“Brought Up In A Cult”: 35 Things People Went Through As Kids And Didn’t Realize Were Unusual

Psychologists differentiate childhood trauma from other traumatic experiences because of its unique effect on a not-fully developed brain. Kids often can’t exactly understand and process certain experiences, particularly as they do not have a good frame of reference for what things “should” look like. As many of these stories demonstrate, people only fully understood what happened to them much later.

Even if they couldn't quite understand why they felt a certain way, trauma can still leave a lasting impact not just on a kid's psyche, but their physiology as well. They must suffer from issues in their nervous system, a weakened immune system and are at a higher risk of developing depression later in life. 

Everything from anxiety to anger management issues can be traced back to a person’s childhood, but the sad part is that without some proper introspection, one might never really know its origins. While it might seem a sort of silver lining, that kids don’t actually understand everything they see around them, psychologist Bessel van der Kolk, in a book with the same title, argues that “the body keeps the score,” and that we can’t just escape bad experiences. 

While some of the examples might be a bit comical, like the child of a hoarder continuing the same in a college dorm, most are tragic. Not knowing that alcoholism or random violence isn’t actually normal comes with all the negative effects one can think of. Old-fashioned wisdom would argue that it “toughens” kids up, but without being able to understand why something is happening, a child won’t really learn from it. A first grader isn’t “toughened” by sitting in a college algebra class, for example. 

There are a few, rare cases where these kinds of experiences actually do build what psychologists call resilience. Kids who grow up in wealthier families and undergo childhood trauma tend to develop more resilience than their less well-off peers, however, this only applies if this wealth is actually spent on them. 

This is all to say that it’s best to first understand what actually happened and then think about how it affected one’s development and adulthood before passing judgments on whether something was good or bad. Just like weight training, smaller, controlled doses of “reality” can help a child mature, but it’s vital to remember that a kid isn't some project but a human being who needs a childhood to become a functional adult.