When we’re hurting deeply, we often feel the answer is to find ways to “get over it.” So too often, we press on, dragging past traumas into our adult lives and relationships.
Of course, moving forward is a good thing. But only after you’ve taken the time to heal.
Healing from deep emotional wounds with therapy is the work that can lead to recovery and hope. Most of all, it can shed new light on the problems you may be having with the people that matter most to you.
First, let’s discuss the roots of your pain.
Identifying Your Childhood Trauma
When reviewing our pasts, it’s important to know you are not alone in your struggle. Studies show that thousands of children experience more than one traumatic event before kindergarten. These may include but are not limited to
Grief and loss
Domestic abuse or the threat of violence
Sexual assault or repeated sexual abuse
Severe neglect or abandonment
Traumatic physical Injury/illness
Pervasive bullying/control/manipulation of their thoughts and actions by adults/siblings
Traumas at such a tender age impact identity development significantly and may persist into young adulthood. Thus, it is no wonder that adult relationships might suffer.
Let’s consider the possible ramifications.
5 Ways Childhood Trauma Can Impact Your Adult Relationships
1. You Feel You “Lost” Your Childhood
When you look back, do you sense gaps in your experiences or long for the milestones other people recall? This is quite normal. A healthy childhood follows a path of development. A child’s march toward independence includes common markers and events that a healthy family and community encourage. Trauma can effectively sabotage such growth.
2. You Operate from a Place of Distrust and Avoid Close Relationships
Your experiences have taught you that trusting others, especially those who should care most, is painful and insecure. Thus, quite logically, you learned to keep your defenses up. However lonely and unsatisfying, the walls you’ve built around yourself seem safe and necessary.
3. The Relationships You Attempt are Dysfunctional and Codependent
Through no fault of your own, you learned unhealthy relationship dynamics. Whether your role models were abusive, neglectful, absent, indifferent or incompetent, the result is the same. When it comes to identifying and engaging a healthy connection, you are at a loss and significant disadvantage. Childhood trauma can set up detrimental thinking patterns and negative behavior cycles that are hard to break without therapeutic redirection.
4. You Mentally “Check Out” or Dissociate from Yourself or Others
Because the realities of your past are so painful, you may have learned how to distance yourself from the thoughts and memories internally. Essentially, your brain disconnects. You no longer focus too deeply on day-to-day events. It feels safer, albeit empty, and to simply “go through the motions.”
5. You Feeling Like You Are Meant to be Victim
Your early exposure to trauma created an expectation of trauma as an inevitable part of your life. Disappointment, rejection, isolation, shame, and powerlessness may have become your emotional norm. Your hopes for the future may seem unlikely. Abuse, loss, and grief are your baselines, so, unconsciously, you may create or buy into adult relationships that mirror your past and victimize you further.
So What Can You Do Right Now to Turn Things Around?
1. Make Self-Care Happen Routinely
Your worth and value as an individual needs to be an active priority. Protect your mind and bod with a daily self-care routine that includes adequate sleep, healthy nutrition, regular exercise, stress management, and quiet reflection.
2. Accept Yourself...Completely
The take away here? Your trauma is not who you are. Where you are emotionally, as a result of the past, is perfectly fine. You needn’t explain it, bury it, or ignore it to be okay. You and your feelings are yours and they are valid. Your recovery process is your own. No need for shame or apologies.
3. Embrace Goal-Setting
You have a right to your own bright future. Embracing goalsetting and step-by-step achievement is crucial for emotional healing. Your self-esteem will grow and the world will expand as you put the past in perspective and look ahead.
4. Learn About Attachment & Identify Your Style
Attachment styles are a key part of understanding how childhood trauma affected your ability to connect with others today. These styles are described as secure, anxious preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful-avoidant. Educating yourself about these types of relationships will reveal much about your patterns, motivations. It is also a means of self-understanding and self-compassion.
5. Hone Your Communication Skills
Communicating needs and boundaries is vital for someone who’s been traumatized. Feeling capable and confident in this arena will ensure you don’t feel powerless. Finding your voice and using it greatly reduces the chances you’ll be victimized or manipulated again.
Seek Out The Help You Deserve...
You didn’t ask to be one of the masses who experiences childhood trauma. And you definitely don’t deserve to live out that trauma daily as an adult.
Moreover, you have a built-in need to belong and contribute to a partnership and /or community that knows and accepts you. You deserve that as well.
Remember, trauma is not your legacy. Healing is. You have every right to seek and receive help. Therapy with a compassionate and knowledgeable therapist is a proven means for recovery. Working together, you can increase awareness, expand your perspective and promote healthier behavior. Ultimately, the benefit of your committed work will be the adult relationships that support and fulfill you.
Are you ready to deal with your childhood trauma and move forward? It’s time to heal. Please reach out soon for help.