Childhood trauma is a group of situations or environments you experienced as a kid that left you feeling too vulnerable. You like you couldn’t count on the world or other people to keep you safe.
It has profound consequences throughout a person’s life. Adult survivors of childhood abuse pose a number of challenges for general practitioners. The diagnosis of their medical and psychiatric illnesses is complex. The therapeutic relationship can be both delicate and critical to recovery.
Consequences
Childhood trauma has the unfortunate consequence of affecting your ways of thinking and of relating to the world as you grow up. You find life extremely challenging and difficult. In ways that you might find difficult to logically explain.
It does not only involve physical harm or danger.
child boy bully parent comfort support school console together father bored embrace hug consolationAnything that leaves a child feeling alone, vulnerable, overwhelmed, or terrified is traumatic. Psychological trauma occurs not only over the facts of what happened. But mainly because of your personal perspective of what happened to you as a kid.
Traumatic Events
Childhood is traumatic when events are unexpected, unwanted, and you are unable to stop them. Accidents, death of a loved one, natural disasters, being displaced and suddenly moving cities/countries are among the most common ones.
But other less obvious experiences include: Suddenly changing schools, living with parents who are always fighting, living in a violent community or in extreme poverty.
Emotional traumas such as suffering bullying, a father/mother figure constantly putting you down, and being abandoned are devastating. Humiliating experiences at the playground or summer camps are also serious causes of trauma.
Sexual Abuse
Unfortunately, an all too common form of childhood trauma is sexual abuse. And many variants of sexual abuse go overlooked.
Any form of inappropriate sexual behavior can have long-lasting negative effects on a child.
Wrong assumptions
If a child does not comprehend the logistics of what is going on around them, they can sense violence. It is wrong to assume that a child will not be affected by what they do not understand.
Actually, kids can be more affected by trauma than adults as they can feel danger but not process it like an adult. This leaves them more terrified.
Effects on children´s brain
Since children´s brains are still developing, they are more vulnerable than an adult brain. Trauma affects the growth of the brain cortex, which affects behavior, learning, and overall health. This includes the ability to deal with your emotions and handle stress. It affects attention span and memory too.
