The Childhood Experiences That Shape Us
Maybe nothing about your childhood seems significant enough to explain why you feel the way you do now. There was plenty of love. You were cared for, had what you needed practically, and can think of lots of happy memories. You might describe your childhood as “great” or “fine” — and feel guilty or disloyal even questioning it.
Or perhaps there were more obvious things that made growing up difficult — bullying, strained family relationships, difficulties at school, illness or instability within the family, or simply feeling as though you didn’t quite fit or belong.
What happened — and what was missing
Some childhood experiences are easy to identify as painful. Others are much harder to put your finger on because they’re about something you needed but didn’t consistently receive. Being comforted when you were upset. Having someone stay interested in how something felt for you rather than immediately trying to fix it. Feeling that your opinions mattered even when they were different. Knowing you could make mistakes, feel angry, struggle, or simply not be okay without becoming a problem for somebody else. When those things are missing, there may not be a particular event to look back on and say: “there — that’s what happened”.
Instead, you adapted. You became independent, capable and dependable. You learnt not to ask for much and got used to relying on yourself. Maybe you were praised for being mature for your age, doing well at school, achieving, behaving well or being the “easy” one.
On the outside, there may have been lots to feel proud of. Meanwhile, your own needs and wants went unnoticed, or were dismissed with a list of all the things you should be grateful for. There may not have been much space for what you liked, what you thought, what mattered to you, or what made you different. Perhaps it felt easier to like what other people liked, agree rather than disagree, or become whatever version of you seemed to fit most easily within your family and amongst friends.
When so much of your attention is spent noticing what other people need, want or expect from you, there can be less space to discover those things for yourself. Years later, that can leave you knowing how to be what other people need while feeling much less certain about who you are when nobody else is telling you who to be.
Counselling for adults exploring how early relationships and experiences still affect how they feel about themselves today
The things we learn without anyone saying them
As children, we don’t consciously decide how to behave. We notice and adapt. You might have known when a parent was stressed before they said a word. You learned which feelings were welcome and which were better kept to yourself. You sensed when it was better not to ask for something, when to agree, when to be helpful, or when saying “I’m fine” would make things easier for everyone.
And this can carry into adulthood: don’t make a fuss; don’t need too much; keep other people happy; be grateful; be good; cope.
For some people, being highly capable and successful becomes connected to how okay they feel in themselves. You might hold yourself to standards you would never expect from somebody else. Getting something wrong can feel disproportionately painful. Rest can come with guilt. Praise feels good briefly before the bar moves again. You may achieve something you’ve worked towards for months and almost immediately start thinking about what comes next. From the outside, this can look like drive, motivation and willpower. On the inside, there may be a much more fragile question underneath it: If I’m not being useful, good, successful or easy to be around, am I still enough?
When it follows you into your relationships
Sometimes these early experiences become most visible in the way you relate to other people now. A change in somebody’s tone can leave you wondering whether you’ve done something wrong. After a conversation, you might replay what you said, questioning whether you were too much, came across badly or upset somebody without realising.
Saying no can bring a rush of guilt. You may understand intellectually that you’re allowed boundaries while still feeling selfish or unkind for having them. You might explain or justify your decisions at length, soften what you really think, or avoid difficult conversations because somebody else being unhappy with you feels so uncomfortable or comes with the fear of being abandoned or left.
You may be the person other people rely on, while finding it surprisingly difficult to let somebody care for you without worrying that you’re a burden. These patterns can show up within your family relationships too. You might find yourself slipping back into an old role around parents or siblings, struggling to set limits without guilt, or navigating distance or estrangement — alongside grief for the relationship you have, or the one you hoped might eventually be possible.
You may also find yourself staying focused on understanding somebody else’s behaviour while questioning or minimising its impact on you. If you’re used to doubting your own feelings or prioritising somebody else’s needs, it can be harder to recognise when a relationship has become one-sided, controlling or harmful.
None of this means that earlier experiences inevitably lead to unhealthy relationships. But understanding the patterns you learnt can help you recognise what feels familiar, what actually feels safe, and what you want your relationships to look like now.
