How damaged are you from your experiences during childhood?

Damaged good and completely broken and I am learning to kinda accept it

Extremely but I’ve now learnt to compartmentalise pieces of my past as I can’t remove it so I make a choice to accept it happened and I can’t change that but I can refuse to let it influence my happiness in the future. It’s done.

I think the lack of experiences was more of a factor. Living on a small farm in northern minnesota i was basically isolated. Neighbors' grandkids would come by a couple days in the summer to put up hay on their property. One year i even missed out on that as i caught measles somehow. Even as a teenager it was too far to even go to confirmation during the gas crisis much less to a dance and i had no social skills for hanging around with girls. All i had was old comic books of my brothers and a 1957 encyclopedia. Some old books of my mom's and readers digest condenced books. Also, some books of my cousins. Later i joined a syfy book club. I did band, drama, and speech clubs in high school. I went to state in speech doing a short story called The Real Thing, bt Robert Spect, but lost out to a girl I had beaten several other times when i ran over by a couple seconds. I did get a star at the one act finals as Charlie in An Overpraised Season. I sucked at sports. Never had a chance to do any. Tried cross country. The school was small and didn't offer much so i went to a community college at night during my senior year. I was the first kid at my hs to do that. It was just an astronomy class. By then we could drive to grand rapids. Folks would shop while i was in class. Second half of senior year Joy showed up. She was on my bus and sat behind me in english class. She was a year behind me but tested into senior classes. She was staying at a treatment center. Much to my parents disdain i befriended her and we would go to movies together like ice castles, the rose, airplane, and Alien when it first came out. We were not very sexual. Just hugged a lot.
We're still friends.

I at least like myself now. There was a point when that seemed unlikely. Ironic that I finally appreciate being me, as I get closer to transitioning out of being this person. ⚱️
Maybe in the next life I’ll start out confident.

I don't talk about it

I don't feel I'm even a human being some days. So damaged , most parts of my life are really lacking and I feel no one would ever love someone like this.

I'm not who i was supposed to be and never will be.

I can’t get close with anyone.

I am damaged beyond repair. I can never be a normal person. I have a feeling that I will learn to adapt and find some happiness in my life through hard work. If you want an idea of how damaged I am, imagine what a person who wasted 30+ years of their life. My life was all a waste.

I guess I'm not that strong.

Cause I've seen people go through worse and still find a way to deal with it.

And I'm like, #@$%, can y'all let me in on the secret ?

+Not at all. The most traumatic experience was our house burning down and losing everything when I was 7. As a result, I place very little value on material things. That's good.

Compared to the horrors millions of children experienced in generations gone by and still experience every day now (war, famine, chronic disease), I lived the life of Riley.

I prefer not to think about it

Pretty darn.

I am very damaged from my childhood and what happened to me. I don’t dwell on it though and I have compartmentalized that trauma. It’s what has worked best for me.

Therapy helped too.

I got through it relatively unscathed.

Thank ya for the BC

Depends who you ask

I had a great childhood .. it was my teen years that took a tumble


At present I’m happy for the most part, i appreciate my strength when it’s there … no shame in feeling vulnerable at times either it’s what makes me who i am.

Pretty bad, I realize I keep devaluing myself in relationships because of being treated like trash growing up but I'm getting better

Not a bit