Childhood Trauma in Adults: Your Guide to Healing

This topic of childhood trauma in adults is relevant, whether you have seen it on social media or heard from a friend. After all, what we’ve experienced in our childhood has a great impact on who we are as adults. Ignoring the most important phase of our lives can lead to confusion, misunderstandings, anger, and depression.

Knowing who you were helps you understand who you are today. When talking about traumas, keep in mind that they can affect all areas of our lives if not addressed properly and healed. That is why we’ve created this guide to healing, which addresses childhood trauma and the impact it has on our lives.

What Is Childhood Trauma?

A frightening, hazardous, violent, or potentially fatal experience that affects a child is referred to as child trauma. Your child may also know someone who gets hurt in this kind of incident, and your child may be affected by what they see or hear about the other person’s injuries. A youngster may get extremely overwhelmed, upset, and/or helpless when these kinds of things occur. Anyone can have these kinds of encounters at any age or time, yet not every incident has a traumatic outcome.

When we experience or see an urgent threat to our safety or the safety of a loved one, it can be a traumatic occurrence, and it is frequently followed by serious harm or injury. These intensely negative feelings can occasionally be felt by people in response to an experience or because they may be powerless to prevent the event from occurring or to shield themselves from it.

In addition to having a long-term impact on an individual’s day-to-day functioning, trauma-related reactions can also have an impact on a child’s mental, physical, social, emotional, and/or spiritual well-being.

Types of Childhood Traumas

Whether you’re aware of it or not, child trauma happens frequently. By the age of sixteen, the majority of adolescents had experienced at least one traumatic event, which is shocking. Events that could be traumatic include:

Violence in the community or in schools
Abuse (sexual, physical, emotional, or spiritual)
Being a victim of or witnessing domestic abuse
Terrorist attacks or natural catastrophes
Covert emotional incest
Unexpected and/or brutal deaths of family
Military family system
Childhood neglect

Everybody’s body has an alarm system that is meant to protect them from harm. When activated, this tool prepares the body to fight, flee, or freeze. When the alarm goes off at any apparent indication of a problem, you might become fearful, irate, agitated, or even withdraw.

How to Recognize Trauma

Even though there is no physical danger involved, trauma can nonetheless arise from any circumstance that makes you feel helpless and alone. Traumatic events sometimes involve threats to one’s life or safety. Your subjective emotional experience of an incident determines whether or not it is traumatic, not the actual conditions. You are more likely to experience trauma if you feel terrified and powerless.

Any situation that leaves you feeling powerless and alone can cause trauma, even if there isn’t any physical risk. Sometimes, risks to a person’s life or safety occur during traumatic situations. It is not the real circumstances that decide whether an incident is traumatic. It is your subjective emotional experience of it. If you feel more helpless and afraid, you are more likely to suffer trauma.

These are the most common emotional symptoms that might indicate you are experiencing a traumatic event or have experienced it in the past:

Shock
Denial
Confusion
Difficulty focusing
Anger or irritability
Mood swings
Anxiety
Fear
Guilt
Shame
Self-blame
Withdrawing
Feeling sad or hopeless
Feeling disconnected

When it comes to physical symptoms, you might experience the following:

Insomnia
Nightmares
Fatigue
Being startled easily
Racing heartbeat
Agitation
Aches
Muscle tension

How to Heal from Childhood Trauma

Usually lasting a few days to several months, trauma symptoms progressively go away as you come to terms with the upsetting experience. Even when you’re feeling better, though, you could occasionally experience distressing recollections or feelings, particularly in reaction to triggers like the anniversary of the incident or something else that brings up the trauma.

While emotional trauma is a common reaction to upsetting events, it turns into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when your nervous system becomes “stuck,” leaving you in a state of psychological shock and unable to process your feelings or make sense of what happened.

Whether or not a traumatic event results in death, you, as a survivor, have to learn to live with the loss of your sense of safety, if only momentarily. Grief is the normal response to this loss. You must experience grief, just like anyone who has lost a loved one. You can overcome your grief, recover from the trauma, and move on with your life by using the advice here.

When thinking about trauma therapy, it’s critical to understand the kinds of trauma it can help treat, what to anticipate from a trauma-informed therapist, and how to locate one with the necessary training. Furthermore, not every trauma survivor requires therapy, so it’s critical to recognize the warning signs that can point to the need for assistance.

Taking Care of Yourself

It’s true that being in good physical health might help you handle the stress of traumatic experiences better. Make sure you get enough rest. Your sleep patterns may be disrupted by stress or fear following a traumatic event. However, getting too little sleep can boost your trauma symptoms. It can also make it more difficult to keep your emotional balance. Aim for seven to nine hours of sleep every night and go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.

Steer clear of drugs and alcohol. Using them can exacerbate the symptoms of your trauma and heighten your feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and despair. Consume a diet rich in variety. Eat small, well-balanced meals, which can help maintain your energy and reduce mood fluctuations. See a therapist if you cannot cope with the extra stress.

About Life Coaching and Therapy

Life Coaching and Therapy (LCAT) is a therapy and coaching practice that transforms our clients lives through our flexible. Multi-technique approach and pleasure-skills training provided by systematically-trained and licensed therapists!

Get to know our founder and owner, Amanda Pasciucco, (a.k.a. The Sex Healer) PhD, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), and an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist (CST) that has developed innovative therapy programs and therapy videos that get results.

Our team of compassionate, licensed therapists and certified sex therapists help all clients who visit us for a variety of personal, relationship, intimacy and sex problems.

LCAT provides on-site appointments, as well as video chat and text therapy programs.

Learn more about how LCAT can help improve your life at What We Do.