Healing Childhood Trauma as an Adult
Trauma such as physical, sexual or emotional abuse is especially powerful when experienced in childhood. People often ask me why this is true and whether healing childhood trauma as an adult is possible. I want to share some of the reasons why childhood trauma can have an impact on your adult functioning and to offer hope that the impact of childhood trauma can be resolved even years later.
Abuse experienced during your formative years and in your family of origin can impact the development of your self-concept, your emotional reactions and your sense of trust in relationships, among many other possible impacts.
As humans, we are wired biologically to feel a strong attachment toward our parents. Through these bonds we learn what to expect from the world and from relationships with other people. When attachment figures are also scary, the confusion is powerful and has an impact on a child’s developing brain.
Stress response hormonal reactions are changed due to higher than normal levels of stress. The ability to trust others is impacted when you experience early relationships as unpredictable or invalidating. Even your sense of self-worth is affected by childhood trauma. People tend to see the world as making sense – believing good things happen to good people. It can be more tolerable in the mind of a child to blame yourself, saying “I deserve this treatment,” rather than facing the even more frightening reality that you are fully dependent and “trapped” in a relationship with a parent who is angry, addicted, abusive or mentally ill.
The impacts of childhood trauma, if they are not effectively addressed and resolved, do tend to last into adulthood. Adult survivors of childhood trauma often feel isolated, invalidated and misunderstood. You may not have learned effective ways to regulate your emotional responses, and you may rely on unhealthy avoidance strategies. You may struggle with intimacy in your adult relationships, finding that you hold back out of fear or that you rush headlong into relationships with people who hurt you again. You may find that you struggle with having realistic expectations of others, expecting too much in an attempt to get what you needed in the past or having extremely low expectations due to feeling unworthy.
Psychotherapy can be a very effective tool to help you in healing childhood trauma as an adult. Sometimes people are fearful about therapy to address these traumas. They know that they need help to move forward, but they don’t want to get “bogged down” in the past, or they may not have a lot of specific memories from childhood.
Current approaches to therapy for trauma do not focus on “rehashing” past events. If a specific memory or image intrudes into your thoughts, it can be addressed and let go of. But the main thrust of therapy is normally on your current functioning. We want to work to help you feel safe, confident and worthy of love. We work to increase your understanding of yourself, where automatic but problematic thinking and behavior patterns come from, and how to take your power back so that you can feel better.
After therapy, you find a sense of contentment, you feel less overwhelmed by the past, more able to let go of old patterns and better able to validate your experience and care for yourself in healthy ways. We also want you to feel more connected to the important people in your life and to be able to accurately assess who you should trust and when you should set boundaries with other people.
If you are struggling with the impact of child abuse, I hope you will consider seeking psychotherapy to resolve these issues. In the meantime, I will share a few steps you can take to care for yourself while working at healing childhood trauma in adulthood.
- Acknowledge the impact of your childhood experience and your feelings about it. In our US culture we tend to deny and avoid emotions. Your emotions let you know that something is wrong or that you have been hurt. Push yourself to pay attention to and validate your feelings about your past.
- Seek social support. Trauma survivors tend to feel isolated. Look around for safe people in your network. Seek friends who seem to have your needs and best interests in mind, and let go of people who are draining or who tend to use or manipulate you.
- Build a sense of mastery and control. Trauma by definition leaves you feeling powerless and helpless. Seek out roles in which you can feel healthy power and control. Organize your home if it feels chaotic. Create a realistic schedule and to do list. Give yourself credit for your accomplishments.
- Build compassion for yourself and others. Work to let go of perfectionism. Work to feel worthy of love or appreciation even though you are an imperfect human being. How would you react to a friend in a similar position? Can you treat yourself with that same compassion?
I hope that this post helps you understand why childhood abuse or neglect can have a powerful impact on you in adulthood and helps build hope that healing childhood trauma in adulthood is really possible. Please call me at 404-668-9893 if you have any questions or you would like to talk about your situation.
