, it's because I'm letting that 12-year-old experience I had, this this uh teenager that would lie, led me to believe as a competent adult that teenagers will lie. I mean they will, but that that that's just their first thing that they do. And so it was kind of eye-opening to me when I saw that was happening for me, and it really tried to change once I had that perspective, it changed it for me. And it I don't assume that my kids lie when they tell when they talk to me, um, because they are not me as teenagers. Um, and so think about the things that you get upset with your kids about, or that you get upset with your partner about. And are those things that you did yourself as a kid that you now as an adult know that those weren't good things that I did? And if that's happening, maybe change, maybe you can kind of help change your perspective a little bit that um your kid is not you, your partner is not you as a youngster, um, they're a completely different person. I think that's often what happens in relationships too, is that you know, you grow up with a with a family that was dysfunctional or abusive. And so if your partner does something that reminds you of what's happened in your past, you immediately go to that place, like, oh no, this is what's going to happen with my partner. Your partner is a completely different person, they have good days, they have bad days, um, they have days that are just kind of mediocre. And so some they're not going to be perfect in how they interact with you. And so giving grace to them and recognizing oof, how I'm feeling about my partner and connecting like my family of origin with my partner is is not usually a good idea. And it's usually the 12-year-old that's doing that. The 12-year-old is the one that's connecting the dysfunctional family to the present-day issues that are going on with the partner. And so, one of the things, if you're in therapy, if you're hearing this and you're in therapy and your therapist has never talked to you about this kind of stuff, I'd really encourage you to take, and it makes sense to you, if this like resonates with you, I'd really encourage you to um go to your therapist and say, Hey, uh here's this concept. I want to talk about it with you. And hopefully your therapist is competent enough to kind of see that and have a conversation with you about it. Because when I did this video on TikTok, there were so many people that um commented, like, ah, this makes complete sense. Like, people have never heard this before. They they felt it, but they couldn't put a name to it. And so hopefully you you have been able to put a name to this, um, if possible. And if not, reach out and I can see if I can helpful be helpful to you or point you in a direction of somebody that could be helpful to you. As always, thanks for listening. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at headshrinkinc at gmail.com. Um love hearing comments from you, love connecting with people that um do listen to my podcast have a great week.