The Manifestations of Childhood Trauma in Adulthood

Trauma is a heavy-laden word, making people weary of opening Pandora's box of deeply buried feelings and memories. It is often this weariness that does not let people process their pain effectively. Instead, we pack it up with neat little bows and labels and internalize all kinds of takeaways from that negative experience. This article will explore the very process by which we internalize these badly taught life lessons, especially as children, and look at ways in which it manifests in our adulthood.

First, let’s understand what trauma means. It consists of disturbing experiences that leave us feeling a host of unpleasant emotions like fear, helplessness, confusion, etc. In addition to being distressing when they occur, traumatic experiences tend to haunt us with psychological and physical symptoms even after the pain-causing threat is long gone. It can appear in the form of a flashback, migraines, muscle tension, debilitating psychological symptoms, and even diagnoses such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. Trauma can be one big bad experience or a collection of small and frequent bad experiences that chip away at your mental health slowly.

Some Manifestations of Childhood Trauma in Adulthood are:

Difficulty Accepting Change 

The most grueling aspect of change is to keep one's emotions in check as things that work in a certain way are molded to fit the ever-changing environment. This change may be as small as replacing a broken (favorite) mug or as big as moving to a different country. 

Traumatic experiences from childhood tend to diminish our ability to regulate our emotions at a developmental level (Cross et al., 2017), making it significantly harder to exert control over our emotional state. Hence, individuals with childhood trauma are likely to suffer from anxiousness, distress, and outbursts when faced with changes in their lives, irrespective of how small and easy the change may seem to others.

Forming Unhealthy Attachments 

Our way of forming and maintaining attachments to various things and people in life is a learned process. As a child, the attachment one forms with their primary caregiver (parents, family members, nanny, etc.) impacts how they bond with others in later life. Individuals with unpredictable, unsafe, and abusive childhood experiences tend to form a maladaptive attachment to figures in early life (Devlin et al., 2020). These patterns of relating to people and situations in a knee-jerk response stay with us until insight is gained about how it badly affects relationships in adult life and creates relationship problems.  

These attachment patterns may seem illogical and easy to change to others but to an individual with childhood trauma, it is their reality and their only way of coping with an environment that continues to feel unsafe to them. 

Lack of Stable Interpersonal Relationships

When children are exposed to traumatic experiences, the lens through which they view the world fills with little cracks of maladaptive thinking and processing. Problems and dilemmas that are easy for others to solve can seem debilitating and it also greatly impacts the ability to relate with others.

Therefore, in close relationships, conflicts can be rampant if one or both partners have unresolved childhood trauma (Drapeau and Perry, 2004). The difference in the way they process information and emotions causes clashes that a traumatized adult is incapable of resolving through healthy emotional regulation. 

Increased Vulnerability to Lifestyle disorders 

Lifestyle Disorders such as diabetes, obesity, and respiratory ailments are on the rise, what's interesting is the association it holds with childhood trauma. It has been seen that individuals with childhood trauma are more likely to develop ailments such as migraines, obesity, digestive issues, musculoskeletal and respiratory disorders, substance abuse, and mood and anxiety disorders (Noteboom et al., 2021).

This association is both physical and mental. Traumatic events cause frequent flight or fight responses in early life which deteriorate physical health by suppressing growth and developmental processes in the body. Further, poor mental health outcomes limit one’s ability to make difficult changes in daily life to prevent or reverse the impact of lifestyle disorders on them.   

Poor Long-term Memory 

Another strange impact of childhood trauma on adult life is that you’re likely to have trouble remembering things well. While this is a widespread and common concern in many ailments, it is been seen that exposure to childhood trauma leads to impairments in brain development, that impact working memory (Philip et al, 2015).

This means that not only your memories of childhood will be riddled with gaps, but you might sometimes have trouble remembering recent events and experiences as well. 

Susceptibility to Substance dependence 

Lastly, and quite possibly the most devastating impact of childhood trauma on adult life is how vulnerable an individual becomes to substance dependence to cope with the repercussions of their traumatic childhood. This susceptibility is ingrained at many levels– psychological, neurological, sociological, etc.

Unfortunately, many individuals with substance use disorders go undiagnosed about trauma and are treated for a symptom, rather than the illness itself.

Conclusion, 

Childhood trauma is a serious concern for all, you may find a professional mental health expert who will help you to overcome your trauma. We at BetterLYF offer online counselling and therapy sessions for various mental health concerns, get an appointment and start living a healthy life.