The Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma: What You Need to Know
Childhood trauma can be a tough thing to come to terms with. Some people may believe that once the child grows up and moves on, they are just magically cured. However, that notion is very far from the case. Childhood trauma can have long-lasting and even permanent effects on a person that can impede certain aspects of their adult life. For example, adults who have been through childhood trauma may have difficulty forming relationships due to not being able to trust others easily. If you think their problems stop there, think again. That is only one example of what childhood trauma can do.
Attachment and Relationship Issues
What most people might not stop and think about is that children’s brains are still developing. A healthy relationship between children and their parents or guardians is one of the most important things for proper development. Through these essential attachment figures, children learn to trust others, regulate emotions, and interact with the world around them. Children develop a sense of whether the world is safe or unsafe and understand their value as a person as they grow.
When caregiver relationships are unstable or non-existent, children start believing that they cannot rely on others. If, even worse, a caregiver abuses a child, the child may start thinking that they are a horrible person and that the world is an awful place. Children who did not have healthy attachments growing up are more susceptible to stress. They may also have trouble regulating their emotions and may be prone to lashing out. Additionally, a child with a history of trauma might also have problems with romantic relationships, friendships, and authority figures.
Issues With Emotional Regulation
Children who experience trauma often have difficulty identifying, expressing, and managing emotions. Their way of responding to complex emotions may be to stress, which can lead to depression, anxiety, or anger. For people who have grown up with trauma, reminders of traumatic events can be everywhere. These reminders trigger emotional responses that may be unpredictable or explosive. Having never learned how to calm themselves down, the adults risk becoming easily overwhelmed. They are also more likely to be fearful in many different types of situations.
Behavioral Problems
Emotional stimuli may easily trigger adults who have gone through childhood trauma. They already struggle with emotional regulation, which goes hand-in-hand with behavioral issues. Unfortunately, a lack of self-regulation also affects a person’s impulse control or the ability to think about one’s actions before performing them. That lack of impulse control is where that unpredictable and explosive behavior originates.
A child who grew up feeling powerless may have often felt like they always needed to be on the defensive against an abusive caregiver. As an adult, they may react the same way whenever they feel like they have been backed into a corner. They may also “disassociate” or mentally separate themselves from whatever is occurring that they don’t like. Disassociation can also be seen as being “spacey, detached, distant, or being out of touch with reality. For those who are severely traumatized, more high-risk adult behavior can be displayed, such as violence, sexual violence, or substance abuse.
Conclusion
No one just “gets over” childhood trauma as they become an adult. The only way to properly process what happened as a child is to seek the help of a professional trauma therapist. Otherwise, you may have to deal with a lot of problems as an adult.
Childhood trauma is not untreatable. You can get better. To learn more about childhood trauma, its lasting effects, and how to deal with them, feel free to contact me.