Don’t Be a Deadbeat to Your Inner Child
How Unhealed Trauma Becomes Harm - Especially in Digital Spaces
From Survival to Reenactment: The Quiet Tragedy of Trauma Loops
You’re grown now.
But some part of you—some younger version—is still responding for you.
You survived the wound. But survival doesn’t teach repair. That’s learned later—if at all. You still bracing for abandonment. Still flinching at correction. Still misreading accountability as attack.
You survived what you should never have had to.
But now that unhealed child inside you is dysregulating on other people—projecting, spiraling, silencing, deflecting.
And the person you become in those moments?
Isn’t the adult that child needed.
This is what it means to be a deadbeat to your inner child.
To survive trauma, but abandon the responsibility to grow beyond it.
There's a quiet tragedy in surviving trauma only to pass it forward. Most people don't wake up and choose to harm others. But harm doesn't need to be conscious to be real.
You grow up promising yourself you'll never become like the people who hurt you. You study their moves so you can do the opposite. You rehearse your refusal in silence: I will never talk like that. I will never make someone feel small like that.
But survival doesn't teach repair. That's learned later—if at all. Because when you're finally faced with discomfort—when someone mirrors your behavior back to you, when you feel shame tightening in your chest—your instinct isn't always growth. Sometimes it's collapse. Or defensiveness. Or control. Especially online, where call-ins feel like attacks and real-world consequences feel far away.
That moment? That's when reenactment begins. That's when you risk becoming a deadbeat to your inner child—to survive trauma, but abandon the responsibility to grow beyond it.
*This post has audio versions uploaded to the Podcast feed.
Understanding Trauma and Responsibility
Even in autism communities, there’s a refusal to name that over 80% of us carry trauma—and that trauma doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It intersects race. It intersects gender. It shapes everything.
Having trauma doesn't make you uniquely harmful. But it also doesn't make you exempt from responsibility. You remember the sting of being dismissed when you finally found the courage to speak. You remember the way they twisted your tone into the problem. How they made your boundaries feel like betrayal. That moment still lives in your nervous system. So ask yourself—why are you doing the same?
Many people with cPTSD or neurodivergent diagnoses begin to use them as shields—reacting to feedback with collapse, outrage, or demands for emotional labor. That's not healing. That's reenactment.
Even in autism communities, the refusal to name that over 80% of us carry trauma Stops people from realising that trauma doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It intersects race. It intersects gender. It shapes everything.
As Black autistic women, we don’t “apply” intersectionality—we live it. Not in theory. In survival. In every room, every system, every interaction.
What you claim to practice is what we navigate by force.
You parrot our words, you flatten them through ChatGPT, you misquote us in panels - But you still won’t be intersectional.
Because intersectionality isn’t aesthetics or citations. It’s consequence.
You say: "I have cPTSD." But wasn't that what your caregiver did when you named harm? Didn't they say you were "too sensitive"? That your tone made it impossible to talk? You swore you'd never do that. And yet here it is—on loop.
If your trauma is always centered—no matter who is harmed—then it's not a tool for healing. It's a tool for avoidance. If your version of healing silences, redirects, or retraumatizes others, then it's not healing. It's performance.
This isn't about perfection. It's about proximity to power. Because if the harm you survived is real, then so is the harm you cause.
Trauma Doesn’t Excuse Harm: Common Patterns in Digital Spaces
These aren’t rare. These are everyday moments where pain steps into the driver’s seat—unchecked and unnamed. You might recognize yourself here.
Understanding Trauma Responses
It’s not always loud. Harm doesn’t have to be overt to be real. Sometimes it shows up in quiet moments—where your pain takes the front seat, and someone else becomes collateral. These aren’t rare. These are everyday moments where pain steps into the driver’s seat—unchecked and unnamed. You might recognize yourself here:
Someone misreads a boundary as rejection and lashes out.
A person is gently called in and responds by centering their diagnosis instead of their impact.
Burnout is used to ghost collaborators, then excused without repair.
Each of these is a trauma response. But the moment it spills onto someone else—especially someone already holding more than their share—it becomes reenactment, not healing. You can be dysregulated. You can be overwhelmed. You can even be right. But none of that absolves you from asking: Who’s carrying the weight of what I’m not addressing? Because there’s a difference between having a response—and making others responsible for it.
This post emerged after recent interactions with people who were transparent about their trauma—and with whom I held space, even when doing so cost me more than I could afford. What struck me wasn’t just the shared pain, but the repeated pattern: People who name parental harm, who say “I was always made to feel like the problem,” turn around and center themselves the moment accountability is asked of them—mirroring the very behaviors they claimed to be healing from.
This pattern isn’t theoretical. It’s real. It’s communal. And it’s what pushed me to name it here. Because holding space without reciprocity isn’t healing. It’s reenactment—again.
Survival Scripts in Action: How White Women and Men Reproduce the Harm They Fled
She’s no longer harming her child—she’s offloading it onto people she’s never had to humanize.
These patterns aren't abstract. You've seen them. Maybe you've lived them.
The man taught not to cry becomes the emotion-policing father, partner, or colleague. Vulnerability in others makes him twitch. His son's tears are met with silence. His friend's grief gets deflected with a joke. He tells himself he's protecting people from pain—but really, he's avoiding his own. His tenderness? Swallowed. His coping? Passed forward.
