10 Symptoms of Childhood Trauma in Adulthood

Is the way you handle life as an adult related to your childhood? I know it’s cliché to blame all your problems on your childhood (or parents), yet you can’t separate who you have become from the circumstances that have shaped you.

Perhaps you’ve noticed there are patterns of dysfunctional relationships in your adult life, or maybe you tend towards addictive tendencies. Maybe you wonder why you constantly tend to sabotage yourself. Are these symptoms of childhood trauma that you experience in adulthood?

This article will review some of the more common forms of childhood trauma and share ten symptoms that may be present in your adult life.

Examples of Childhood Trauma

Childhood trauma can take many different forms. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years). These experiences can have a profound impact on a child's development, health, and well-being. The original ACEs study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente, identified ten specific types of ACEs, which are categorized into three groups: abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction. These can be listed as:

·       Physical, sexual or verbal abuse

·       Physical or emotional neglect

·       Separation or divorce

·       A family member with mental illness

·       A family member addicted to drugs or alcohol

·       A family member who is in prison

·       Witnessing a parent being abused

There are also other types of childhood trauma not covered by ACEs. These may include:

·       Bullying

·       Natural Disasters or Accidents

·       War and Terrorism

·       Loss or Bereavement including Death

·       Community Violence

·       Medical Trauma

Why Is It Important to Understand the Symptoms of Childhood Trauma in Adulthood?

You may feel like you have passed your childhood and left those experiences behind. Now that it’s over you don’t particularly want to think about it again. This may be true especially if you have experienced trauma. Unfortunately, the effects of childhood trauma will follow you into adulthood.

Therefore, getting an understanding of what your symptoms are can help you determine how much of your life is being affected by your childhood. Having a clearer understanding of the connection can help you determine how to heal and grow. It can help you make better decisions for yourself and seek the help you may need.

10 Symptoms of Childhood Trauma in Adulthood

1.     Chronic Anxiety and Depression

Having anxiety and depression that does not go away can be a symptom of childhood trauma. Trauma affects the nervous system’s ability to regulate and the patterns that were established when you were young could be continuing as an adult. It’s normal to experience seasons of low mood or times of stress and anxiety, but if you find that anxiety or depression are constant companions over a long period of time and the solutions you’ve tried in the present aren’t alleviating them, it could be a sign of unresolved childhood trauma.

2.     Low Self-Esteem

Low self-esteem could be a symptom of childhood trauma as well. How you value yourself could be related to how you were treated as a child. An environment where you were habitually taught that you were inadequate could have ingrained in you the feeling of low-self esteem.

3.     Persistent Guilt and Shame

Having irrational guilt or shame manifests as an adult in feeling guilty for things you can’t control, feeling guilty for other people’s emotions and having very self-critical thoughts. During childhood, you are still developing your sense of self and understanding of the world. Trauma can disrupt this development, leading you to form negative self-concepts. You might feel inherently flawed or unworthy as an adult, which manifests as chronic shame. Children are also particularly vulnerable to internalizing the belief that they did something wrong, even if it was not their fault. This may lead you to carry these internalized beliefs into adulthood.

4.     Emotional Dysregulation

Trauma in childhood can often disrupt healthy attachment leading to difficulty regulating emotions within relationships. It also may affect the development of different parts of the brain that regulate emotions. You may find yourself easily overwhelmed by life or unable to control your emotions. This could show up as losing your temper easily over small things, taking things personally, trying to numb and avoid problems, or even patterns of self-harm like cutting.

5.     Feelings of Detachment and Numbness (Dissociation)

If you are an adult who has experienced childhood trauma you may often feel a sense of detachment or numbness. You may feel like you are going through the motions or have a sense that you are watching yourself in a play. You may know that you love or care about people but not truly feel it. You may know the right thing to do and be able to do it, but you don’t feel connected to your actions or yourself. This is also known as dissociation and most of us experience varying degrees of dissociation at different times. If it’s a common pattern in your life though, it may be a sign that you have experienced childhood trauma.

6.     Chronic Pain or Health Issues

The original ACEs study found a direct connection between the number of adverse childhood experiences and chronic health conditions. The greater the number of adverse childhood experiences, the greater the likelihood of developing a chronic illness. Childhood trauma can cause disruption in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis which regulates the body's response to stress. It can also cause chronic over-activation of the autonomic nervous system which can lead to inflammation and disease. The immune system can be compromised by the stress of trauma leading to chronic illness. If you live with chronic pain or illness, it may be worth it to consider whether childhood trauma could be a contributing factor.

7.     Tendency Towards Addictive Behaviors

Addiction can be a symptom of childhood trauma as well. While you may think of alcohol or drug addiction when you hear the word “addiction”, it is also common to be addicted to food, TV, phone, social media, exercise, sugar, caffeine, food restriction and other things. Childhood trauma often results in difficulty managing emotions and turning towards addictive behaviors is a common way to cope with or numb those emotions. Your addiction may be serving a purpose and providing a temporary sense of relief, but in the long run it’s not contributing to your overall wellbeing and happiness. It may be helpful to examine your addictive tendencies to see if they are related to childhood trauma.

8.     Avoidance and Procrastination

While we all may experience avoidance or procrastination to some extent, if you notice a pattern of persistent avoidance of people or tasks and procrastination in getting important things done it may be related to negative childhood experiences. Avoidance can be a learned response from childhood with the aim of providing protection. You may continue avoiding things in adult hood that remind you of the past or are triggers for negative experiences. Procrastination could be caused by a sense of learned helplessness causing a lack of motivation to get things done.

9.     Perfectionism

Childhood trauma may lead to a tendency towards perfectionism in order to have control, self-validate and cope with experiences. You may use perfectionism in adulthood to provide a sense of stability and predictability. You may mistakenly believe that you must be perfect to keep yourself from harm or negative consequences. Your perfectionism may be a shield to keep you from potential threats.

10.  Difficulty in Relationships

If you notice a consistent pattern of dysfunctional relationships this could be a sign of childhood trauma. Perhaps you keep getting into relationships with a narcissist or your relationships never seem to last. Children who have grown up around dysfunctional relationships pick up on the habits and continue to live them out in their adult lives. Communication may be difficult as an adult or emotions may be hard to regulate, causing continuous tension. Whatever the problems in your adult relationships are, they may be related to your childhood.

Getting Past Childhood Trauma

The good news is that healing from childhood trauma is possible.

With professional help you can work through the issues that are causing dysfunction in your adult life. You can learn skills, challenge the negative patterns, see yourself in a new light and set in place healthy habits. Check out this blog post for some ideas for “at-home” healing.