"I'm a street girl. Take pity on me.”
Many of my peers will remember the lyrics to this song. Neglected and abused children are deprived of the most basic sense of “feeling safe” in the world. They never know where, with whom and how they will feel safe.
If the wounds are opened by her family, who should feel the safest with her, the child starts to feel worthless and blames himself.
If it is worthy of being loved or valuable, will it be neglected, abused or harassed by its family? Such as pulling the child's ear, slapping, using insulting words, humiliating in public. When I listen to parents, I hear their views that violence is alleviated and normal and part of education. They even add that their own parents act in the same way for their own good and that they are actually good parents. If you go back and relive that day of your own childhood, the moment you got slapped, the time you heard those words, you will somehow be able to see violence in the family and see yourself looking at a corner with fearful eyes. Now would you ask that boy, what is he feeling right now? What is going on in your soul, what storms are breaking? And is he aware right now that he will carry all these experiences with him for the rest of his life?
Children who have witnessed or experienced violence blame themselves first in order not to destroy their most basic source of trust.
If I were a child, if I had listened to my elders, if I hadn't objected, if I hadn't spoken those words, this wouldn't have happened to us.”
The child does not know that some parents are not mature yet, they put their own wounds, their own burdens on the child's back, and project the issues that they cannot solve on their own to the child.
The child does not know that it is better to be loved. There is no need for him to be more well-behaved, more obedient, more successful. Just his presence in the world is enough to be loved. Therefore, if there are traumatic experiences in the family, the child first gives up on loving himself and devalues himself first.
The child forgets to feel sorry for himself, continues what he knows and sees, and takes people who will not pity him back into his life. She thinks being abused is her destiny.
So the song continues:
“I'm a street girl
Don't be nice to me.”
Clinical Psychologist Çağla Aras
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