The white woman raised in emotional volatility learns to keep the peace, avoid conflict, shrink herself. As a parent, she tries to do better. She creates softness, apologizes when she's wrong, lets her children speak their minds. She wants to be everything she never had. But then she logs on, sees a post by a Black woman naming harm and suddenly she's the one harmed.
Dysregulation turns to deflection. She spirals, centers herself, cries, accuses. Not because she's cruel. Because the cycle didn't break. It just changed direction. She's no longer harming her child-she's offloading it onto people she's never had to humanize.
And that's the truth too many avoid: It's easy to clap under a post about accountability until it asks something of you. And the script is always familiar:
"I have cPTSD."
"I feel attacked."
"This tone triggered me."
Let's ask the uncomfortable question: Wasn't that what your caregiver did to you when you brought up harm? Didn't they say you were "too sensitive"? That your tone made it "impossible" to talk? That your boundaries were disrespectful? You swore you'd never do that. Yet here it is—on loop.
Your Trauma Response Is Not a Sacred Identity
“I know you were never taught that reflection can be safe. But I will show you it’s possible to take responsibility without punishment. To be accountable without being shamed.”
You did what you had to do to survive. But survival patterns aren't sacred. They're situational. And at some point, they need to be questioned—not canonized. You survived by freezing, fawning, masking, or performing perfection. You read the room before you read yourself. You quieted your truth to stay safe. And it worked. But what kept you alive isn't always what keeps others safe.
If you still wear your survival strategy like armor-refusing to let it evolve-you’re not protecting your inner child. You're stunting them. Reparenting yourself means saying: "I know you were never taught that reflection can be safe. But I will show you it's possible to take responsibility without punishment. To be accountable without being shamed."
Because otherwise, you're not healing. You're rehearsing.
Adult Responsibility Starts with Self-Containment, Not Outsourcing Pain
You can’t heal if you’re still handing your pain to other people like it’s their job to hold it for you.
Yes, your triggers are real. Yes, your past is valid. But none of that gives you a pass to make others absorb what you refuse to process.
Accountability is not cruelty. Correction is not abandonment. And asking you to reflect is not the same as reenacting harm.
To those navigating trauma and neurodivergence: You don't have to be perfect. But you do have to notice when your inner child is driving-and your adult self is absent.
Because harm, left unaccounted for, becomes legacy.
Reparenting Means Meeting the Ages Where You Froze
Some versions of you are still waiting to be rescued. Not just remembered—rescued.
You don't just carry one age. You carry every version of yourself that didn't get what they needed.
The five-year-old who stopped asking questions.
The eleven-year-old who learned silence was safer.
The teenager who thought being "mature" would earn them love.
Some versions of you are still waiting to be rescued. Not just remembered—rescued. Reparenting isn't just about softness. It's about structure. It's looking those parts in the eye and saying: I'm here now. And I won't let you run the show without me.
So the next time you're called in-pause. Ask yourself: Is this who I needed when I was small and afraid? Or am I reenacting the very thing I swore I'd never do? Because you can't protect your inner child if you're becoming someone else's wound.
Be who you needed. Be who others can trust. Break the loop-don't just survive it.
Extraction Isn’t Healing: Stop Infantilizing Yourself at the Expense of Marginalized People
You’re not just asking to be seen. You’re asking someone else to carry the weight of your becoming. That’s not healing. That’s reenactment by proxy.
There's a difference between learning and leaning too hard. Curiosity is healthy. Accountability is growth. But what too many people call "healing" is actually emotional extraction—expecting marginalized people to teach, soothe, and absorb without limit.
If you find yourself always needing others to explain, hold space, or educate you, but never asking: What do I give back? How do I show up?—you're not learning. You're taking. That might make sense if you were a child. Children are allowed to need without reciprocating.
But you're not a child anymore. And marginalized people are not your emotional parents.
Their visibility isn't your mirror to feel seen without cost. Their clarity isn't your free therapy. Their survival isn't your curriculum. You're not just asking to be understood. You're asking someone else to carry the weight of your becoming. That's not healing. That's reenactment by proxy.
Because if your healing depends on someone else shrinking to make space for you, it's not healing. It's entitlement—dressed up in self-awareness. Seeing yourself clearly means recognizing the role you're playing. And if that role is: "I ask endlessly, consume endlessly, receive endlessly—but rarely offer reciprocity or repair," then you're not reparenting. You're outsourcing.
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Explore More from The Lovette Jallow Perspective
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Lovette Jallow is one of Scandinavia’s most influential voices on systemic racism, intersectional justice, and human rights. She is a nine-time award-winning author, keynote speaker, lecturer, and humanitarian specializing in:
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Every time I read one of your articles I am touched in some way. Whether it's an "Aha" or an "Oh Shit," you seem to have an uncanny ability to find all the spots and put image balls into words. Each time I reread an article, I glean yet another gem or forehead smack, sometimes both.
Just yesterday I told someone that when I parented my children (now grown), I parented my inner child as well. It took me years and a lot of reflection/labor to come to that understanding. Your article upped the ante. Thank you for pushing the spots and sharing your labor.
That's a powerful piece. I love the energy. And so often what I want to tell people who lash out and hurt everyone around them. Thank you for naming all that.