The 6 characteristics of childhood trauma

Emotional wounds can be very deep, and more so if they occur during our childhood. Children do not have the appropriate tools to manage the problems that may happen to them, much less if they are events as serious as maltreatment or abuse.

Negative childhood experiences influence the personality, so much so that in adulthood they can emerge in the form of psychopathology and symptoms such as stress, anxiety or social withdrawal, without the affected person knowing that it is because of a past event that has not yet managed.

In order to help people who may have experienced a traumatic event as children, today we are going to see the main characteristics of childhood trauma, in the sense of how they manifest themselves in adulthood and what causes them.

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What are the characteristics of childhood trauma?

There is no doubt that childhood is a vulnerable and determining stage. All the physical and psychological impressions that are received during the first years of life leave their mark on our personality, for better and for worse.

Your brand is long-lasting, so negative impressions will be especially distressing. not only at the time they were lived but also in adulthood. Particularly negative experiences during childhood can turn into childhood trauma.

What is a childhood trauma?

A childhood trauma is an emotional injury as a result of a painful or distressing event experienced during childhood. These traumas are like injuries and can be more or less serious. This is not to say that certain traumas should be downplayed because, regardless of their severity, They will have a very negative impact on the personality and a whole process is required to overcome them you too.

Despite this reality, there are not a few people who go to psychotherapy saying that they are not worthy of calling their traumas that way. They feel that their suffering is not legitimate.

There are no real traumas and banal traumas. All trauma must be repaired regardless of how severe it is. It is essential to teach those who express them to manage their emotions, to handle the painful memory of what happened to them as children and to know how to forgive themselves and others.

The effects of childhood trauma are very long-lasting, but this is not to say that they cannot be overcome. In the worst case, there will be some sequel, but there will be some improvement. It all depends on the severity of the childhood experience and whether the appropriate professional help is received to manage the emotions it arouses. You can have a full adult life, despite having suffered a traumatic childhood, although it will require therapeutic processes and of a deep personal elaboration.

Childhood trauma cannot always be related to obvious events from the past. Even when this is the case, what happens on many occasions is that the patients themselves are very resistant to removing them. to the light, because doing so involves breaking a lock, the one that they themselves put in their memory as a mechanism of defending. They were left cornered in some dark place in his mind, hoping that they would not bother again.

The problem is that, even if they do not remember exactly what happened, their personality is disturbed by it. The bad memory, the trauma, is still there.

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What is the cause of childhood trauma?

There are many situations that can be experienced as traumatic and that have effects until adulthood. Some are more evident than others because they have more social recognition or are of interest in the media and through the legislative branch. Others, on the other hand, do not enjoy that weight of social recognition, although they can also be very harmful.

Some examples of situations experienced in childhood that can crystallize in the form of trauma are:

• Family or school rejection.
• Physical or verbal abuse and mistreatment at home or at school.
• Sexual abuse
• Humiliation and humiliation.
• Parental neglect.
• Family problems.
• Relatives with drug addiction.
• Poverty and social exclusion.
• Stressful situations and feelings of insecurity in childhood.
• Separations or divorces that do not respect the needs of children.
• Sudden deaths.
• Pathological grief.
• Natural disasters and catastrophes (p. eg, terrorist attacks, wars ...).

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Signs of childhood trauma

As we said, it is possible to have experienced a trauma and not know it at all. A traumatic event may have been experienced in childhood that it has left a deep mark on us and that it manifests itself in adulthood, but that we are not aware of it.

It can happen that mismanagement of frustration, outbursts of anger, lack of self-esteem and other maladaptive situations are related to having lived a traumatic experience childish.

Some signs and symptoms that relate to having experienced childhood trauma are:

• Anger, irritability, and mood swings.
• Depressive states
• Low self-esteem or damaged self-concept.
• Anxiety, anguish, panic attacks.
• Phobias or irrational fears.
• Emotional overflow or avoidance of conflict.
• Extreme shyness that hinders social interaction.
• Problems when living sexuality (from impulsive or risky behaviors to outright rejection of sex).
• Somatizations: physical manifestations of trauma, often related to diseases.
• Distorted ideas about the world and oneself.
• Sleep disturbances, such as nightmares or insomnia.
• Eating disorder (lack of appetite, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating…).
• Memory and concentration problems (closely related to attitudes of dissociation in the face of the pain of a trauma that one does not feel capable of dealing with).

