The Childhood We Survived, But Never Talked About

Hi guys, accept warm steem greetings from the motherland, Cameroon and welcome to my blog for another chat session about the topic “The Childhood we survive but never talked about”.

There are wounds from childhood that never showed on our skin, but we grew up carrying them quietly, especially in our African homes. In many African homes, children are taught to respect elders, obey without questioning, and keep family matters within the family: “…what happens in this house stays in this house.” Sometimes, even when a child is hurting, speaking up is seen as disrespectful, disobedience, or an attempt to bring shame to the family.

In this regard, we learned to keep quiet even when we felt hurt; we swallowed our tears, buried our questions, pretended we were okay, and grew up. Nonetheless, growing up did not automatically heal us because some of us became adults who struggle to trust people. Some avoid crowds and friendships because being vulnerable feels dangerous. Some find it difficult to maintain relationships, and some constantly expect rejection, criticism, abandonment, or betrayal because those are the things we learned to expect as children. We became adults carrying childhood wounds that nobody ever permitted us to talk about.

For me, this journey is deeply personal because I grew up in a royal family where, from the outside, many people may assume that growing up in a royal home means everything is beautiful, comfortable, and easy, but my reality was very different. Some of my deepest childhood traumas happened within that environment just because my mother could not give birth to a son, we were made to feel that somehow we were less valuable. Our gender became something used against us every day. We experienced constant name-calling, belittling, and treatment that made us feel unwanted.

In fact, imagine growing up constantly receiving the message that you are not enough simply because of something you had absolutely no control over; imagine being a child and wondering why you were born into your own family. There were moments when I wished I had the chance to choose another family to belong to, and those experiences didn't simply disappear when I became an adult.

These affected how I relate to people, affected my ability to trust, and how I see family and relationships. There are relatives I can go more than 20 years without communicating with because of the pain associated with my childhood experiences. For years, I carried these things silently, but I have come to understand something important: Silence does not always mean healing; sometimes, silence simply means we have learned how to live with the pain.

That is why today I am opening this space where we can talk about the childhood experiences we were never allowed to talk about. Those experiences that adults dismissed with, “…That was nothing.”, the rejection, comparison, favouritism, physical or emotional abuse, pressure to be someone we were not, humiliation, neglect and the feeling of never being enough.

This is an opportunity to finally give those younger versions of ourselves a listening ear. You do not have to share anything you are not ready to share; you do not have to explain everything, but if there is something from your childhood that you have carried for years because nobody gave you the opportunity to speak, this space is for you.
Let's talk, let's listen without judgment, let's acknowledge what happened, and where possible, let's begin the journey of healing together because sometimes, the child inside the adult is still waiting for someone to say “…I hear you. What happened to you mattered… it was never your fault.” You survived the childhood you had; now, perhaps, it is time to start talking about it.