"5 Hidden Manifestations of Childhood Trauma in Adulthood"
Content
Imagine going to therapy and having the psychiatrist uncover your unique behaviours, revealing them as manifestations of childhood trauma. You are left speechless as uneasiness creeps in, leaving you deep in thought. You struggle to accept that those quirks, once natural to you, are manifestations of past experiences – experiences you either avoid or have forgotten due to the intense pain they cause when recalled.
This 6-letter word, Trauma, seems small until you experience it. Trauma is far more complex than we realize, and its storage in our brains is even more intricate.
Trauma is one of those experiences that are extremely difficult to comprehend in childhood.
What is Trauma?
According to the National Library of Medicine from the National Institute of Health
Understanding Childhood Trauma
Childhood trauma refers to distressing experiences or events that occur during a child’s developmental years, significantly impacting their emotional, psychological, and physical well-being. These traumatic experiences can vary in intensity and duration, often leaving lasting effects on a child’s mental health.
Childhood Trauma can be categorized into two broad categories:
Type 1 Trauma (Acute Trauma) – Type 1 Trauma refers to a single, intense, and often unexpected event that causes significant emotional distress. These events are typically one-time, isolated incidents that happen suddenly. These leave a lasting impact on a child’s sense of safety, security and even mental peace. Memories of such events are often painful.
Type 2 Trauma (Chronic Trauma) – Type 2 Trauma, also known as chronic or complex trauma, occurs when a child is exposed to repeated and continuous traumatic situations. Unlike Type 1 Trauma, Type 2 Trauma involves ongoing stress that can deeply affect a child’s development and well-being.
The key difference between Type 1 and Type 2 Trauma lies in the duration and repetition of the traumatic experience. A very grave traumatic experience, if just happened once, will be termed Type 1, and vice versa.
The link between childhood trauma and adulthood
One of the worst characteristics of childhood trauma is its effects are Long-Term. A traumatic experience leaves its seeds, which grow silently in our minds. Some unwanted patterns imprint on our brains, bearing troublesome fruits in the long run. A child who has experienced trauma, if fortunate enough, comes to realize the long-term effects of their childhood trauma in adulthood. “In most cases, mental health specialists are the first ones to analyze and pinpoint these effects of childhood trauma.”
Behavioural Consequence
Researchers evidently say that chronic emotional abuse and neglect can have the same disastrous effects as physical abuse and sexual molestation. After going through that intense trauma, many of the victims just go numb. They stop feeling anything and that can lead to cravings to feel something. In their yearning to feel, they may even start pricking their skin until it bleeds. In extreme situations, victims even try to cut themselves with a knife or a blade. They do so, not out of a suicidal tendency, but a craving to feel something again.
Psychological Consequence
Even the numbness is intertwined with psychological factors. The mind shuts down its emotional response as a defence mechanism, leading to the behavioural outcome. People often lose sensation in the body parts most impacted during traumatic experiences, becoming numb in those areas. This is not just a behaviour issue; it goes deeper. A trauma-stricken individual’s body conditions itself to deactivate the brain areas that define terror.
The Hidden Manifestations of Childhood Trauma
1. Difficulty in Forming Relationships
It is tragic if a child has to go through a traumatic experience initiated by someone they love or trust. If your parent, uncle/aunt, sibling, cousin or someone whom you least expect inflicts intense pain on you, what would you do?
Physical acts like getting brutally hit by a parent or getting sexually abused by an uncle are examples. Emotional acts like being neglected by your mom or being constantly criticized by your family are unthinkable for a child. But these acts are a reality in our society. What is inconceivable for some children is doable for some ugly humans.
Children, consciously or subconsciously, are always learning something. A traumatic experience exposes a child to the fact that even their loved ones can hurt them badly. From such experiences, their mind develops patterns, leading them to stop trusting in any relationship. Forming new relations becomes challenging, as fear always creeps in that this person will hurt me. Thus, forming close or meaningful relationships, even intimate ones, becomes difficult. This is how childhood trauma can lead to relationship issues.
2. Chronic Anxiety and Depression
Studies have shown that multiple traumatic experiences are directly connected to the severity of depression and anxiety. Clinical studies reveal an ugly finding: depression has a high risk of recurrence. With depression, the situation gets more dark.
There is no one single cause of depression, but genetics play a role. Epigenetics studies further substantiate that childhood trauma can trigger genetic vulnerability, leading to a higher risk of depression.
Also, children who are victims of violent crimes, childhood sexual abuse, and domestic violence fall under the category of persistent depressives which is the Type 2 Trauma category. Prolonged exposure to such traumatic events leaves children with deeply ingrained psychological scars. Multiple experiences substantially increase the likelihood of anxiety and depression from childhood trauma.
Imagine a child who did not even ask for that traumatic experience. Even after surviving it, the after-effects of childhood trauma haunt them for years or even a lifetime.
Studies in epigenetics reveal that genetic predispositions to depression often require the trigger of early traumatic experiences to manifest. When individuals are exposed to prolonged, repeated stress (Type 2 Trauma), the likelihood of chronic depression increases significantly. Examples include violent crime, domestic abuse, childhood sexual assault and many more. Experiencing multiple traumas further exacerbates the risk. Anxiety and depression from childhood trauma are chronic, enduring and severe conditions in the long term.
3. Perfectionism or Overachievement
Perfectionism may sound admirable, but the path to achieving it is fraught with anxiety.
What if I’m not able to do it? What will my friends, family, or society say? How will I face myself?
