The 6 characteristics of childhood traumas

What are the characteristics of childhood traumas? Let's look at their effects and symptoms.

Emotional wounds can be very deep, especially if they occur during our childhood. Children do not have the appropriate tools to manage the problems that can happen to them, and even less so if they involve events as serious as mistreatment 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 himself knowing that it is because of a past event that he has not yet managed.

In order to help people who may have experienced a traumatic event as a child, today we are going to see the main characteristics of childhood traumasThe first step is to understand how it manifests itself in adulthood and what causes it.

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 received during the first years of life leave their mark on our personality, for better and for worse.

Their mark is long-lasting, so if the impressions are negative, they will be experienced in a particularly distressing manner not only at the time they were experienced, but also in adulthood. Particularly negative experiences during childhood can become childhood traumas.

What is a childhood trauma?

A childhood trauma is an emotional wound as a consequence of a painful or distressing event experienced during childhood.. These traumas are like wounds and can be more or less serious. This does not mean 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 as well.

In spite of this reality, there are many people who come to psychotherapy saying that they are not worthy of calling their traumas this way. They feel that their suffering is not legitimate.

There is no such thing as real trauma and banal trauma.. All traumas must be repaired regardless of how serious they are. It is essential to teach the person who manifests them to manage their emotions, to handle the painful memory of what happened to them as a child and to know how to forgive themselves and others.

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

Childhood traumas cannot always be related to obvious events of the past. Even when this is the case, what happens on many occasions is that the patients themselves are very resistant to bringing them to light, because to do so means breaking a lock, the one they themselves put on their memory as a defense mechanism. They left them cornered in some dark place in their mind, in the hope that they would not bother them again.

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

What are childhood traumas due to?

There are many situations that can be experienced as traumatic and have effects into adulthood.. Some are more evident than others because they have more social recognition or are of interest in the media and through the legislative power. Others, on the other hand, do not enjoy this 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 a trauma are: the following are:

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

Signs of childhood trauma

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

It may happen that poor frustration management, anger attacks, lack of self-esteem and other maladaptive situations are related to having lived a traumatic childhood experience.

Some of the signs and symptoms that are related 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 makes social interaction difficult.
• Problems when living sexuality (from impulsive or risky behaviors to absolute rejection of sex).
• Somatizations: physical manifestations of the trauma, often related to illnesses.
• Distorted ideas about the world and about oneself.
• Sleep disturbances, such as nightmares or insomnia.
• Eating disorders (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 able to cope with).

All of these signs are indicative of childhood trauma; however, it is interesting to go into more 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, characteristics which we explore in more detail below.These characteristics are explored in more detail below.

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 they 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 to do. They are also afraid of others.

This should not be confused with introversion. There are people who are introverted and for that reason are not very adept in social situations. However, this does not mean that they are afraid to say out loud what they think or feel. The fact that they do not rub shoulders with others does not mean that they do not act autonomously or do not say what they think or feel when it is necessary.

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

2. Bad mood and frustration.

Anger is one of the emotions most felt by those who have not yet dealt with their childhood traumatic 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 to frustration and they show themselves to others in a very aggressive way. It feels as if they are about to explode.

Their anger is also expressed in the form of inconstancy and frustration. They lose patience for certain things, starting things that, after a while, they get tired, lose interest or get angry because it is not going the way they wanted. As a result, their academic and work performance may suffer, in addition to not performing well in work teams.

3. Self-esteem problems

People who have not overcome their childhood traumas usually present a 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 poor opinion of themselves. This causes them to often reject compliments from others and even perceive them as attacks, as sarcastic remarks or mockery.

In their mind resonates the comment that they are worthless and that if someone says yes to them, then they are lying. For this reason they do not end up trusting emotional reinforcement, words of admiration. For them it is a deception because they cannot understand that someone has a positive concept of them, starting from the fact that they detest themselves.

4. Apparent overestimation of themselves

It also happens that people who have lived through a childhood trauma have an excessive valuation of themselves, considering themselves superior to others. In reality, this is pure 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 apologizing

Related to the previous points, people who have suffered unresolved childhood traumas feel that neither their opinions nor they themselves are worthless. It is for this reason that, fearful of doing or saying something that is very wrong, thinking that they may unintentionally upset others, they 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 prominent characteristic of people with childhood trauma, a sign of having received a very restrictive upbringing. Their parents tended to humiliate them and show them few expressions of affection. This makes the damaged ones feel that they have to ask for forgiveness for any action that gives them presence in the world.

6. To flee or to live of the conflict

Most traumatic childhoods have developed in highly conflictive families. Their childhood was marked by disagreements and aggressions, physical and verbal, from their 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 this type of childhood may grow up with fear or conflict fixation.

Those who fear conflict will constantly run away from it. In fact, they may go to the extreme of having to go beyond their own convictions in order to avoid contradiction.. On the other hand, those who are attracted to it will turn every aspect of their lives into one, turning the most innocent disagreements into real dialogical battles.

The importance of psychotherapy

Childhood traumas are not going to resolve themselves. They rarely disappear as if by magic. It is necessary to work with them, to learn to handle them and to manage the emotions that they produce in us. If not, they will end up invading our personality, affecting us in all aspects of life. It is not possible to be happy or have emotional well-being if the past is relived over and over again in our mind and hurts us from within.

Psychotherapy is fundamental to acquire a better life, and people suffering from childhood traumas are the best example of this. Only those who dare to take the step of visiting a psychologist and dig into the depths of their traumatic childhood to confront their personal demons manage to improve in life.