4 Ways Childhood Emotional Trauma Impacts Us as Adults

Whether you
witnessed or
experienced violence
as a child or your
caretakers
emotionally or
physically neglected
you, when you grow
up in a traumatizing
environment you are likely to still show signs
of that trauma as an adult.
Children make meaning out of the events they
witness and the things that happen to them,
and they create an internal map of how the
world is. This meaning-making helps them
cope. But if children don't create a new internal
map as they grow up, their old way of
interpreting the world can damage their ability
to function as adults.
While there are many aftereffects of childhood
emotional trauma, here we'll look specifically
at four ways childhood emotional trauma
impacts us as adults.
1. The False Self
As a childhood emotional trauma therapist, I
see many patients who carry childhood
emotional wounds with them into adulthood.
One way these wounds reveal themselves is
through the creation of a false self .
As children, we want our parents to love us
and take care of us. When our parents don't do
this, we try to become the kind of child we
think they'll love. Burying feelings that might
get in the way of us getting our needs met, we
create a false self—the person we present to
the world.
When we bury our emotions, we lose touch
with who we really are, because our feelings
are an integral part of us. We live our lives
terrified that if we let the mask drop, we'll no
longer be cared for, loved, or accepted.
The best way to uncover the authentic you
underneath the false self is by talking to a
therapist who specializes in childhood
emotional trauma and can help you reconnect
with your feelings and express your emotions
in a way that makes you feel both safe and
whole.
2. Victimhood Thinking
What we think and believe about ourselves
drives our self-talk. The way we talk to
ourselves can empower or disempower us.
Negative self-talk disempowers us and makes
us feel like we have no control over our lives —
like victims. We may have been victimized as
children, but we don't have to remain victims
as adults.
Even in circumstances where we think we don't
have a choice, we always have a choice, even if
it's just the power to choose how we think
about our life. We have little to no control over
our environments and our lives when we're
children, but we're not children anymore. It's
likely we are more capable of changing our
situation than we believe.
Instead of thinking of ourselves as victims, we
can think of ourselves as survivors. The next
time you feel trapped and choice-less, remind
yourself that you're more capable and in
control than you think.
3. Passive-Aggressiveness
When children grow up in households where
there are only unhealthy expressions of anger,
they grow up believing that anger is
unacceptable. If you witnessed anger expressed
violently, then as an adult you might think that
anger is a violent emotion and therefore must
be suppressed. Or, if you grew up in a family
that suppressed anger and your parents taught
you that anger is on a list of emotions you
aren't supposed to feel, you suppress it, even
as an adult who could benefit from anger.
What happens if you can't express your anger?
If you're someone who suppresses your upset
feelings, you likely already know the answer:
Nothing. You still feel angry—after all, anger is
a natural, healthy emotion we all experience—
but instead of the resolution that comes with
acknowledging your anger and resolving what
triggered it, you just stay angry . You don't
express your feelings straightforwardly, but
since you can't truly suppress anger, you
express your feelings through passive-
aggressiveness.
4. Passivity
If you were neglected as a child, or abandoned
by your caretakers, you may have buried your
anger and fear in the hope that it would mean
no one will ever abandon or neglect you again.
What happens when children do this, though, is
that we end up abandoning ourselves . We hold
ourselves back when we don't feel our feelings.
We end up passive, and we don't live up to our
potential. The passive person says to him or
herself, "I know what I need to do but I don't
do it."
When we bury our feelings, we bury who we
are. Because of childhood emotional trauma,
we may have learned to hide parts of
ourselves. At the time, that may have helped
us. But as adults, we need our feelings to tell
us who we are and what we want, and to
guide us toward becoming the people we want
to be.