The hurt child can grow into a troubled adult.
The grownup knows they cannot change the past. So, to avoid suffering, their brains try to repress those memories of early trauma.
Their bodies, however, have kept the count, and keep expressing signs of the old hurts.
Repressed trauma can present as sudden onset of acute headache or extreme fatigue after a minor insult. They can often be traced back to their early trauma.
Repressing the painful memories of childhood trauma is a defense against future pain from those experiences.
10 Troubling Signs of Repressed Childhood Trauma In Adults
Do you feel disconnected from your emotions? Do you struggle with intimacy and trust? These could be signs of unresolved childhood trauma manifesting in adulthood.
Here are ten signs of repressed childhood trauma in adults:
1. Unhealthy Attachments
An adult with repressed childhood trauma can have difficulty forming secure attachments.
Attachment in psychology means the relationship between children and their caregivers, mostly their parents or guardians. Let’s go over the types of attachments that children may form.
Bowlby’s Attachment Theory (1944) defines four attachment styles: Secure, Avoidant, Ambivalent, and Disorganized.
- Secure attachment style children feel secure, understood, and calm with their parents, which leads to self-awareness, empathy, trust, and curiosity. When frightened, they seek comfort from their parents. They are sociable people with trusting and long-lasting relationships.
- Avoidant ones hesitate to open up to their partners or let anyone get too close. It is their way of saving themselves from the hurt of being abandoned.
- Ambivalent types are a box of contradictions. They will seek attention and contact while also resisting contact and being angry toward their partner.
- Disorganized ones take on parental roles and try being the mom or the dad in the relationship.
Except for the secure type, all other types of attachment can be the result of childhood trauma.
The insecure attachment style children tend to grow up into adults who are afraid of closeness and intimacy, and as a result, their relationships are never fulfilling.
2. Unstable Relationships
Repressed childhood trauma may make it difficult to build enduring relationships based on trust.
The traumatized child may grow into an adult who lacks trust in others.
They may not even realize that their relationships are falling apart because they actually have a hard time trusting others, which stems from their childhood.
Children raised by neglectful or indifferent caregivers may grow up with a strong fear of abandonment.
We may see some of these people as “clingy” types. They:
- seek approval from their partner for even minor decisions,
- always try to avoid conflicts to not upset their relationship,
- feel jealous when their partner spends time with others,
- are anxious, and fearful of desertion, when separated.
Clinginess in a relationship is the tendency to “cling” to the other person to avoid being apart from them. They need attention and reassurance and demand that their partner proves their loyalty and love.
Clinginess in a person often comes from attachment issues and emotionally dramatic past relationships. However, it is normal to feel clingy occasionally in one’s early 20s.
They typically become possessive of their partners, jealous that someone else will steal them away, or afraid that they might leave them.
These insecurities lead them to test their relationships in unnatural ways, like temporary ghosting.
Ghosting is a form of “breakup strategy” in which a partner abruptly cuts off contact with the other person without any explanation, and ignores them when the ghosted person reaches out to them.
They will vanish without a trace while keeping an eye on what efforts the other person is making to connect with them.
They may even protest that their partner did not do enough to find and contact them.
Partners of such people often feel it is a difficult task being related to them. Frequently, they do what the traumatized person fears they will do, that is, break up with them.
Breakups in romantic relationships are common:
- Up to 70% of college students have experienced it (Zusman & Nieves, 1998).
- Breakups may cause depression and anger (Donald & Dower, 2006).
- Most breakups are non-mutual (Sprecher, 1994). Ghosting is one type.
- Attachment avoidance has been linked to a less direct breakup strategy.
• Do you know how the Stoics handled breakups?
3. People-pleasing Behaviors
People-pleasing is a defense mechanism that a child develops in response to parental abuse.
These people are referred to as “other-pleasing decision-makers” in science. These individuals make decisions based on signals about the other person’s expectations.
The child learns that when they praise or try to please their abuser in any other way, it makes the abuser less harsh and punitive.
That “I’m well-behaved, and you’re so good; so please don’t hurt me” was that little child’s way to keep itself safe.
