7 Ways Childhood Trauma Is Affecting Our Adult Relationships
…And we may be in denial of it
The effects of early and chronic childhood trauma can seep into all areas of our lives — from how we feel about ourselves, to our attachment style, to how generational trauma typically replays in our lives in one form or another, until it’s acknowledged and healed.
Unresolved early life trauma is one of the biggest predictors of adult adverse health conditions including higher incidences of chronic depression and/or anxiety, and increased risk factors for repeating trauma, mental health issues, obesity, drug/alcohol abuse, heart problems, diabetes, or cancer. The fact is, when our basic needs to feel safe, loved, and accepted went unmet early in life, or were only met intermittently, this predisposes us for further abuse in our adult lives, including the potential for re-traumatization. Most common is having our unhealed core attachment wounds replay from one relationship to another with family members, poor choices in friends, or toxic intimate relationships.
A bitter pill to accept about traumatic relationships, is that toxic is unconsciously attracted to toxic. Healthy partners are not going to be attracted to a partner who is emotionally avoidant, distracted, impulsive, can’t commit, or won’t face their own unhealed core wounds. When both partners have their own unsolved trauma, the relationship’s foundation is based on this, which ends up perpetuating in a loop. It plays out in unhealthy communication styles where intimate or vulnerable communication is dodged, where the relationship hits an impasse, or where partners tune-out by turning to their electronics, self-medicating, or engaging in other addictions to self-numb. Attraction may be limited to physical interactions — sex or hobbies — where deeper connection is missing because of the risk of feeling rejected or judged.
The list is long on how trauma can affect the choices we make with relationships, the most important relationship being the one we have with ourselves.
Attachment Style. If a child wasn’t taught the basics of how to value and love themselves because of negligent, abusive, or avoidant parenting, this can set a child up for seeking out their value and worth through others, by developing an Avoidant attachment style where others become mirror reflections for external validation. On the flipside, a child who is shamed, verbally abused or compared to others may develop an Anxious attachment, trying to do more to please the un-pleasable while never seeing their value. They often become ‘people-pleasers’, and overthinkers where the fear of others’ judgement guides how they act.
In more extreme cases, inconsistent parenting can create a Disorganized attachment, where some days a child may be neglected by parents, other days abused by them which creates a negative sense of self-worth. A poor sense of self-worth is like blood in the water to a shark, for attracting toxic relationships based on further abuse.
Self-Identity. Our earliest caregivers are supposed to teach, model, and positively reinforce us in learning about ourselves and emotionally supporting our curiosity. Kids raised in a healthy environment were taught a healthy sense of self-identity. Kids from invalidating or abusive environments, not so much.
This places them at risk for falling into the wrong crowd during key developmental stages in their lives in an attempt to “find” themselves (Erikson, 1963). What may be found instead, are negative influences for friends who don’t care about others or themselves. These friendships are often based on delinquency and self-destruction, which often becomes a stepping stone for adult narcissistic relationships. When self-identity is missing, mirroring others replaces authentic connection. With a limited self-identity, it increases the risk of being unable to integrate our emotions, our feelings, our values, and our thoughts into a cohesive “Self” which leads to impulsive behavior, feelings of boredom, and irrational beliefs about others and themselves.
Self-Sabotaging Behavior. This is the biggest red flag of a traumatic early life. Self-sabotage can be overt — such as developing a habit of cheating on partners, ghosting, discards, or addictive behaviors such as emotional eating, promiscuity, gaming, technology addictions, excessive or dangerous workout routines, workaholism, sex or porn addiction, or drugs/alcohol. Self-sabotage can also be more covert, such as a person sabotaging their potential by settling for less than they deserve, destroying stable relationships, or getting involved with partners who are stand-ins for their unresolved trauma surrounding their parent(s) who may have been invalidating, abandoning or abusive.
Poor Mental/Medical Health. If basic needs went unmet early in life, a kid may not have known where their next meal was coming from or may not have had access to consistent and reliable healthcare. These kids may grow up not knowing how to care for their own physical, mental, or emotional health, not caring about themselves and letting their health deteriorate. They may not have been taught the basics of “adulting”, and may be chronologically an adult, but emotionally, a child.
Many find themselves in toxic relationships where narcissistic partners won’t provide basic needs (food, health insurance), may shame them for having basic needs, or aren’t there to emotionally support them in their time of need, potentially exacerbating their physical or mental health issues. One of the biggest predictors of self-destructive behavior and using toxic addictions to self-numb, is based on wanting to push away mental or physical health problems, and not knowing how.
Risk for Personality Disorders. Suffice to say, more common than not is the development of a personality disorder including Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), and Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) when kids are raised in toxic and invalidating environments. Trauma adversely affects developmental and emotional growth, and abusive environments commonly include parents and caregivers who have personality disorders themselves. Research supports both a genetic and environmental link for BPD, while NPD and ASPD are more learned and conditioned based on environment.
Fear of Abandonment/Engulfment. Children raised in abusive and negligent environments where their needs were unmet, and who were left to fend for themselves, often have a fear of abandonment, and most have experienced it at least once earlier in life. Abandonment can be emotional abandonment (invalidating parent, or a parent who shamed them), or physical abandonment (a parent kicking them out, or divorce). Those who develop a fear of abandonment struggle being alone, may habitually cheat, and often have overlapping relationships to prevent being alone. This pattern negatively reinforces their trauma, further creating traumatic bonding, and strengthening their need to always be in a relationship. Needless to say, it’s counterintuitive to growth.
On the flipside, some who grew up with tyrants for parents, were not allowed a sense of Self, and who were micromanaged, controlled or manipulated in their childhood may develop a fear of engulfment where intimacy, emotional vulnerability or a fear of losing themselves in the relationship often causes them to avoid relationships, or to keep them at arms-distance.
Risk for cPTSD. Complex PTSD is hypothesized as a severe, often lifelong disorder that results from chronic sexual, physical and emotional child abuse and/or neglect. This impacts the quality of a person’s life, and can be misdiagnosed as BPD. The DSM-V (2013) does not formally recognize this disorder because of the overlaps between BPD and PTSD, which does a grave injustice to anyone who has experienced severe childhood trauma; however, cPTSD is included the ICD-11.
originally published on quora.