10 Signs That You're Stuck in Childhood Traumas And How to Deal With Them

Surprisingly, the majority of people are starting to define their experiences as traumatizing. However, other people find it difficult to accept the possibility that their experience(s) may have been horrific because they associate trauma with acts of domestic violence, sexual or physical abuse, or catastrophic auto accidents. This article will highlight 10 signs that your trauma hasn't fully healed and provide advice on how to deal with them or move on.

10 Signs of Lingering Childhood Trauma and Strategies for Healing

You feel like you don’t deserve happiness

Many people struggle with low self esteem because they don’t believe they deserve to be happy. The reason behind this could be because you’ve never seen happiness in your home growing up. You may also be overwhelmed with guilt due to something that has happened in the past. Moreover, some people feel like they don’t deserve happiness because they’re people pleasers or because their partners say so.

You can’t take decisions

Depressed people may occasionally find it difficult to make decisions because they lack the motivation they formerly did. They might no longer see the benefit of making a decision, thus they might not be motivated to do so.

Making decisions might be made more difficult by anxiety. Anxiety might cause you to feel apprehensive, afraid, or alone. Additionally, you can feel undecided. You can overthink or over analyze every decision you make out of concern that you might choose the wrong one.

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You fear loneliness

There are various reasons why people could be afraid of being alone. Perhaps you have experienced abandonment in the past, such as when your partner ended their relationship or you were abandoned as a child. You therefore began to believe that being alone equates to being unloved. Low self-esteem can also be linked to a fear of being by yourself. A person lacking self-confidence may believe they are unworthy of love and unable to improve their lives in any manner.

Anxiety disorders

Anxiety problems in adulthood can arise from childhood trauma for various reasons. First of all, traumatic events frequently engender mistrust and feelings of insecurity, which can make it challenging to build wholesome connections. This frequently has the unintended consequence of creating issues at work or in the classroom. Emotion regulation becomes increasingly challenging after trauma due to brain chemistry changes. This makes it difficult to handle the stresses of daily life, which increases the risk of anxiety and panic attacks. Anxiety levels can rise in those who have suffered trauma since they frequently have trouble falling asleep.

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Depression

Another indication of unresolved childhood trauma in adults is depression. It especially happens in cases where the trauma is severe or continuous. Trauma may change brain chemistry, resulting in depressive symptoms as well as helplessness and hopelessness. Individuals who have gone through trauma frequently have trouble sleeping and eating, which makes depression worse. Therapists encourage patients, assist in processing the trauma, and offer coping mechanisms to individuals who are experiencing depression as a result of repressed childhood trauma.

Low self-esteem

Adult mental health issues resulting from childhood trauma can include low self-esteem. This symptom is characterized by low self-esteem, feelings of unworthiness or unlovability, and lack of confidence. It frequently stems from childhood-developed sentiments of worthlessness and humiliation.

These emotions can be brought on by childhood trauma experiences like abuse, neglect, or seeing violence, and they frequently result in a variety of issues as adults, such as substance misuse, depression, and anxiety. In addition, it may make it challenging to establish positive connections and manage stress.

Anger 

Adult anger is caused by repressed childhood trauma for a number of reasons. One explanation for this is that suppressing one's emotions basically means suppressing one's negative emotions. This may eventually cause those feelings to explode and show themselves as rage. Because the person is unsure of what emotions they are not allowed to express, they frequently choose to react to negative childhood experiences by holding their anger inside. Intense mood swings may arise from the inability to control emotions caused by trauma repression.

Mood swings

Frequency of strong feelings that seem to come out unexpectedly or randomly (mood swings) is one of the main indicators of repressed childhood trauma. It can be rather challenging to control these emotional fluctuations, which might result in further problems.

Strong emotions might appear out of nowhere in response to specific triggers. You may be tense all the time, especially in certain situations, and you may not know why. One seemingly insignificant thing could irritate you. Within minutes, you could go from being happy to being sad, angry to being angry, or happy to being upset.

Struggling to act like an adult

Because a part of you has never truly grown up emotionally, you can find it difficult to behave like an adult. When you don't get your way, you can lose it. Faced with anything even remotely difficult, you might act immature or childlike. Or you can be so incredibly cynical or unyielding that it borders on childish.

Your development was hampered by the traumatic event(s) or your requirements weren't appropriately satisfied as a child. Therefore, whether you realize it or not, you may have spent a large portion of your adult life trying to satisfy those desires from your childhood.

Relationship problems

We frequently see the effects of repressed childhood trauma in our adult relationships. Consequently, relationship problems may arise for trauma sufferers on a regular basis. And these problems could be brought on by an unhealthy attachment style, a lack of trust, a fear of abandonment, or the possibility that their connection with their parents created a bad example for interactions with others.

For example, in partnerships, you could be overly dependent or codependent. Your excessive neediness may be a result of your fear of being abandoned, thus it could be a factor. The trauma may have left you without an identity as well, which would deny you the independence necessary for a strong, mutually beneficial relationship.

How can childhood traumas be healed?

Your childhood trauma will continue to have an unconscious impact on you if you don't deal with it. It affects how you parent, how you behave, how you feel about yourself and the world, and how you relate to other people.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

CBT, or cognitive-behavioral therapy, is a popular kind of psychotherapy. It is an established method for unlearning negative reactions that you may have acquired as a coping mechanism for your trauma. The goal of treatment is often to alter thought and behavior patterns. The goal of CBT is to reprogram your brain and attitude to enable you to manage your trauma in a more healthy way.

EMDR Therapy

A type of cognitive therapy called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) concentrates on processing and mindfulness to lessen the uncomfortable effects of unpleasant memories and emotions. Studies indicate that it has been beneficial for individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder by mitigating its adverse consequences.

Lifespan Integration Therapy

LI, or lifespan integration, is a method predicated on the mind-body link. It helps the patient contact their inner child to address repressed trauma and encourage healing through memory recall and imagery. The original purpose of this treatment approach was to help adults who had suffered trauma as children. However, it also deals with how a variety of behavioral and mental health problems affect individuals of all ages.

Trauma-Focused Therapy

The focus of trauma-focused treatment, often referred to as trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, or TF-CBT, is on the ways in which the patient's traumatic experiences have impacted their physical, mental, behavioral, emotional, and spiritual health. According to research, TF-CBT appears to be useful in the treatment of childhood trauma. This therapy combines a number of trauma-sensitive intervention techniques. It has its roots in the comprehension of the relationship between the trauma and the person's behavioral and emotional reactions.

Many unsolved difficulties from childhood trauma can persist into adulthood. In fact, several of the indicators on this list have an effect on one another. Mood swings, for instance, can be brought on by triggers and an inability to adapt to change. Relationship issues might be indicated by symptoms including mood swings and difficulty acting like an adult.