A millennial woman has opened up about the unique way her own personal childhood trauma has stayed with her through adult life.
There are millions of Americans living with childhood trauma of some form or other. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says 61 percent of U.S. adults went through at least one adverse childhood experience.
For the longest time, Valerie, 32, a mom living in New England, who requested that none of her personal details feature in this story, was quite literally carrying around the baggage from her own traumatic childhood.
"I was parentified at a very young age," Valerie told Newsweek. "I'm the oldest sibling, and I have always been treated as a caretaker to my younger siblings. We grew up in a verbally and physically abusive household, and there were a lot of things that don't make a ton of sense when I look back now."
One of those things was the contents of a large, red bag, which, until recently, was sat gathering dust in Valerie's attic. The contents serve as a reminder of her teen years, when her parents divorced and she became "even more of a parent" to her younger sibling.
Back then, her mom would take her shopping for Barbie dolls. "My mother and I don't have much contact now, but she was adamant that the Barbies would be worth something someday," Valerie said. "She would buy a few at a time, and they would all live in the attic."
Though Valerie was allowed "one or two up on a shelf in my room to look at," almost all of the dolls purchased were "never to be touched."
When Valerie grew up and moved out, she decided to take them with her. Even so, she struggled even to look at them and they ended up stored away, out of sight.
"I think that, when you grow up in an abusive household, things that may have been rooted in good intentions, like saving the Barbies for future wealth, often get overshadowed by the trauma that existed on a daily basis," she said.
"I used to see the Barbies once a year when taking out the Christmas decorations, and I would feel frustrated and angry remembering everything I had been through."
For almost a decade, the dolls and other toys were untouched. But two things changed: Valerie became a mom; and she began to talk to someone about everything she went through.
"Once I had children and worked through a lot of things in therapy, I started to see them through kinder eyes. I started to imagine buying toys for my babies and seeing them open up something exciting at Christmas," Valerie said. "It wasn't until this year that I officially decided I was going to give them to my children to open."
A video posted to Valerie's TikTok, @8acreadventure, shows her opening the bag of toys that for so long symbolized her "childhood trauma" but would now take on a new meaning as playthings for her infant child.
"I think the dolls definitely symbolize my childhood, or lack thereof, frozen in time," Valerie said. "I will never be able to get that back. But I can do better for my own kids and I try on a daily basis to break all of the generational trauma and give them a real childhood."
It is an approach that has been praised by Siobhan Chirico, a psychotherapist and educator at VOICE Counselling & Education Services.
"Addressing childhood trauma is a complex process," Chirico told Newsweek. "It takes time and emotional labour. This specific piece of withholding toys was an essential piece of a difficult childhood for this person. She is performing a powerful and potentially healing act by opening these boxed toys now and sharing them with her daughter.
"She may feel she is regaining control by opening these long-dormant toys. Sharing the toys with her daughter seems to demonstrate a breaking of generational patterns of abuse through withholding. She likely has a long healing journey, and this appears to be a positive and significant step."
Valerie's daughter is too young to understand much about her life or why she rarely sees her grandma, but her mom plans on having "open, honest and age-appropriate conversations" about her upbringing when the time is right.
For now, though, she is taking solace from the response her video has received: more than 4 million views and thousands of comments, including replies from others still dealing with their own childhood trauma.
"My parents never bought me anything. my trauma now is over buying, scared my babies will feel how I did," one wrote.
"I spent my childhood being told what mattered. I've spent my adulthood figuring out what mattered to me," another posted.
Valerie said she hopes her story helps these people "find ways to move forward after their own childhood traumas."
English (US) ·