Let’s get real about the fucking elephant in the room: childhood trauma. The kind of shit that happens when you’re a kid that fucks you up so badly, you spend the rest of your life trying to un-fuck yourself. I’m talking about abuse, neglect, abandonment – the experiences that teach you, before you’re even old enough to spell your own name, that you’re worthless, unlovable, and unsafe in your own goddamn home. It’s a topic that makes people squirm, because it forces us to confront the ugly reality that we’re failing our kids on a massive scale.
But we can’t afford to look away anymore, because the effects of childhood trauma don’t just magically disappear when you blow out the candles on your 18th birthday cake. They shape every aspect of your adult life – your relationships, your mental health, your sense of self-worth. And until we start talking about it, acknowledging it, and working our asses off to prevent it and heal it, we’re going to keep seeing the same cycles of addiction, homelessness, abuse, and dysfunction playing out on repeat like a fucking broken record.
We’re about to dive into some heavy shit. But it’s shit we need to talk about, because the only way out is through. And I promise you, there is a way out – but it starts with staring the darkness in the face and refusing to blink.
When you experience trauma or abuse or neglect as a kid, it doesn’t just hurt you in the moment. It fundamentally reshapes your understanding of yourself and your place in the world. It’s like a fucking earthquake that shatters the very foundation of your identity.
See, when you’re little, you don’t have a fully formed sense of self. You’re basically just a sponge, soaking up messages from your environment about who you are and what you deserve. And if those messages are consistently negative – if you’re being told through words or actions that you’re worthless, that you’re unlovable, that you’re a burden – then that becomes your default programming.
And when those messages are hammered home through abuse – physical, emotional, sexual – it’s even more devastating. Because abuse isn’t just painful in the moment, it’s a soul-level mindfuck that tells you, “You are so worthless that you deserve this. You are so unlovable that the people who are supposed to care for you are instead violating you in the most intimate ways possible.” Abuse teaches you that you’re not safe in your own body, in your own home, in your own fucking skin. It teaches you that the people who are supposed to protect you are actually the ones you need protection from. And that kind of betrayal, that kind of fear and confusion and shame – that shit buries itself bone-deep.
And that belief gets wired into your nervous system. It becomes the lens through which you see yourself and interpret the world around you. So no matter what happens later in life, no matter how many people tell you that you’re smart or talented or worthy, there’s always this voice in the back of your head saying, “Nah, they’re just being nice. If they really knew me, they’d see what a piece of shit I am.”
Trauma and neglect teach you that you’re not safe, that you’re not worthy of protection or love or respect. And that’s a fucking hard lesson to unlearn, because it’s not just a thought or a belief – it’s a felt sense, a visceral knowing that’s rooted in your earliest experiences of the world.
And the thing is, that kind of early damage doesn’t just go away on its own. It’s not like you hit 18 and suddenly you’re a well-adjusted adult with a healthy sense of self-worth. That shit stays with you, coloring every relationship, every career move, every decision you make about how to move through the world.
It’s why you see so many people who grew up in fucked up situations struggling with addiction or abusive relationships or self-sabotage. They’re not just making bad choices because they’re stupid or weak – they’re acting out the only story they know, the one that says they’re damaged goods, that they don’t deserve anything better.
And breaking free of that story is a fucking marathon, not a sprint. It takes years of therapy, of self-reflection, of learning to rewire those deep neural pathways that tell you you’re garbage. It takes surrounding yourself with people who reflect back your inherent worth, even when you can’t see it yourself. It takes a daily practice of choosing to act like you matter, even when every fiber of your being is screaming that you don’t.
So when we look at someone who’s struggling with homelessness or addiction or any other manifestation of a shattered sense of self, we can’t just write them off as lazy or weak or hopeless. We have to have some fucking compassion for the battle they’re fighting every day, just to feel like they deserve to take up space, to draw breath, to exist.
And we have to recognize that the solution isn’t just about providing housing or rehab or job training – although those things are important too. It’s about healing the deepest wounds, the ones that convince a person they’re irreparably fucked up and unworthy of love.
It’s about creating a society where every child is treated as inherently valuable, where no one grows up believing that they’re disposable or broken or undeserving of care.
Because when we shatter a person’s self-worth, we shatter their ability to function in the world. And until we learn to put those pieces back together, to heal the deepest hurts, we’re just putting band-aids on compound fractures and wondering why people aren’t magically fixed.
We have to do better. We have to go deeper. We have to give a shit about the pain people are carrying, and work like hell to make sure no one else ever has to carry it again.
That’s the only way out of this mess – hard fucking work, and a whole lot of give-a-damn. There are no easy answers, but there is a path forward. If we’re willing to walk it.