This people-pleasing behavior gets translated into victims finding it hard to say no to others. They also keep feeling responsible for the reactions and emotions of others.
4. Sleeping Issues
Adults may have repeated nightmares about their childhood traumatic events, which can make them chronic insomniacs.
Moreover, a consistent lack of sleep can make trauma symptoms worse, creating a vicious cycle of helplessness and sleeplessness.
Please note that now we can treat insomnia without any medications.
5. Memory Gaps
Memories are fragile, but their contents are powerful enough to make us fall apart.
So, sometimes our mind will try to protect us by burying the memory of trauma deep into our subconscious. It may lay there buried for years (until something triggers it to resurface).
Repressed memories symptoms in these people show up as gaps in their memories, which are repressed memory symptoms. They simply fail to remember that painful period of their life, no matter how hard they try.
It could make the future appear distant. This tendency to focus on the present without thinking about the future can push them to engage in risky behaviors.
They might also present with confabulation. It means making up false memories when there are no memories.
Confabulation is the act of fabricating memories to fill in memory gaps when a person with a memory problem is not aware that the memories they are fabricating are false.
The majority of researchers currently hold that it is rare for an adult to forget a childhood trauma completely, and that recovered memories are often inaccurate (Otgaar & Howe, 2019).
6. Hypervigilance And Hyperarousal
Two related signs of repressed trauma in adults are:
- Hypervigilance — an exaggerated intensity of behaviors to detect threats paired with high sensory sensitivity, and
- Hyperarousal — high psychological and physiological tension resulting in reduced pain tolerance, anxiety, hypersensitivity to sensory input, sleeplessness, and fatigue.
People who have experienced trauma may be constantly on guard, looking for signs of danger.
Such a state of persistent hyperarousal can make them irritable and anxious, as well as cause an exaggerated startle response.
Their hyperactive sensory system scanning for dangers may make them extraordinarily sensitive to touch, noise, and even smells.
7. Physical & Mental Health Issues
People who have been traumatized in their childhood can be more vulnerable to developing both physical and mental health conditions.
Freezing is a typical trauma response, particularly in children. Years later, this habituated freeze response manifests as a variety of physical symptoms.
Childhood trauma victims are more likely to have depression and mood disorders.
In one study on migraine sufferers, 58% of those surveyed reported histories of childhood abuse or neglect.
Eating disorders, such as a preference for comfort foods and induced vomiting after meals, may be signs of repressed childhood trauma in adults.
This study found a small relationship (r-value of .10) between an eating disorder illness and a history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA).
Some victims resort to maladaptive food habits to cope with post-traumatic stress. The 3 common eating disorders they may suffer from are bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, and binge eating.
Child trauma survivors may also take to purging or controlling portions strictly to regain some control over their bodies or to escape painful memories and emotions.
8. Self-destructive Behaviors
One of the symptoms of childhood trauma in adulthood is having a self-destructive streak.
Childhood trauma survivors can indulge in excessive drinking and smoking, substance abuse, and self-harm, including suicidal thoughts.
Their low self-esteem appears to have led to a flawed self-image, which may include feelings of guilt, inadequacy, and unworthiness.
Dr. Maltz wrote Psycho-Cybernetics, an outstanding book on how we can change our self-image and invite success into our lives.
9. Poor Emotion Control
Experiencing trauma in early life may make adults have poor emotional regulation.
The grown-up hurt child may have difficulty managing emotions or responding appropriately to their own needs.
There may also be an inability to control anger and aggression or a tendency to engage in self-destructive behaviors.
10. Tendency To Play Safe
One of the signs of repressed childhood trauma in adults is avoidance of situations that might trigger memories of the traumatic event.
They tend to play safe, always wary of exposing themselves to any situation where they may be criticized or insulted.
What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)?
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), or childhood trauma, are significant, often threatening and abusive events that overwhelm a child’s capacity to cope. These events may be caused by external factors like “mob justice” or internal factors like parental neglect.
A 2016 British study found that almost half of the study subjects (46.4%) experienced at least one ACE, while 8.3% suffered 4 or more.
