Childhood is a crucial period in our lives when we learn to form relationships, build trust, and communicate with others. However, for many women, self-included, girlhood experiences have left deep emotional wounds that impact our adult relationships. If unhealed, these wounds can keep grown women from experiencing the love and intimacy we desire.
If love and intimacy are what you desire, healing girlhood wounds is a must.
Healing girlhood wounds can be difficult, especially if women aren’t aware they exist. Burying girlhood wounds is how the little girl in us survived our childhood traumas and taking a shovel to excavate these wounds can be too painful a task.
But again, if love and intimacy are what you desire, healing the little girl in you is a must.
Why?
Because little girls don’t make healthy relationship partners. The wounded little girl acts out, she often feels unsafe and insecure, and she is extremely needy. This makes having a healthy relationship where love and intimacy thrive nearly impossible.
So, if any of the following signs regularly show up in your relationships, it may be time to dig deeper and heal.
Grab your shovel!
Sign #1 — Constant Need for Reassurance:
If a woman has trauma wounds from girlhood, especially if they relate to abuse, she will likely find it difficult to trust others. The little girl will constantly need to be reassured. The wounded girl will find it hard to trust the love she is experiencing and so will the grown woman. Even if things are going well, she will live in a constant state of fear that the other shoe — the bad shoe — will drop.
The constant need for reassurance gets old really fast and will cause issues in a relationship.
Sign #2 — Inability to set boundaries:
Women who have experienced girlhood wounds may have difficulty setting boundaries in their adult relationships. This can lead to being taken advantage of, taken for granted, or not having your needs met. If not having your needs met was normalized for you as a young girl, you will feel very comfortable in a relationship where you give so much but get so little in return.
Boundaries protect us and the inability to set them leaves you open and vulnerable to all kinds of painful experiences.
Sign #3 — Constant Self-doubt:
Unhealed girlhood wounds can leave a lasting impact on your self-esteem and self-worth. Women who have experienced girlhood wounds may struggle with self-doubt and a lack of confidence, which can make it difficult to build healthy relationships. Often times when women have unhealed girlhood wounds, they carry a sense of unworthiness. This makes it easy to get into relationships that aren’t healthy and difficult to get out of them.
When you doubt yourself, your worth, and your value, it’s difficult to show up in relationships asking for what you need and you end up settling.
Sign #4 — Disease to Please:
Women with girlhood wounds may have learned to prioritize the needs of others over their own as a way of gaining approval or avoiding conflict. This was certainly an issue for me. The need to please — or the “disease to please,” which is what Oprah calls it, can lead to living a very unhealthy existence. You develop a fear of what others think and what they may do if you don’t perform the way they expect. This results in you wearing masks and becoming whoever you believe your partner needs you to be to satisfy them at all costs.
The need to please others at your own expense is extremely detrimental to your emotional well-being, and it’s also too high a price to pay for a connection with anyone.
Sign #5 — Difficulty with Intimacy:
Unhealed girlhood wounds can create a fear of vulnerability, which can make it difficult to open up emotionally in a relationship. This fear can make it challenging to build deep and meaningful connections with a partner. When you have difficulty with intimacy, it’s also really difficult to let people in and allow them to see the real you. You believe — perhaps subconsciously — that if you are really open and vulnerable and allow your partner to see the real you, they may not stay.
It is impossible to have a healthy and loving relationship without having it built on a solid foundation of vulnerability.
Final Thoughts
If any of the above signs show up in your relationships or if you’re unable to maintain a healthy relationship where love and intimacy thrive, you may have some unhealed girlhood wounds that need to be examined.
While unhealed girlhood wounds can have a significant impact on grown women who seek to cultivate healthy love relationships, healing is possible. It’s never too late to start the process of healing the girl in you. She’s worth it and so are you!
Therapy, practicing self-care, learning to set boundaries, and developing self-compassion are all important steps on the journey toward healing and building healthy relationships.
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At the end of the day, healthy self-love is required for healthy, loving relationships. You may be also interested in another article I wrote, “7 Things Self-Loving Women Don’t Do.” Click below to read!
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Amir Geshani on Unsplash
