How Childhood Trauma Affects Adults - Part 1

Identify 7 symptoms that adults have resulting from trauma growing up. By the end of this post, you will have an understanding of how childhood trauma impacted your adult life.

1 - Low Self-Esteem

Childhood trauma survivors usually present with a wound that bleeds into their self-esteem which says: I AM NOT GOOD ENOUGH, I AM UNWORTHY, I AM A BAD PERSON, I AM SOMETHING WRONG. Lack of self-esteem might be related to internalized voices that you heard growing. Sometimes you didn’t even hear these nasty words, but the abuse itself was enough to tell you that you are not good enough. Constant criticism and humiliation can cause this wound and that can also come from being bullied at school.

2- Depression

I have seen adult clients with depression who suffered from being extremely controlled and criticized growing up. Depression can be rooted in many factors, but in the context of childhood trauma what I have noticed is that when a child is constantly criticized and controlled (especially by authoritarian parents), it can be too painful to hate their caregivers, so they develop anger towards themselves. Depression can be an inward anger that has been bottling up for years.

Depression can be a very loud inner critic that screams - DON`T EVEN BOTHER TRYING, YOU WILL NEVER BE GOOD AT THIS, YOU CAN`T DO ANYTHING RIGHT ANYWAY- and then you get paralyzed. I am not discounting the fact that depression has its own biology and chemical imbalances in the brain, I am simply stating briefly how childhood trauma impacts adults (I could do another entire post about depression, there’s so much to say).

3 - Anxiety

Suppose you grew up in a chaotic home, where your parents constantly fought. In that case, if your parents had money problems, if you were exposed to unsafe situations, or if you experienced physical, sexual, or verbal abuse, it means that you were constantly walking on eggshells, so you were in survival mode most of the time. Thus, not knowing what to expect next, there’s still that voice that says in the present WHEN IS THE NEXT SHOE GONNA DROP, IT`S TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. Growing up, maybe you had a few good peaceful moments at home or maybe your parents were good to you, but then the next thing, you know you are in trouble again and your parents are screaming at each other and here we go again: I am scared, I am not safe. Because of past experiences, anxiety says DANGER DANGER, THERE IS A BEAR IN THE ROOM!

4- Self-Destructive Behaviors

Growing up, if you experienced loneliness a lot of the time, sexual abuse, or if you felt that nobody was there for you, attuned to your feelings, you probably felt invisible and unworthy. Feeling worthless has so many implications that I can write another post about it. Still, I noticed that adult children of dysfunctional families who experienced any type of sexual abuse carry this wound - I AM WORTHLESS. When someone truly believes that they are worthless they might engage in self-destructive behaviors such as self-harming, cutting, substance use, eating disorders, suicidality, self-sabotage, risky behaviors, and risky sexual behaviors. The yucky thought behind these behaviors might be - I DESERVE TO BE PUNISHED BECAUSE I AM WORTHLESS, I AM BAD.

5- Relationship issues

Relationship issues and codependency are big indicators of childhood trauma. Unconsciously we either attract a partner that reminds us of our parents with similar traits or we want a partner that can fulfill all our childhood needs that weren’t met. Thus, we reenact a wound to be healed. This is dangerous territory, if a wound is not fully healed it’s very easy to project our past to our present partners. If someone has an anxious attachment, they will expect their partner to fulfill their loneliness by frequently wanting more from that person.

For example, partner A wants partner B to respond to their text messages right away and wants to spend a lot of time together, otherwise, partner A will feel abandoned. In this same dynamic, let`s say that partner B is an avoidant attachment style person, he/she/they might feel suffocated by partner A`s attempts to be together and will withdraw as that triggers a fear of being engulfed rooted in childhood. On the other hand, avoidant attachment styles might not even attempt to form a long-term relationship because of an unconscious fear of intimacy.

6- Addiction

Of course, many factors explain addictive behaviors, but I want to focus more on how childhood trauma can shape addiction. Addiction can be rooted in feeling disconnected from self and others, lack of connection, loneliness, or when you had a big uncomfortable feeling, and you were left alone many and many times feeling out of control and sad. Addiction to food, drugs, smoking, technology, alcohol, shopping, etc. can be an attempt to feel a void inside and numb scary and overwhelming feelings. I usually call these addictions “parts” that are developed growing up in dysfunction, their main goal is to stop the pain, they are like firefighters, they just want to make the pain go away - MAKE IT STOP, I AM OUT OF HERE, I WILL TAKE YOU OUT OF THIS HELL.

7 Perfectionism, Control, and High achieving tendencies

“If I am perfect, then nobody will criticize me! If I am perfect, I am immune of what other people think, therefore I have more control”, this is a defense mechanism, a shield rooted in childhood. If you grew up in a home where you were constantly criticized, you had to get good grades, you had to be the best to be seen, you had to achieve, stand out to get praise or you were a kid that needed to be well behaved otherwise you would get hit, all these factors taught you that this is how you got to be valuable, but even if you tried you still felt like you were not enough no matter what you did! You probably attempted to control and be perfect many times and now as an adult, you pay the price. It became extremely draining and tiresome. This pattern can destroy your sense of self and your self-esteem because nothing will ever be good enough and that is just exhausting to live like that.

Conclusion

As you can see, these are some present symptoms of how childhood trauma can impact you as an adult. I would love to keep writing about other signs in future posts, a lot of them reflect our current repetitive behaviors and distorted thinking. If you’re wondering how you can heal these wounds and finish business with your past so you can recover your peace in the present, feel free to contact me for a 20-minute consultation call or book an appointment to see how I might be able to help you.