ACEs are traumatic events against which a child is unable to defend themself. Some common ACEs are:
- Poverty
- Loss of a loved one
- Bullying, ostracism, and racism
- Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
- Financial, emotional, or physical neglect
- Medical trauma like illness, accidents, and wrong treatment
- Parental divorce, domestic violence, substance use in the family
Childhood trauma can have a lifetime-long impact, even if repressed or forgotten.
An adult may not recall those early traumatic memories, but they will show signs that interfere with their normal functioning.
Left untreated, that early post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can give way to depression in later life.
Most of us remember our childhood trauma well into our adulthoods. However, some of us may forget them, while others may repress the memory of those events.
Forgetting is a useful coping strategy to deal with the painful past. But, despite the best efforts to erase memories of childhood trauma, “the body remembers.”
Later effects of traumatic events can come in many forms, like relationship difficulties. Often, they are indirect signs of early childhood trauma in adults.
Childhood Trauma and Adulthood Stress
Dealing with stress is a natural aspect of life. We begin learning to handle stress and develop our coping methods as children.
However, when the abuse or other traumatic experiences are repetitive, the child may not grow normally and develop coping mechanisms like a normal child.
Stress responses triggered by repeated parental maltreatment or a constantly dysfunctional home can stunt the growth of a child’s brain, immune system, and cardiovascular system.
Moreover, exposure to multiple ACEs can cause a heightened and long-lasting stress response, which can cause long-term harm.
How To Treat Signs of Childhood Trauma In Adults
Some ways to heal from childhood include Trauma-focused CBT, Cognitive processing therapy, Narrative exposure therapy, Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), Play therapy, Somatic Experiencing, Positive movement therapy, and Meditative art therapy.
The process of healing from childhood trauma can be lengthy and challenging.
Unhealed childhood trauma may have a brutal impact on adults, leaving them feeling worthless and lonely.
In some cases, trauma can be so deeply painful that the sufferers may need care under institutional admission. Those who feel a typical OPD clinic will not meet their needs can be treated in residential treatment centers.
Effects of Childhood Trauma
ACEs do not always cause trauma, but the greater the number of ACEs experienced, the greater the risk of it.
Indeed, there is a strong link between multiple traumatic events and serious difficulties in later life, as shown by studies.
Those with a history of multiple ACEs are more likely to abuse substances, fare poorly in academics, and even have early deaths (Hughes & Bellis, 2017).
Traumatized children may develop depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders in later life.
People with high numbers of Adverse Childhood Experiences are more likely to have weaker immunity and suffer from diseases such as cancer and emphysema.
Psychological Childhood Trauma Signs In A Child
Children with traumatic experiences may have sleep disturbances, anger issues, physical complaints like belly aches and headaches, fears and nightmares, separation anxiety, and childhood depression.
FAQs
How do you know if you have unhealed childhood trauma?
People may live with unhealed childhood trauma without being aware of it. They may not realize how it impacts their sense of safety, relationships, happiness, and mental health in adulthood.
Repressed memories of childhood trauma may manifest in adults as difficulty forming relationships, low self-esteem leading to failures, inability to control anger, and urges to harm oneself.
How to remember repressed childhood trauma?
The repressed memories of childhood trauma may show up in unusual ways. Those memories may resurface in an adult’s life through dreams, flashbacks, or a traumatic event that triggers the memory.
It can be difficult to predict when these repressed memories could resurface. So, it is essential to be aware of our mental struggles and to always seek adequate support for ourselves without feeling stigmatized. Hypnotherapy may help.
Final Words
Childhood trauma can have lasting mental health effects in adulthood.
Experiencing trauma as a child can affect adult relationships and lead to serious conditions such as eating disorders.
Trauma from childhood can be treated, and help is available. Do not hesitate to seek help if you are struggling with it.
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Author Bio: Written and reviewed by Sandip Roy — medical doctor, psychology writer, and happiness researcher. Founder and Chief Editor of The Happiness Blog. Writes on mental well-being, happiness, positive psychology, and philosophy (especially Stoicism).
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