Mind How You Speak To Your Children, For What You Say Becomes Their Inner Voice
by Lauren Stonebanks
This piece has been in the works for several years now. I started planning it in 2017 when I was working through some of the trauma from my childhood. In 2018 my mother became very ill and it felt too weird to complete it then. She died in 2021 and I wasn't in the right place to finish it. Now I think I have just enough distance to make it before my inner voice tells me I'm a monster for even considering it and I completely chicken out of making it.
I thought my childhood was pretty normal until I started talking about it with a friend around 2015. I couldn't understand how I had a childhood trauma related diagnosis without experiencing childhood trauma. In one short bus journey she tore my life apart as she pointed out that what I experienced wasn't normal, and that much of it was actually traumatic. She made sure I was okay and checked in on me for several weeks afterwards. It was an eye-opening journey.
I started documenting the memories and, whilst working with a therapist in 2017/2018, I realised that my self-hating, derogatory inner voice was actually my mother's. All those hateful things she said to me have been bouncing around inside my head ever since.
Please, think carefully about what you say to your children as it will stay with them forever.