Shirley J. Davis (Morgan) · First published on her website, DID in a Nutshell

Discovering you have a severe mental health condition such as dissociative identity disorder (DID) causes a lot of chaos in a person’s life. You feel betrayed by your own mind and are often afraid of the parts of your psyche that make you who you are.

However, the fear and chaos of receiving a DID diagnosis are nothing compared to grieving a childhood devoid of joy.

Today we’re going to examine grieving over the childhood that never existed.

Why Now? Why Didn’t I Remember Before?

These are important questions to allow yourself to ask. After all, your life has been severely affected by knowledge you had suppressed for years.

The Discovery of Loss

During the first weeks of seeing a counselor, many multiples begin to understand that other people did not have chaotic and lonely childhoods. As you talked about the structure and happenings in your childhood home, your therapist may have sat back in their chair in disbelief. It’s not that they don’t believe what they are hearing; rather, they are astonished at how calmly you are relating your story. They realize you do not understand that your “normal” isn’t what everyone else experienced.

In fact, many people are walking about with no knowledge of what truly happened to them growing up. By dissociating the truth from themselves, they have come to believe they had a marvelous childhood.

The signs that something is wrong, such as depression and suicidal thoughts, may go unnoticed or be misunderstood. People may believe they are weak, or that they have nothing to feel bad about and should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get on with life.

However, upon learning that childhood isn’t supposed to be lonely, chaotic, and often dangerous, many of us enter the grieving process.

What Did the Abusers Take from You?

Answering this question is difficult because there are so many losses from childhood trauma. However, two of the most powerful losses involve trust and safety.

Trust is something a survivor does not have, because the people who raised them betrayed them so many times. Not only were your caregivers abusive, but they made promises and broke them all the time. Then there is the pain of rejection. It is severely damaging to a child when their caregivers do not value them and show it verbally, physically, or both.

These experiences may have left you unable to form good relationships and feeling that no one is trustworthy. You may have thoughts such as, “I can’t trust anybody,” or “I can only trust myself because it is dangerous to trust.”

Feeling safe is vital for human beings to thrive. If we do not feel safe, we are constantly looking for danger, even if we are not aware we are doing so. Survivors often live their lives hypervigilant, waiting for danger that will not occur in their lives today.

A lifetime of mistrust and feeling unsafe may never be totally overcome, but it can be lessened considerably through therapy.

What Else Was Missing from a Survivor’s Childhood?

Did you know that other children weren’t dirty and frightened all the time?

Are you aware that the chaos, neglect, and abuse you experienced as a child aren’t what other kids in your neighborhood experienced?

Did you know that the bizarre rituals centered around sex, abuse, and fear were not the norm?

Many multiples are not aware that their childhoods were a chaotic mess until the memories force their way to the surface. Not to ignite the controversy over repressed memories, but as anyone who has had past experiences come pouring back knows, repressed memories are all too horribly real.

When the horror from the past erupts into today, disbelief, anger, and grief are the natural consequences.

All children deserve to be treated with love, respect, and compassion. If you were not treated this way, you probably were neglected, abused, or both. It is okay to allow yourself to grieve over the childhood you were not given because your parents or caregivers chose to disrespect you and betray your need for love.

How to Conquer the Grief for the Childhood That Never Was

While grief is necessary and good, you don’t want to live there forever. The pain and sorrow must end eventually, even if it takes years. Don’t be afraid that the crying or the pain that comes with remembering will never stop.

There are three important steps to winning over the grief that comes with discovering things were not happy in your childhood home.

Some Final Thoughts

Grief is completely normal. All humans grieve when they experience loss, and survivors are no different. The pain you may be feeling, both emotionally and physically, is real and should be validated.

Learning to trust and feel safe will take time, so do not worry about whether you can overcome their absence. Give yourself room and permission to grieve, and to learn the lessons your caregivers did not teach you.

The tears will end, you will win, it will happen. Give yourself credit, because despite horrendous maltreatment, you are here.

The future is bright for those who dare to travel down the road less taken, and the grieving process is an important step toward it.

“They asked me how long it will take to get well.”
“Tell them it will take longer than what they want, but not as long as they fear.” — Paula McNitt, PhD

“Grief is never something you get over. You don’t wake up one morning and say, ‘I’ve conquered that; now I’m moving on.’ It’s something that walks beside you every day. And if you can learn how to manage it and honor the person that you miss, you can take something that is incredibly sad and have some form of positivity.” — Terri Irwin

© Shirley J. Davis. Shared on Ivory Garden with the author’s permission.