Most people would consider themselves not to have experienced childhood trauma, many associate childhood trauma with horrendous and extreme abuse.
Childhood trauma can take many forms and the more covert forms of childhood trauma can actually be extremely damaging because they’re often unrecognised, making it difficult for the child to understand and process their experiences.. More covert forms of childhood trauma could involve:
- Emotional neglect: Ignoring a child’s emotional needs or invalidating their feelings.
- Parentification: Forcing a child to take on adult responsibilities, to act as a caregiver for their siblings or parents,
- Gaslighting: Manipulating a child to question their own reality or perceptions.
- Inconsistent parenting: Unpredictable responses to a child’s behaviour, this kind of parenting will lead to confusion and anxiety.
- Conditional love: Providing affection only when the child meets certain standards or expectations.
- Silent treatment: Using prolonged periods of ignoring as a punishment.
- Overly critical: Constant criticism will erode a child’s self-esteem and cause them to develop a negative inner voice.
- Enmeshment: Lack of boundaries between parent and child, often involving inappropriate sharing of adult problems.
- Witnessing domestic tension: Exposure to ongoing conflict between parents, even if not physically violent. A small child thinks everything about them, just growing up in an environment where there is a lot of arguing will create toxic shame.
- Covert sexual abuse: Inappropriate sexual behavior or comments that don’t involve physical contact.
- Educational neglect: Not supporting a child’s learning needs or preventing them from attending school.
- Spiritual abuse: Using religion or spirituality to control or manipulate a child.
A child doesn’t want to see their parents as bad so they internalise dysfunction, they see themselves as bad. A child growing up in a dysfunctional environment will develop strategies to deal with it and suppress the toxic shame they have internalised. These strategies are a child’s solution so they won’t serve such children as adults. These childish strategies could result in self harm, toxic and abusive behaviours.
Parents Aren’t Usually To Blame
People often feel guilt about admitting they have childhood trauma, they feel like they are blaming their parents. Everyone is doing the best they can with what they have and parents will usually parent the way they were parented. Admitting you had childhood experiences that traumatised you and then healing them isn’t blaming your parents. Inner child healing work will allow you to break the cycle of generational abuse and not traumatise your own children in the same ways.
How Does Childhood Trauma Affect Our Behaviour As Adults?
Emotional Regulation
When a child is repeatedly exposed to trauma the emotional part of their brain actually increases in size and the thinking part of their brain decreases in size. Adults with unresolved childhood will suffer with emotional regulation.
Negative Self Image & Low Self Esteem
As children we are looking to our parents to understand the world and ourselves, we are going to take what they tell us as the truth. If we are internalising the message we are faulty, broken, worthless it’s going to create low self esteem and a negative self image.
Relationship Issues
Unhealed childhood trauma is going to result in relationship issues. Relationships are often going to be very intense from the start and short lived. We will find ourselves getting into relationships with people who compliment our family system, who interact with and treat us the same way we were treated as children. Relationships are often were childhood trauma shows the most.
Mental Health Issues
Childhood trauma significantly increases the risk of developing mental health issues in adulthood. This connection is well-established in psychological and medical research. Childhood trauma can results in depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, substance use disorders, eating disorders, dissociative disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). Childhood trauma often leads to multiple comorbid/co-occurring mental health issues.
Trauma in the formative years can alter brain structure and function, particularly in the limbic parts of the brain related to stress response and emotional regulation. Childhood trauma can lower the threshold for stress tolerance, making individuals more susceptible to mental health problems when facing the challenges that life presents.
Unresolved childhood trauma will show up in all aspects of a person’s life. Codependency, trust issues, hypervigilance, porous boundaries, difficulty setting boundaries, increased risk taking, negative self talk, negative perception, problems with attachment and intimacy all of these issues have their root in childhood trauma and can be helped by inner child healing.
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