I had a thought. Ever since I was a child, the family members around me would make assumptions about my personality/identity/whatever you want to call it. And those assumptions would then go on to negatively affect me. I thought I was this lazy person that didn't want to do anything like my family wanted. When they went on vacation and I went with them and I got grumpy about having to walk so much, I thought I was just lazy. When the truth was far more sinister.
At that time, I was struggling with debilitating scoliosis that deformed my body to the point that my own classmates came up to me curious about that. On vacations I would be in so much agonizing pain that it made me feel like I was burning alive. And yet, because my family wanted an easy answer, they just called me lazy. Of course, I believed them. Because I trusted them, so why would I think critically? I would eventually get scoliosis surgery, so that has a happy ending.
In high school, my family called me picky. And I figured that it was true, since I didn't eat much. But again, the truth was far more sinister. I'm not a therapist so I'm not going to claim I know what eating disorders are like, but my eating habits made me miserable. I starved myself because I was too scared to try anything new. I would have one or two thoughts circling through my head every time I thought about it. I would go, "If I don't like it then it'll be a waste of food." or "If I don't like it then it'll be a waste of food AND money." I only had a few select comfort foods that I would retreat to, and if I was hungry after not eating anything at school I would swallow my saliva and trick my brain into thinking I had eaten.
And yet, my family thought I was picky and tried to get me to eat by constantly pointing it out. I ONLY started to eat because I finally had this dawning realization of: "Oh, I'm miserable like this." And I wanted to change that. But even after I tried something for the first time, that fear didn't go away. I had to constantly work through the intrusive thoughts and irrational paranoia.
I don't really know where I was going with this? But I had the thought of my family's assumptions causing me some extremely negative patterns throughout my early life, some of which I'm still working through. I guess one thing that can be taken away from this is that children tend to go through so much that adults, for whatever reason or another, just aren't aware of.