Childhood Experience and Adult Anxiety
January 9th, 2008 |Written by Lisa Brookes Kift, M.A
Click here to contact Lisa and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
Adult anxiety has many faces, manifestations and levels. The type of anxiety I’ve had the most contact with in my experience as a therapist is Generalized Anxiety and from here on when I speak of “anxiety” I will be referring to this. I work from a family of origin perspective, in that, I believe that people’s emotional and/or psychological distress as adults can partially be the result of problematic core beliefs developed in early childhood. A primary hallmark of anxiety is pervasive worry. “Fear of the fear” is how people have described the feeling. If I look back far enough in a person’s history I’ve typically found a childhood experience laced with chaos, high expectations and/or a highly anxious parent.
When children are born into this world, they are physical beings with no developed sense of self. Young infants begin to develop their core self as they interact with their primary caretakers. Ideally, their nest is a safe, loving and attentive one. It’s in this nest they can begin to believe that they will get their needs met and they have value – what they do impacts the world. This is the beginning of a very healthy self concept – or relationship to self. If all things are right, the growing infant will also develop the idea that others can be trusted. Barring any seriously negative life experience along the way, the baby becomes a toddler who becomes a child who becomes an adult with good feelings about his place in the world. “I am lovable,” might be a core belief born out of this situation. Other possible healthy core beliefs are, “people can be trusted,” or, “the world is a safe place.”
Children who are raised in a physically, emotionally or sexually abusive environment live in a state of chaos. People I work with have reported to feel like they were “walking on eggshells,” just waiting for the next event. This creates a pervasive fear or constant fight-or-flight response. A common core belief developed by children in this situation is, “something bad is going to happen.” Children are genius at finding ways to defend themselves psychologically from uncomfortable situations so they become hypervigilant, constantly scanning their environment for danger and adopt danger avoiding behaviors. This belief system can follow children as they develop into adults who then walk through my office door complaining of constant worry, rumination, sleep disturbances and trouble concentrating. They’re still operating under the belief system that “something bad” will happen to them! The belief system developed in their chaotic childhood environment has remained with them. Do they still need the protective shield they used as children? If the person is recapitulating the abusive dynamic in their current relationships, then maybe, “yes.” But I’ve found that more times than not, they are operating under a belief that no longer applies to their environment but is only causing them unnecessary distress.
People who’ve lived in a home with high expectations from their parents can also develop problematic core beliefs. Parents who push kids to achieve need to be careful not to be sending the message, “My love is conditional on what you do.” This can yield a child who believes that he/she must perform or do something really well to be accepted. After all, the most important people in the world to children are their parents. It would make perfect sense that they’d do anything they could do be loved and accepted! A core belief that the child can adopt and be distressing to them throughout their life is, “I am lovable for what I do not who I am.” What a set-up! How can anyone do things well enough constantly to get the validation they need under these circumstances? Adults who suffer anxiety symptoms often struggle with perfectionism, or the need to reach the highest possible bar. People with this situation complain of feeling like they’re on a “hamster wheel” and that it’s never enough. Often they come to me physically and emotionally exhausted.
Children who grew up with anxious parents almost can’t help internalizing a certain amount of anxiety themselves. We model so much of the behaviors we see from our primary caretakers, learn about how to be in relationship, how to interact with others and the world. Those who had a highly anxious mother are particularly susceptible to having their own struggles with anxiety. Infants are more tuned in to their mother’s state of being than we think – they can pick up information from the quality or quantity of touch, attention, energy in the room, etc.
Problematic belief systems developed in childhood can be challenged and the symptoms around them (anxiety) can be decreased and distinguished all together. The way that I’ve found that works for me is to understand the source (family of origin or other significant life events), develop empathy and validation for the adult’s experience at that time, normalize the defenses erected as protective measures in a vulnerable environment, reframe the core beliefs about self and teach cognitive-behavioral skills such as identifying and disrupting irrational thinking styles. A helpful way to conceptualize this is to separate the adult experience from the child’s – and identify the idea that they both reside within the person! I often will ask, “When you experiencing all that reactivity, who’s driving the bus, the adult or the child?” I’ve never heard anyone tell me that their adult rational mind was in charge at that moment. Honoring the child’s experience and normalizing the development of these unhelpful belief systems can also help lead to the resolution of anxiety. If symptoms are significantly impacting the person, medication management can be a good partner to the previously described therapy.
©Copyright 2008 Lisa Brookes Kift, M.A. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Lisa and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
January 10th, 2008 at 1:54 am
hey Lisa,
It’s really a wonderful experience to watch your kid toddling, playing, the first words he/she spoke… these remain in your memory throughout your life. Isn’t it.
January 10th, 2008 at 11:05 am
I found this blog to be both helpful and insightful. It does seem that most anxiety does link back to childhood experiences. But, what about the adult that is anxious due to new fears developed in adulthood? Can something like watching the news on a regular basis trigger anxiety that wasn’t previously there? Or, is it just a reawakening of an anxiety that has lain dormant for some time?
January 10th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Do you find that those whom you treat break the cycle of abuse? Are abusers who they are because they are repeating what they have seen or are they abusers reacting to anxiety? Or, maybe both? It seems that some people who were abused as children have the ability to do a 180 in adulthood and be very nurturing, devoted parents. While, many others are abusers themselves. I wonder what the difference is in these two types of people. What makes one person go one direction while another person goes another direction?
January 10th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I think that those who were abused as children but do no abuse their own children have had rehabilitation of some sort. I don’t know if you can just undo damage within yourself without some sort of outside guidance. Is it always therapy? No, not necessarily. I think that sometimes a single life experience can be this rehabilitation. It may be an award one that gave self esteem to the abused person. Or, it could have been a devoted teacher who really understood the abused child and was there to lend a helping hand and a listening ear. Whatever the source, I do believe that abusers will abuse others if they are not rehabilitated.
January 10th, 2008 at 11:13 am
I agree with Dianne to a point. However, I do think there are exceptions to this rule. I think that some people are born with insight and are able to sort things out themselves. But, then again, maybe that sorting is their own rehabilitation. But, I don’t think it necessarily has to come from an outside source. As therapists, that’s sort of hard for us to see. We only see those who are seeking help for one reason or another. We wouldn’t necessarily know the people who have healed without outside assistance. But, I do think a conscious decision has to be made. I think that in order for the cycle of abuse to stop, an abuser has to find the strength to recognize the fallacies of his or her childhood, recognize that those fallacies were not his or her fault, and make a daily deliberate decision to turn away from those fallacies.