The first time I had negative self-talk I was four or five years old. I'm 29 now. Since then it's been pretty constant. I've always been down on myself. But I never had any adult figures in my life put me down or verbally abuse me, at least that I can remember. I was forced into a psych hospital for about a week (I think - I don't want to bring it up with my dad \[mom died when I was six\] to ask specifics because it's a super uncomfortable topic) when I was four/five because I was becoming increasingly violent with my baby sister (I believe it was out of sibling jealousy/rivalry but I can't exactly remember why) and my parents were afraid I'd kill her (I'd said I wasn't sure if I'd be able to stop myself from throwing her off the upstairs balcony) so they put me away. That was an extremely scary and traumatic event for me as I thought my family was abandoning me and thinking "they're trying life out without me to see if it's better" and I thought I must be a terrible, bad kid and just person in general. (Just so everyone knows I stopped that behavior towards her probably pretty soon after I got out, and I'm rather ashamed and embarrassed that I ever did and thought about those things). I think that's the first traumatic event that happened in my life, and then when my mom died when I was six after a 13-month battle with breast cancer, I immediately thought it was because I had stressed her out by being a bad kid and made her sick. So there was plenty more negative self-talk because of that. Finally, when I was seven to thirteen years old I was bullied at school for being fat (the result of desperate comfort eating after losing my mom) and shy/awkward. So yes, later on people \*did\* verbally put me down, but the start of my negative self-talk was way before the bullying. Idk, I just have been thinking about what this psych said and wondering if his idea that I had to be verbally put down first in order to say those things to myself from such a young age has any bearing, and therefore my brain is more messed up than I thought.