All of these signs are indicative of childhood trauma; However, it is interesting to go into greater detail about some of them that serve as defining characteristics of those who suffer from this type of experience.

As we have commented before, There are many situations that can be experienced as traumatic, but all of them bring with them the same behavioral and relational patterns in the subject who has experienced them, features which we explore in more detail below.

1. Inhibition and withdrawal

Withdrawal and inhibition are traits closely associated with people whose childhood has been difficult. They make their emotions and thoughts invisible, they do not show them to others for fear that this will be used as a weapon against them. Withdrawn people find it difficult to reveal their inner world, they do not dare to express what they really think or do what they want. And they are also afraid of others.

We should not confuse this with introversion. There are people who are introverts and for that reason they are not very adept at social situations. However, this does not mean that they are afraid to say out loud what they think or feel. That they do not rub shoulders with others does not mean that they do not act with autonomy or do not say their own when necessary.

Instead, when there are childhood traumas that have not yet been overcome, the person has the express desire to go unnoticed, of not attracting attention for fear of being attacked. He is afraid of re-experiencing an experience that causes another new trauma.

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2. Bad mood and frustration

Anger is one of the emotions most felt by those who have not yet managed their traumatic childhood experiences. It is not that they are violent people, but they are angry with the world, a world seen as cruel and hostile. This also makes them not very tolerant of frustration and they show themselves to others in a very aggressive way. It gives the sensation as if they are about to explode.

His anger also expresses itself in the form of fickleness and frustration. They lose their patience for certain things, starting things that, after a while, they get tired, lose interest or get angry because it is not going as they wanted. As a consequence, their academic and work performance may be involved, in addition to not performing well in work teams.

3. Self esteem issues

People who have not overcome their childhood traumas tend to have very low self-esteem, something evident in the form of a very exaggerated underestimation of themselves. They feel very inferior to others and have a very low opinion of themselves. This often causes them to reject the compliments that others give them and even perceive them as attacks, such as sarcastic comments or ridicule.

The comment echoes in their mind that they are not worth it and that if someone says they are, then they are lying. For this reason, they do not stop trusting in emotional reinforcements, in words of admiration. For them it is a deception because they cannot understand that someone has a positive concept of them, based on the fact that they detest themselves.

4. Apparent overvaluation of themselves

It also happens that people who have experienced childhood trauma have an excessive value of themselves, considering themselves superior to others. Actually, this is just a facade. It is a defense mechanism to compensate for the poor opinion they have of themselves and to manage, using pathological mechanisms, the abuse or damage they received in their childhood.

5. Constantly apologize

Related to the previous points, people who have suffered childhood trauma still not overcome feel that their opinions or themselves are not worth it. It is for this reason that, fearful of doing or saying something that is very wrong, thinking that they may inadvertently upset others, frequently apologize. They apologize when they are going to speak, as if they have no right to express their opinion, or when they have to go somewhere. They apologize for everything.

This is a very remarkable characteristic of people with childhood traumas, showing that they have received a very restrictive upbringing. Their parents tended to humiliate them and show few expressions of affection. This makes the injured feel that they have to apologize for any action that gives them a presence in the world.

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6. Flee or live from conflict

Most traumatic childhoods have developed in highly troubled families. Her childhood was marked by disagreements and aggressions, physical and verbal, from her mothers or towards him or her. Any word or act could trigger problems, punishments, recriminations or even humiliations, humiliations experienced in a particularly painful way. It is for this reason that people with these types of childhoods can grow up with fear or fixation on conflict.

Those who fear conflict will constantly flee from it. In fact, They may go to the extreme of having to override their own convictions in order to avoid a contradiction.. Instead, those who are attracted to him are turning any aspect of his life into one, turning the most innocent disagreements into authentic dialogical battles.

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The importance of psychotherapy

Childhood traumas are not going to resolve themselves. Very few times they disappear as if by magic. It is necessary to work with them, learn to handle them and manage the emotions that they produce us Well, if we don't, they will end up invading our personality, affecting us in all aspects of life. You cannot be happy or have emotional well-being if the past is relived over and over again in your mind and hurts us from within.

Psychotherapy is essential to acquire a better life, and people who suffer childhood trauma are the best example of this. Only those who dare to take the step of visiting a psychologist and delving into the depths of their traumatic childhood to confront their personal demons can improve in life.