Your Anxiety May Stem From Unresolved Childhood Traumas

Science makes us increasingly clear that childhood is an essential period in the emotional development of people.

That's why, not surprisingly, traumatic events experienced at this stage have a significant impact on mental health throughout life, with anxiety being one of the disorders that is most likely to arise as a result.

• Related article: "What is trauma and how does it influence our lives?"

The link between childhood trauma and anxiety problems

Any event that causes a destabilizing effect on the emotional development of the child can affect to the way in which he will later face the world and in the way in which he will relate to others the rest.

Besides, anxiety arises as a natural response of the body to threatening situations. Its role is fundamental in human survival, since it helps us to avoid or face the dangers that may arise.

The problem arises when this phenomenon becomes chronic or disproportionate with respect to real situations.

Let's see why traumatic experiences in childhood contribute to the development of anxiety in adult life:

1. Overactivation of your nervous system

First of all, when the child experienced difficult situations, there was an overactivation of his nervous system, eliciting a fight, flight, or block response, more intensely in stressful situations. This will translate into a greater sensitivity to stress in adult life.

• You may be interested in: "Parts of the Nervous System: functions and anatomical structures"

2. The internalization of the problem

In second place, children are “sponges” that absorb the behaviors of the adults around them. If in her environment the adults expressed themselves through shouting or violent physical manifestations, generating tension, it is very These emotional responses are likely to be learned and repeated in adult life, increasing the chances of stress and anxiety.

3. Emotional problems

Third, when there are childhood traumas, the child will have difficulties regulating and expressing her emotions, which will make it difficult for her to deal with stress in an optimal way. This is very likely to persist into adult life and lead to the development of anxiety disorders.

• Related article: "Emotional management: 10 keys to master your emotions"

4. snowball effect

Finally, traumas can increase vulnerability to developing mental health problems, closely related to anxiety.

An example

This is what happened to Lucía, who had her first anxiety attack in a crowded shopping center, one day before Christmas vacation in her first year of university.

Suddenly Lucia felt an increasing feeling of nervousness. Her heart was beating rapidly. Her noises began to seem louder to him; the brightest, fuzziest lights. He felt tremendous difficulty breathing. Her legs were shaking and she wouldn't stop sweating.

His mind was filled with negative and catastrophic thoughts: he believed that he was going to die of a sudden heart attack.

He was finally able to get out of there and take refuge in his car. So, nervously, she called her friend Antonio, who was a psychologist. He explained to her that she was suffering from an anxiety attack and gave her some guidelines so that she could resolve it without having to go to a health center.

A few days later they met to talk. She told him that since adolescence, she felt a continuous oppression in her chest. She lived in "alert" mode, thinking that something bad could happen at any moment. But nothing was similar to that.

Advised by him, she Lucía decided to attend therapy, where she was able to discover that she had witnessed physical and psychological abuse by her parents throughout her childhood and adolescence.

Her parents, after many years of disputes, decided to separate when she was ten years old. It was not what is called a friendly separation, quite the opposite.

Her adolescence passed with a sense of constant fear and a sense of imminent danger in her daily life.

All her childhood history had a profound impact on her emotional development and her way of perceiving the world, which she She saw it as a hostile and dangerous place, even without already experiencing those conflictive situations that she remembered from her childhood. Her therapy allowed her to further explore the relationship between her childhood fear and her current anxiety., until she gradually disappeared.

In conclusion...

To this day, there is solid scientific evidence supporting that a traumatic childhood is associated with an increased risk of developing anxiety disorders in adult life.

For example, various organizations such as the APA (American Psychological Association) have compiled extensive research that supports that abuse, neglect and exposure to traumatic events in childhood increase the likelihood of developing anxiety disorders later in life adult.

It is important to highlight that the approach to anxiety related to childhood trauma requires trauma-focused therapy, which helps to process and overcome traumatic experiences.

In order for anxiety to disappear once and for all, it is necessary to go to the root of the problem, because as the psychoanalyst C.G. Jung: "We cannot change anything without first understanding."