17 Reasons You’re Still Dealing With Unresolved Childhood Trauma
Have you ever wondered if some of your current behaviors, attitudes, and personality traits may be related to negative events that affected your childhood? Childhood traumas are a series of negative events, including physical or psychological abuse, war or refugee experiences, and bullying that may negatively affect an individual to adulthood.
Understanding whether you are suffering from this is crucial to take the first step of your healing journey. But how can you know whether you are one of the many victims of childhood trauma? Here are 17 possible reasons suggesting you may be among them.
Note: The content of this article does not reflect the writer’s personal beliefs.
Psychological Abuse
Physicological abuse is a term used to refer to several words or non-actions that negatively affect someone’s well-being. For instance, to manipulate, hurt, or frighten someone. Psychological abuse is especially dangerous when it involves children and those who ideally should be their protectors.
Bullying
While some parents tend to ignore bullying, this can be detrimental to a child’s self-esteem with long-term repercussions. Bullying can take place in several forms, both verbally, physically, and even through social media, something known as cyberbullying. If you are afraid your kid may be a victim, talk to his teacher and investigate further.
Emotional Neglect
Emotional neglect happens whenever children don’t get all the attention they need. For instance, they may not be given any love or care while growing up and may instead be ignored. Children emotionally neglected by their may often feel ashamed and guilty. On top of this, they may be more prone to depression in comparison to their peers.
Refugee and War Experiences
Refugee and war experiences also have the power to drastically affect children’s emotional well-being with severe long-term term repercussions throughout. Unfortunately, this is still extremely common, as every year between 2018 and 2022, an average of about 385,000 children were born as refugees.
Physical Abuse
Of course, physical abuse is often linked to childhood trauma. Children who often get beaten by their parents may face challenges in forming and maintaining friendships. They also tend not to trust authority figures and may feel that what’s happening in the house is their fault and should remain a secret.
Overachievement Pressure
Growing up with constant pressure to always succeed can cause anxiety and a tendency toward perfectionism. Even when they do well, kids in this environment might feel like they’re never good enough. As adults, this can lead to burnout from pushing too hard or avoiding challenges altogether out of fear of failure. It’s important to understand how this pressure affects self-worth and work towards building a healthier, more balanced sense of self.
Serious Accidents
Whether it’s a car crash, a sports injury, or a severe burn, serious accidents can be extremely traumatic for kids of all ages. This is particularly true when the life of the child is at risk or if he is forced to remain in the hospital or bed for long periods – sometimes years – as a result of the event.
Illnesses
Kids who grow up with illnesses such as cancer, terminal diseases, or other conditions affecting their lives are also more prone to develop child trauma. This is because they may have been forced to spend most of their childhood years in the hospital, skipping all the natural phases of a child’s life.
Addicted parents
Children who grow up with one or both parents affected by addiction are prone to several challenges, such as poor performance in school, low self-esteem, and a higher risk of developing anxiety and depression. These kids are also more likely to try drugs and alcohol earlier in life compared to most of their peers.
Death of a Loved One
The death of a loved one is always a traumatic experience. This can have severe repercussions throughout someone’s life based on a few factors. For instance, the loss of one or both parents during childhood is considered a traumatic event that needs to be discussed with a psychologist. This is not only the case for parents but also for other close relatives or caregivers.
Mentally Unstable Parents
Similar to having a father or mother addicted to drugs, childhood trauma can also derive from parents suffering from mental conditions, such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Due to their parents’ illnesses, kids who grow up in these environments often have to take on too many responsibilities in the early years of their life, having to care for themselves, their siblings, and their parents too.
Domestic Violence
Domestic violence does not only affect the direct victim of physical abuse but all the people in the household. This means that if your father used to use violence on your mother you may still feel the repercussions today. Unfortunately, children witnessing violence between their parents may be more prone to become violent in their future relationships with their loved ones.
Physical Neglect
Physical neglect in childhood can take many forms. A parent who does not properly care for his kids fails to meet all their essential needs, such as clothing, food, and shelter. This may happen for several reasons, such as lack of money. All parents finding themselves in this situation should seek help as soon as possible.
Being The Witness
Even though you were not the person who was directly abused, this doesn’t mean it didn’t affect you. Just like domestic violence, kids who often witness abuse, whether physical or emotional, will most likely develop a trauma. This can be in the form of a parent gaslighting or guilt-tripping the other.
Natural Disasters
Earthquakes, avalanches, tropical cycles, droughts, floods… They can all have detrimental consequences for a kid’s development. Did you experience any of these while growing up? Even though everything was fine in the end, this doesn’t mean you were not affected by this tragic event.
Poverty
Unforutly, experiencing poverty at a very young age can also lead to childhood trauma. Parents struggling financially often don’t have the money to properly feed their kids or provide them with other basic needs such as clean clothes, school supplies, and emotional attention.
Displacement
Displacement is a term used to refer to all people forced to leave their homes. This can be the result of several issues, including war, natural disasters, abusive parents, and more. Unfortunately, displacement, especially when happening routinely, for instance, due to a parent’s job, may be detrimental to kids’ well-being as it disrupts their sense of stability.
More For You
Here are 12 reasons why you may be dealing with childhood traumas. Hopefully, if you now have kids, they will never have to go through this. Make sure you provide them with lots of love and care, for instance, by organizing fun activities together and teaching them how to deal with their emotions.
This article was first published on the RB ITALIA Blog.
