Some causes of emotional and psychological trauma are isolated incidents like accidents, injuries, or a violent attack, especially if any of these things happened in childhood. It’s not the objective circumstances that determine a traumatic event, but rather the subjective emotional experience of the event itself. A traumatic event often involves a threat to life or safety, but it can be any situation that leaves someone feeling overwhelmed or isolated, even without physical harm. Psychological trauma of any kind can result in upsetting emotions, memories, and anxiety that won’t go away.Įmotional and psychological trauma is the result of extraordinarily stressful events that shatter a person's sense of security. Trauma is defined as an extremely stressful or disturbing event that’s left a person feeling helpless and emotionally out of control. How can you detect signs of childhood trauma in adults and how can a therapist matching service help? But, if they don’t figure out how to alter this map as they grow older, it can damage their ability to function as healthy adults and will exhibit those childhood trauma symptoms into adulthood. Families are complicated but, sometimes rough patches or flaws can escalate into the trauma that reveals itself in childhood, and impact a person through adulthood.Ĭhildren are more conscious than they are often given credit for, making meaning out of events they witness by constructing their internal map of how to interpret the world as a way to cope with difficult, hard to understand situations. Do any of these apply to you or anyone you know? Let us know what you think of this list in the comments.Many of us have fond childhood memories, but nothing is as picture-perfect as old photo albums depict. They are a strong, grateful survivor of their past. They sincerely appreciate the good things in their life. They will often ask questions to which they already know the answer, due to self-doubt.Ģ6. They constantly say that they’re sorry.Ģ4. The world of emotional abuse leaves them second-guessing everything.Ģ3. Because of experiencing a plethora of emotions at a young age, you have considerable emotional sensitivity.Ģ2. Often they will have trouble making decisions, after hearing throughout childhood that they were not good enough.Ģ1. They become perfectionistic, tidy, clean and organized.Ģ0. Many victims of emotional abuse overdo it because they want to please everyone. They may be sensitive to loud noises, as they were raised in an environment of raised voices and yelling.ġ9. Often afraid of contact with people, they may be introverted and try to distance themselves as much as possible.ġ8. They are often defensive, perceiving people as negative or offensive because of their previous abuse.ġ7. They fear others abandoning or leaving them. Making eye contact is extremely difficult and speaking makes them anxious, making it even more difficult.ġ5. Conflict gives them immense anxiety, so they often run from it instead of facing it.ġ4. They may beat themselves up mentally and emotionally, since they were beaten emotionally for so many years.ġ3. They may have issues getting close to others, because they may not especially, in general, like people.ġ2.
They don’t feel comfortable using their voice after being worn down as small and wrong throughout their childhood.ġ1. No matter what they’re doing, they’re unsure if they can do it.ĩ. This may make them seem edgy or startle easily.ħ. They are angry underneath it all, and have outbursts of anger seemingly from nowhere.Ħ. This often follows from doing this in childhood.ĥ.
This is often because they had to deal with this as a kid, so the only response they knew was to model the behavior.Ĥ.
Mood swings which seem to come at random times are often the norm for them. This is due to disassociation, a skill learned in childhood, and it’s often unintentional.ģ. They sometimes go into auto-pilot mode and blank out entire conversations or events. They have commitment issues, probably because they had a hard time trusting anyone as a child.Ģ. Here are 26 ways you can tell if an adult may have been emotionally abused as a child:ġ. Adults who experienced emotional abuse as children have other ways of showing this in their adulthood. Studies have linked childhood trauma, for example, to increased levels of alcoholism and depression in adults. There’s a lot of compelling research being done lately about how the way we grew up affects our behavior as adults.