Let's imagine you had a bad childhood.
You may hardly remember it.
It almost doesn't matter.
The easiest way to assess what once went on is to reflect on how you feel about yourself now.
The clearest sign of having had a miserable start is a deep self-hatred.
You think you're ugly.
You can't bear to look in mirrors.
You never want to upset anyone and suspect everyone hates you.
You feel unacceptable and weird and just, in multiple non-specific ways, diseased and not right.
Behind such feelings, there will have been the normal villains: a critical and unloving mother or father, some violence and unpredictability, huge preference for a sibling.
