Counseling In Dubai – How to overcome depression, anxiety and relationship problems caused by negative childhood experiences 

As our early childhood experiences impact our success in life, influence our mental health and relationships I wanted to share some tips to support you. So you do not need depression treatment dubai or anxiety treatment Dubai for a long period of time.  

1. Increase awareness –  through counseling dubai and online 

Understanding what you have been through as a child and how that affects you as an adult is a key step to overcoming the past. Acknowledgment and awareness are what will be the driving force behind you changing your future. The more knowledge you have, the more empowered you will feel to become free from your past.

It is not always easy but when you do you can break self-sabotaging or limiting patterns. 

This is what happened with a client I worked with who I will name Rob to keep his identity safe. Rob was looking for depression counselling in Dubai. He initially contacted me to explore his low moods and his inability to remain faithful in his relationship with a woman he loved. He had searched for counsellors in Dubai but got disappointed that he was offered medication rather than tips. He felt down, confused and lonely because he started to believe that he will never be able to live a content life as a husband and a father in the future.

Through lots of discussion, I realized that Rob had been through a very stressful childhood. His mother was a victim of domestic violence and so he moved around a lot and in there were several occasions where he was put in foster care whilst the authorities investigated their family set up. Rob for a period of 2 years had different caregivers and had to change school and of course homes to where the caregivers lived.

This lack of a stable home environment and a strained relationship with his mother and father, led Rob deciding early on in his teenage years that he had to fend for himself and to not rely on anyone. He also decided that when he got into a relationship it would not be like his parent’s it would be loving and close and secure. Despite these wishes for himself and future, he found it hard to be emotionally intimate with people and be vulnerable. He never talked about his feelings, avoided deep conversations and would often lie – even about the smallest things. 

Rob liked to drink and when he did he drank excessively and would often meet girls on nights out and flirt with them. He enjoyed the attention. He didn’t allow himself to experience true connection with others because he had shut down his emotions. He did have a caring side, cared deeply for animals especially but when it came to human relations – he had always been a lone soldier. The only thing that pushed him to seek counseling in Dubai was a lady he had met who was different to anyone he had ever met, he knew he wanted a life with her and yet he slipped into what he called “bad habits”. Such as chatting on dating sites, or taking women’s numbers at bars when drunk. 

Rob signed up for my 3 day intensive breakthrough which is a faster alternative to traditional counseling in Dubai to get to the root of why he found it hard to commit fully, hard to say yes to marriage and children when he wanted them and why he felt the urge to be desired by other women when the woman he loved was perfect. 

In the program we found out that there were many limiting beliefs he had adopted about himself he had believed that he was no good caused trouble and unattractive. This was shaping his behaviour and he also drank to numb. When we cleared these, his fears, self-frustration and increased his confidence, he was able to commit, start a family. 15 months on, he has twin baby girls, is a hands on dad and has come off all his medication. 

The ACE study shows that when someone has lived through adverse childhood experiences, the traumatic feelings are imprinted in their brain and this in turn influences the decisions they make as adults. Which is so understandable, because as from the age of 0-7 we are so impressionable. Everything we see or experience in our early years, is imprinted in our brain and builds the foundation for our future.

As you can see from Rob’s case, adverse childhood experiences can impact a person’s ability to maintain relationships. 

2. Understand science – 

A lot of people feel resigned to the fact that they are a product of their past. There are many studies that prove our brains are malleable – we are able to rewire our neural pathways through practice, repetition of behaviour and reaffirming positive thoughts or emotions. For example, when someone has lived their early years full of toxic stress, their neural pathways will override any positivity because they are so used to negative, stress ridden situations – which means even in positive situations a person will instinctively be focused on the negative… That is all they will see. But this can be changed. I use a range of techniques to help people overcome self-doubt, insecurities, poor body image and other unwanted thought loops that keep someone stuck. In my breakthrough session I help people to retrain their brain to think differently at the subconscious level. You may choose to do this consciously with awareness, with positive affirmations, with gratitude lists and by doing this you are changing old neural pathways and creating new connections through newer inner experiences and thoughts. This may be difficult in the beginning if going it alone as you are challenging old, negative thoughts and beliefs however over time it gets easier. Music can be a great way also, provided the music is uplifting, positive and creates happy thoughts and memories inside you. 

3. Be on the Cause Side and Take Responsibility Now – 

  One universal law is the law of “Cause and Effect”. This is where everything that happens or when there is an effect in your life, there is a cause to create that effect. Which is exactly what happens in adults who have adverse childhood experiences – the root cause of an adult’s behaviour, lifestyle choices and negative experiences that the child was exposed to or witnessed.

As adults there comes a point where we need to make the choice either to continue living in the effect side of the law and continue being a product of our childhood experiences or take the cause side of the law and start making changes to what effects we experience in adulthood.

All behaviour is learned and so, can be unlearned. We can even change our brain chemistry. It might take some work and we may need some guidance but it is possible – I see this with clients I work with day in day out who want to change their current situations and they see massive transformations.

If you think of it this way – choosing to be on the cause side, you are making the decision to start controlling your life. You are empowered to make change because your future is in your hands. You are no longer an effect of others or the past. People who are stuck in the effect side of the law will always place blame on other things, because they believe nothing is in their control, for example, 

“I will never be able to lose my belly fat because I am over 40. That’s what happens when you’re over 40.” “I can’t stop worrying because I love them too much” “I can’t trust again because they have ruined me” “I won’t get that job because I’m too old.” “I didn’t get the sale because the client wasn’t ready”

In all of these instances, if a person stays in the effect side of the law, then there is nothing they can do, they lose all power. May as well give up. However when a person shifts their mentality to the cause side of the law, they take control of the situation and can choose what the effect will be because on some deeper level, we are creating the situations we are in. We set the standard for the words we say to ourselves, the behaviours we engage in and the results we get.

4. Counseling in Dubai and online – Get professional help that focuses on the present and not the past–

It is so important to get the right support when overcoming adverse childhood experiences because when you start your healing journey you may find difficult memories or feelings come up and this can be hard to process alone. I have helped many individuals work through ACE’s to go on and create healthier, happier lives. Clients I have worked with have been able to challenge old, unhelpful beliefs and replace them with positive, successful and helpful beliefs that serve a better purpose in their life.

Remember, healing from adverse childhood experiences, doesn’t mean you’re forgetting where you came from or erasing memories. The way I work is also not spent going over and over these experiences – I am not into that. In fact I think therapy that just talks over the problem makes things worse than better, because you reinforce = yes I have this problem, yes this was awful, yes I have anxiety, yes I feel bad, insecure, unconfident. 

Find someone who can support you to get to where you want to be now and in the future. Not someone that wants you to go over everything that has ever happened to you or wants to dig into your past for memories. Instead choose someone who wants to help you release it quickly and who wants to support you to create an exciting future. 

If you would like to know more about how you can overcome adverse childhood experiences and believe this could be impacting your adult life, book a free introduction call with me on my website – and I can share how my 1 to 1 breakthrough sessions have helped 1000’s of people have happier and healthier lives and relationships.  

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Article by Nicola Beer – who offers counseling in dubai and online as well as run’s life coaching certification and relationship coaching certification courses online. Nicola is a highly respected depression counsellor dubai and online professional that offers Anxiety Treatment in Dubai and online also.