For many, perfectionism is a trauma response. Anything less than a set standard in their minds brings shame. Prolonged childhood trauma leaves them constantly seeking control by overachieving and striving for perfection.
“Sarah, a top-performing student, always pushed herself to be perfect. As a child, she faced constant criticism from her parents, who expected nothing less than excellence. To gain their approval, she became her own harshest critic, striving to excel in even the smallest tasks. Even small mistakes felt like failures. Over time, this relentless pursuit of perfectionism took a toll on both her mental and physical health. Exhaustion and unhappiness became her normal. Her friend Sam seeing this forced her to their college’s mental health counsellor.
After listening to her lifestyle, the counsellor laid out the truth: she needed to set boundaries and detach her happiness from her achievements. She learned to value herself more as a person than her accomplishments.”
All those trying to achieve perfectionism share similar mental attitudes:
Perfectionist Mindsets
- Fear of Failure – Trauma amplifies the fear of failure, driving people to set impossible standards and work tirelessly to avoid feeling unworthy.
- The Need for Control – Perfectionism helps trauma survivors feel in control, protecting them from a past where they felt unworthy.
- Seeking Approval and Validation – Traumatized children often overachieve to gain the love and approval they missed, sacrificing their well-being.
- Internalized Criticism – Harsh criticism in childhood creates an inner critic, pushing individuals to work hard on every task to avoid feeling worthless.
Traumatized children often push themselves beyond limits, desperately seeking the approval they never received. They crave the love they were never given. They strive endlessly for success, hoping it will finally bring the acceptance they’ve always wanted. Each achievement is a silent plea for the validation they were denied.
This is what perfectionism is as a trauma response. That little child is still crying, inside for someone to say, “You did good”.
4. Emotional Dysregulation
Emotional Dysregulation from childhood trauma involves struggling to manage both positive and negative emotional states. It’s closely associated with interpersonal trauma and post-traumatic stress. Long-term exposure to childhood trauma can alter brain development, affecting emotional regulation. This results in increased sensitivity to stress and difficulty managing emotions.
Symptoms of Emotional Dysregulation
1. Extreme Mood Swings
2. Panic Attacks
3. Challenges in Recognizing or Expressing Emotions
4. Low Self-Esteem
5. Overreacting
6. Difficulty in maintaining relationships
7. Hypervigilance
8. Emotional Numbness
“Arjun grew up in a chaotic home, with constant fighting, disagreements, shouting and emotional abuse. His parents, lacking control over their own emotions, failed to set up a healthy example for him. As a result of Learned Responses from his family, Arjun developed unhealthy coping mechanisms. He started suppressing his feelings or reacting with anger in situations that challenged his emotional control.”
This is what Emotional Dysregulations from Childhood Trauma look like: it’s full of distorted self-concepts and lack of exposure to peaceful times.
5. Trust Issues and Paranoia
Trust issues and Paranoia are common responses to childhood trauma. When caregivers or trusted individuals are the source of the traumatic experience, it can shatter a person’s emotional defences. It’s like shattered glass; no matter how often you try to piece it back together, it will never be whole again.
Trust Issues and Paranoia relate to childhood trauma under multiple factors like:
Perfectionist Mindsets
1. Betrayal of Trust
2. Hypervigilance and Paranoia
3. Distorted Perception of Others
4. Difficulty with Intimacy and Relationships
5. Internalized Fear and Insecurity
6. Complex PTSD
The impact of these factors can vary. Depending on the nature of the childhood trauma, an individual starts dreading particular kinds of people, situations, or relationships. For instance, if a child witnessed a parent’s betrayal of trust, such as infidelity, their ability to trust in love and marriage can be severely compromised. This trauma might manifest in adulthood as someone who is paranoid or hypervigilant fearing betrayal in a relationship. Their perception of every romantic relationship becomes distorted, seeing potential threats where there may be none.
This often leads to difficulty in forming intimate and meaningful connections. Even this can be frustrating for their partners, as any action they take is met with suspicion. This internalized fear and insecurity, often linked to Complex PTSD, creates a barrier to trusting relationships. All this makes it challenging for such individuals to engage fully in love or commitment.
All thanks to trust issues stemming from childhood trauma.
How to Heal?
The goal is to achieve Resilience. Resilience, in the context of childhood trauma, refers to a child’s ability to recover and adapt after facing traumatic events. It’s about how children maintain or regain mental health despite adversity. Supportive relationships and positive experiences are crucial in building resilience. Stable family bonds, consistent routines, and access to mental health resources all help strengthen a child’s ability to overcome trauma.
Traumatic events often trigger secondary stressors, like police investigations, court cases, or disrupted routines. Children might face housing issues, families might have to go through financial strain and even the loss of loved ones. Every situation is bound to be different and shall need the help of a mental health specialist.
In any situation or stage of trauma, whether you are a child, a teenager, an adult, in midlife, or a senior citizen. Understanding the above connections early and introducing vital interventions and effective support systems is necessary.
If you want to heal the childhood trauma, Please:
Consult a Psychiatrist
Conclusion
Never try to judge someone’s trauma. It is a highly subjective matter. For instance, one child might easily brush off experiences of neglect and emotional abuse. For someone else, it might affect them so deeply that it could sabotage their brain development.
People sometimes dismiss others’ trauma as insignificant. Society being society, fulfils its responsibility of being insensitive. Trauma doesn’t have to be something extreme like rape or assault. It can be subtle but affect you very deeply.
Understanding childhood trauma in adulthood can be challenging. To those warriors fighting a war with trauma, I leave these profound words:
“Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet