Childhood trauma can leave deep psychological wounds that persist into adulthood. It impacts how we view ourselves, others, and understand the world around us. Understanding the signs of childhood trauma is the first step towards healing and regaining your self-esteem and the power to create the life you want, filled with joy and love. If you recognize any of the signs mentioned in this article, it may be time to explore how past experiences affect your life today and consider taking steps toward recovery, such as therapy.
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Here are some common signs that may indicate unresolved childhood trauma:
1. Emotional Dysregulation
Children who have faced trauma often struggle with regulating their emotions because their nervous system remains in a state of constant alert, known as the fight-or-flight response. This heightened state, where the brain’s amygdala is on overdrive, makes them more susceptible to anxiety, depression, and sometimes substance use as they try to cope. Struggling with regulating emotions can look like: experiencing intense mood swings, impulsive behaviours, struggling to focus, unpredictable emotional responses that make it hard to maintain relationships, struggling to return to a calming state after being hurt/upset, anxiety/panic attacks, substance use, struggling in stressful situations, constant worry/rumination and/or struggling with naming and expressing emotions.
2. Anxiety
As mentioned above, childhood trauma often leaves individuals in a state of hypervigilance, which can manifest in several ways. People may experience chronic anxiety, where the constant sense of danger makes them overly alert and on edge. This heightened state of awareness can lead to constantly scanning their environment for potential threats, even in safe situations. They may become highly sensitive to cues that others might not notice, reacting strongly to stimuli that seem minor to those around them. This can also make them easily startled by sudden noises or unexpected events, reflecting their ongoing state of heightened alertness.
3. Avoidance & Numbing
Engaging in behaviours like emotional detachment, dissociation, or avoidance is a common way for individuals to cope with trauma, and this is because they haven’t yet found healthier ways to process their feelings. Emotional detachment involves disconnecting from one’s feelings to avoid pain, often leading to a sense of numbness. This detachment can isolate individuals from others and make it difficult for them to connect or relate emotionally. Dissociation is a severe form of detachment. Individuals report that they feel disconnected from their own reality. They experience a sense of being outside their body or observe events from a distance, rather than fully participating in them. Avoidance is another common method trauma survivor rely on to cope. It involves steering clear of people, places, and/or situations that remind them of their trauma. Additionally, survivors of childhood trauma often suppress their emotions because they find them too painful or overwhelming, or because self-criticism tells them they should simply “get over it”.
4. Chronic Self-Criticism
Children who go through trauma often become very self-critical as adults because they either blame themselves for what happened, see themselves as flawed, or were treated harshly by caregivers. Self-blame can serve as a coping mechanism for children dealing with trauma, as it provides a way to make sense of their difficult experiences. Children often lack the emotional understanding to recognize that adults have their own limitations and that their caregivers’ inability to provide love may stem from their own shortcomings rather than the child’s worth. When caregivers fail to meet a child’s emotional needs, the child might interpret this as a reflection of their own inadequacy, rather than understanding that the issue lies with the caregivers’ ability to nurture effectively.
5. Shame & Guilt
As briefly mentioned above, a child who experiences trauma may come to believe that their own worthiness is the problem, rather than recognising that the trauma itself is the issue and not their fault. Children, being dependent on caregivers for their survival, often adopt self-blame as a coping mechanism to maintain attachment as a way to try to ensure their ongoing care. At that stage of their life, confronting or holding caregivers accountable is not feasible, so self-blame becomes a survival strategy. Unfortunately, this distorted view of their worthiness makes them more susceptible to feelings of shame and guilt throughout their life.
6. Struggling to trust others
Survivors of childhood trauma may find it difficult to trust others in adulthood, because their early experiences of betrayal, particularly by those who cared for them, devastated their sense of security. They therefore hesitate to form close relationships, for fear of being hurt again. Their constant emotional hypervigilance also causes them to expect potential harm, which makes it difficult to open up and feel safe, however supportive relationships may be.
7. People Pleasing
Pleasing others is a very common reaction to childhood trauma, in which survivors prioritize the needs of others to avoid potential conflict or rejection. This behavior, rooted in fear of abandonment, frequently leads to difficulties in setting limits and sacrificing personal well-being for the approval of others. As time passes, it undermines personal identity and leaves individuals with the feeling of being drained and unappreciated. The key to healing lies in learning to assert personal needs and practicing self-compassion.
8. Chronic Pain, IBS
Chronic pain is a major consequence of unresolved childhood trauma, as our bodies store emotional stress. Trauma keeps the nervous system on permanent alert, which results in physical symptoms such as headaches, muscle tension or gastrointestinal disturbances. Traumatic experiences tend to manifest themselves physically, meaning that trauma survivors are more likely to develop conditions such as fibromyalgia or irritable bowel syndrome. Healing requires addressing both the emotional and physical aspects of the trauma.
9. Perfectionism
When children suffer trauma, they often feel a deep sense of insecurity and self-doubt. When the trauma involves harsh criticism, neglect or unrealistic expectations, children can internalize that their worth is dependent on their performance to perfection. Perfectionism may also be a tool for trauma survivors to cope with anxiety. By focusing on achieving flawless results, they may be trying to create a sense of predictability and safety in their lives, thereby compensating for the chaos that they experienced as children.
10. Excessive Control
Excessive control is a coping mechanism that is common in people who have experienced childhood trauma, and is driven by the need to create a sense of certainty and safety in their lives. This behaviour is often manifested in the form of rigid routines, perfectionism and/or a powerful need to manage all aspects of relationships and environments. Such behaviours may stem from a deep-rooted anxiety about unpredictability, as well as a strong need to avoid any potential harm or rejection. While this need for control may provide temporary relief, it frequently results in increased distress, stressed relationships and restricted personal development.