“But my parents loved me”
I often hear people question whether their childhood could really have affected them because they know their parents loved them. Exploring what you needed as a child doesn’t require you to decide that your parents were bad people. Perhaps they worked incredibly hard, made sacrifices for you and gave you opportunities they never had themselves. They may also have been carrying difficulties of their own, or parenting in ways shaped by how they themselves were raised.
Therapy isn’t about deciding who was to blame. Instead, we can be curious about the relationships and environment you grew up in, what you learnt within them, and how those experiences affected you — while making room for whatever feelings you have about what happened.
Understanding yourself differently now
Often we begin looking backwards because something in the present has become difficult to ignore — a relationship, loss, burnout, a change in direction, or simply recognising that the ways you’ve always coped aren’t working for you anymore.
Therapy can give us somewhere to connect what’s happening now with what has shaped you before. We can become curious about the feelings, beliefs and patterns that once made sense, without assuming you need to keep living by them. And because understanding something intellectually isn't always enough to make it feel different, we work with more than your thoughts — paying attention to your feelings, your body, what happens in your relationships, and the things you sense even when you can't quite find words for them.
The aim isn’t to endlessly analyse your childhood or turn it into an explanation for everything. It’s to understand yourself more deeply now — so that gradually you can begin to trust what you feel, recognise what you need, decide what matters to you, and build a relationship with yourself that feels more your own.
If you have a question I haven’t answered here, you’re always welcome to get in touch and ask.
Frequently Asked Questions
-
We learn a lot about ourselves and other people through our early experiences — what feels safe, what gets us accepted, how much space we’re allowed to take up, whether we can rely on other people, and what happens when we need something or get something wrong.
Those experiences don’t determine who you become, but some of the ways you adapted can continue long after the circumstances that shaped them have changed. You might notice this in how you feel about yourself, the relationships you find yourself in, how easily you can set boundaries or ask for help, how you respond to conflict, or the expectations you place on yourself.
Therapy can help us make those connections without assuming that everything happening in your life now must have its explanation in childhood.
-
No. Parents and caregivers can be important, but they’re only part of the environment we grow up in.
Experiences with siblings, friendships, bullying, school, illness, loss, feeling different from the people around you, discrimination, family instability or other significant relationships can all shape how you came to understand yourself and what you learnt to expect from other people.
And we don’t have to stay focused on the past. We can be just as curious about what is happening in your life and relationships now, and how earlier experiences may — or may not — connect with it.
-
Yes. Childhood doesn’t have to fit neatly into either “happy” or “unhappy”. You can have genuinely happy memories, have felt loved and cared for, and still be curious about experiences that affected you.
Looking back isn’t about rewriting your childhood or searching for something that was wrong with it. We’re interested in what shaped you — including the good things — and whether some of what you learnt then helps us understand how you experience yourself, other people and your life now.
-
That’s often where we’ll start.
You might come because of a relationship, bereavement, burnout, conflict within your family, difficulties at work, a change in your life, or simply because something doesn’t feel right anymore.
We don’t need to turn immediately towards childhood. Sometimes what’s happening now needs space in its own right. At other times, we may begin to notice that something about the present feels familiar — perhaps in how you respond, what you expect from yourself or other people, or the role you find yourself taking. We can follow those connections when they’re useful rather than assuming they must be there.
-
You don’t need a detailed memory of your childhood for us to work together.
You may remember particular events clearly, have only fragments, or have more of a general sense of what growing up felt like. We don’t need to force memories or try to fill in gaps.
We can work with what you do remember alongside what you notice about yourself now — including your feelings, relationships, patterns, reactions and the things that can be difficult to explain.
-
No. I don’t approach this work by deciding who was at fault or asking you to see anybody in a particular way.
You may understand why somebody behaved as they did and still be affected by it. You may feel angry, protective, loving, hurt, indifferent or several seemingly contradictory things at once. And the people or experiences that shaped you may extend well beyond your family.
We can understand the context in which something happened without either using that context to minimise its impact or deciding how you ought to feel about the people involved. The focus is on understanding your experience and what matters to you now.