6 Causes of Childhood Trauma That Our Society Doesn’t Fully Recognize
#4 Having a parent who’s focused on appearance.
We still view trauma as the result of an extreme, life-threatening event or situation like war, a natural disaster, or a violent crime.
However, sometimes trauma can be silent and subtle, yet extremely deep. It can affect every decision we make and transform every part of our being — even if we have no idea it is there, deep within us.
For example, relational trauma is what happens when a child’s sense of being safe and loved within the family is disrupted — usually because the parents are too self-involved to focus on the child’s needs.
Or, because one of the parents doesn’t value the emotional life of the child, which leads them to meet the physical and material needs only — without ever making the child feel emotionally safe and supported.
In some cases, it’s the exact opposite: they don’t give the child the space to breathe, to be with their own thoughts and develop their own separate identity. If you’re “lucky” enough, it’s a little bit of everything I just mentioned (welcome to my life!).
These are some of the causes of childhood trauma that our society doesn’t fully recognize, according to clinical psychologist Dr. Nicole LePera.
1. A parent denying your reality
When we’re children, we experience life differently. We’re building our own sense of self, and our parents play a huge role in that process.
One of our core needs is validation. In order to build a strong, healthy self-esteem, we need to be validated by those we love and trust the most — our caretakers. This is how we feel understood and supported.
Validating someone’s emotional experience does not necessarily involve agreeing with them. It simply means that you’re letting them know their experience is real and their emotions are valid.
If, as children, we share our genuine feelings with our parents and we’re told “it wasn’t that bad” or “that didn’t really happen”, the message we absorb is that our feelings and experiences are not legitimate — which leads us to the next point.
2. Being told (directly or indirectly) you shouldn’t experience certain emotions
We live in a society that doesn’t know how to deal with the emotional realm — we deny it, we suppress it, we pretend it doesn’t exist.
As children, hearing things like “don’t be so sensitive”, “toughen up” or “there’s no need for you to feel that way” has many consequences, because we’re left to cope with our emotions without guidance in how to process them.
Essentially, we were told that who we are is not acceptable. It’s no wonder that we end up carrying chronic feelings of inadequacy into adulthood, or suppressing our emotions to make others feel comfortable.
3. Not being seen or heard
As humans, we have a fundamental need to express ourselves authentically — to show our true colors and be loved for who we are. This need is met when we form a secure attachment with our parents:
“A secure attachment bond ensures that your child will feel secure, understood, and calm enough to experience optimal development of his or her nervous system. Your child’s developing brain organizes itself to provide your child with the best foundation for life: a feeling of safety that results in eagerness to learn, healthy self-awareness, trust, and empathy.”
Jeanne Segal, Ph.D. et al, What Is Secure Attachment and Bonding?
However, when our parents are struggling themselves, they’re not able to meet our emotional and psychological needs. They may provide us with amazing financial privileges and academic opportunities — but we still feel deeply lonely and insecure.
An insecure attachment will lead to many difficulties in forming relationships later in life — because we’ve learned that we need to betray ourselves for love.
4. Having a parent who’s focused on appearance
Parents who are constantly making comments about your weight, body shape or overall appearance are unconsciously teaching you that your appearance is the way to gain (or lose) approval.
Besides, growing up in these families makes you feel like you will never be loved for your whole self, since “love” is based on how you look or perform.
This is another example of relational trauma that deeply impacts your relationship expectations. It makes it difficult for you to find healthy, secure relationships because you’ve never been unconditionally loved and accepted — so you don’t even how it feels like.
5. Having a parent who overcompensates for what they felt was missing in their childhood
It’s great to be aware of the mistakes your parents have made, but sometimes we can go too far to overcompensate them:
“We may be well-intentioned when we try to do it differently, but we often inadvertently go overboard. For example, if our parents were overbearing, we may react by being too hands-off with our kids. While we felt intruded on growing up, our children may feel neglected.
When we swing too far the other way, we are still distorting our behavior based on our history. Rather than deciding on the qualities that matter to us, we are still reacting to things that happened to us.”
Lisa Firestone PhD, in 7 Ways Your Childhood Affects How You’ll Parent
It’s crucial — and difficult — to maintain a healthy balance.
6. Having a parent who cannot regulate their own emotions
Unstable, chaotic environments where one (or both) of the parent figures has emotional outbursts — that usually involve lots of yelling, name-calling and manipulation — out of nowhere are incredibly distressing.
Children who grow up in such environments create the belief that they are the ones to blame for the chaos they’re in, which creates and reinforces their feelings of shame, guilt and inadequacy.
Besides, they learn to track the moods of the parent in order to survive emotionally. This is how people-pleasers are born: through dealing with unpredictable parent figures who don’t show love on a consistent basis.
We don’t want to see ourselves as victims. We don’t want to see that we too have been through traumatic situations and circumstances.
Trauma is much broader than we tend to imagine and it leaves permanent scars, whether we’re consciously aware of it or not — but that doesn’t mean we’re doomed.
We can always make a conscious effort to understand it, by asking ourselves the tough questions and dealing with the painful feelings that arise.
That is how we heal.
