The great majority of those who have experienced a difficult childhood do not have an adventurous history from which to draw inspiration. Perhaps one parent didn’t yell for days — they did nothing. Perhaps love just appeared when it was needed – little things, looking back. However, a child’s brain doesn’t work on a curve; it simply adjusts to what it is given and that adaptation continues long after the event which created it. They can hear a “fine” from their partner and feel their entire body tense when a flat “fine” is used, even when there is no real threat. A grown adult can hear a “fine” from their partner, and their whole body tenses up when they hear a flat “fine,” even if no danger exists.
Understanding the Link Between Childhood Trauma and Emotional Regulation
It’s important to know the connection between childhood trauma and emotional regulation. Calming down isn’t something a baby knows how to do. Someone needs to teach them, repeat, repeatedly – typically a parent who is reliable and accessible enough so that the child learns the body’s trick. If that doesn’t occur, if the grown-ups around a kid are unpredictable, out of it, or just harsh more often than not, the kid ends up regulating themselves before they have the devices for it. The nervous system, which is rather practical, decides to remain switched on all the time. Things didn’t get worse back then, so that’s what they don’t do now.
That doesn’t turn off just because someone moves out. It rides along. This is the crux of the entire issue of childhood trauma and emotional regulation. Years go by, the threat is over, but the alarm continues to blare at the slightest provocation, for it never learned that it could cease.
One usually doesn’t see it in something dramatic, but rather in boring everyday things. If you respond with just a brief comment, a nod of the head, or a look of worry across your room, it is perceived as a real threat, even though it isn’t actually a threat, because the system was designed to be used in a more alarming environment. Occasionally emotions come at a very rapid rate and one cannot think before they react. Others have another reaction and simply go numb; that was once protective and is now more hindering than helpful to any feeling whatsoever. Both are from the same missing part.
The effect of trauma on behavioral patterns and coping mechanisms in adulthood
Kids are resourceful. For all of them, there was a way for them to make it in a difficult family, whether they were taught or not. For some, it was simply to keep quiet. To some, it was being perfect, or learning about the parent’s mood, before a word was uttered. It did – sort of. It maintained order, avoided punishment and sometimes gained approval.
This certainly covers the whole domain of patterns and coping mechanisms, the automatic things people do without ever making a choice about. I want to be clear that the more you can, the more you notice these patterns, it’s not about diagnosis or blame. It’s only about awareness of what is going on. It was never my fault. It was a reasonable workaround to a situation that no longer exists or at least not in the same form. Some of the typical behaviors people exhibit:
- Fawning: Yes but quietly setting aside needs to keep the peace.
- Withdrawing: When the emotions become too “messy”, retreat.
- Chasing perfection: Over-reliance on achievement and control as being the only way of ensuring safety.
- Refusing help: Working alone, never being able to rely on others.
- Overreacting to conflict: The difference of opinion escalating into a raised voice, far beyond the level of the disagreement.
- Expelling the good: Making something uncomfortable that it’s not.
After patterns like these begin to cause more harm than good, it can be difficult to unravel them on their own. It’s typically in this context that folks begin thinking about therapy near me, not since they are “broken,” but because they can no longer cope on their own.
The psychological effect of trauma on decision making.
decisions are made by the prefrontal cortex which is the part of the brain that is responsible for patience, planning and clear thought regarding risk. The prefrontal cortex is the brain’s area responsible for making good decisions, being patient, planning and keeping a cool head when assessing risks. That part requires a really safe environment in order to develop properly, and a chronically stressful childhood doesn’t provide that. Instead, the whole system is biased towards speed rather than thinking things through, and threat-detection wiring becomes the default.
So, the toll of a difficult-upbringing manifests itself in the mundane. A job offer. To voice one’s opinion in a meeting. What to do with a free Saturday. At the time, it seems logical to avoid pain rather than pursue growth, and decisions begin to revolve around that.At the time, it seems sensible to avoid pain rather than seek growth, but over time, this contracts a person’s world.
This can manifest in a multitude of ways, such as taking whatever relief is available at the moment, as the future seems too uncertain to plan for. Then again, it’s the other way around—when fear of making the wrong choice and facing punishment the way a kid might have faced is so great that it keeps someone from doing what they want for weeks at a time. Even a good opportunity gets filtered through a danger filter; that’s why it is easier to stay in something known and bad than to go for something new and good. The same wiring can turn and force someone into a hurried choice when he’s under stress. It’s typically that they didn’t have enough time to develop their vision for the future, since childhood simply required them to get through the day.
Maladaptive coping – How they can be a part of healing from trauma
When the body is in pain it needs to find a way out. When no one is showing them a healthy one, then people are getting what they can. Viewed in this light, these practices don’t seem irrational. They’re working for an actual purpose: a momentary alleviation from an intolerable situation. The bill is typically due later on, during heightened anxiety, embarrassment, or when the body has been holding its tension for years.
Acknowledging these habits in an honest but non-shaming, not-entirely-excusable way is often a first step in trauma recovery. Each once make sense. Nowadays, mostly it’s about noticing that they are no longer serving that purpose. A few common ones:
- Self-medicating. Taking drugs, alcohol or medicine to dampen an active mind.
- Compulsive habits. All of the aforementioned – food, spending, gambling, endless scrolling – filling the brain with something besides distress.
- Cutting people off. Avoidance of judgment, withdrawal from all others.
- Suppressing emotion. Thoughts, feelings and emotions run the show – putting them out of your mind so they manifest as fatigue or stomach ache or something else.
- Seeking risk. Stimulating a strong reaction to get a rush after periods of numbness.
- Turning criticism inward. Blaming yourself. It’s easier to pick yourself because, “If they can do it, I can do it.
Breaking the Cycle: Healing from Childhood trauma
Healing was never about forgetting what had been done or pretending it didn’t happen. It’s like you’re making a house cosy and comfortable, tenderly introducing a system that is used to a much harsher world to the world it is in at this moment, and it is very similar to that. This type of change requires time. It is better to take time than to rush.
Gradually the impact of childhood trauma on the choices eases.
A lot of this starts with the body. Breathing exercises, body scans, anything that brings attention back, to the moment as opposed to where the mind has gone. From there it goes into identifying the feelings that emerge, holding them for a moment rather than getting lost in them or being overwhelmed by them.
Some of the things appear to really matter most are:
- Naming emotions: To put words to a feeling, rather than letting it remain in this cloud of indistinctness.
- Holding boundaries: Declining and not sinking in guilt immediately.
- Choosing steady people: Being with people who aren’t afraid of you and who aren’t perfect around you.
Below the surface there’s more mundane, more subdued work, that’s tearing down the old myth that you were somehow the problem, and replacing it, one grain at a time, with the truth.
All this does not undo what has passed. It alters the subsequent action. Someone who can distinguish between the facts and what they learned to survive finds something new in himself. The ability to determine the direction of their own story.
Image by Pars Sahin from Unsplash
The editorial staff of Medical News Bulletin had no role in the preparation of this post. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the advertiser and do not reflect those of Medical News Bulletin. Medical News Bulletin does not accept liability for any loss or damages caused by the use of any products or services, nor do we endorse any products, services, or links in Sponsored Articles.
