Recovering from Childhood Trauma

Recovering from childhood trauma

Recovering from childhood trauma is a process that is often postponed by mental and emotional barriers. Trauma stemming from abuse often starts out as something perceived by the victim as innocent or playful. They are not yet able to comprehend the extent of the action, so the victims brush it off and live with a burden on their shoulders. 

It is not until later in life that they realise that what they had experienced was indeed abuse and recognise the traumatic impact it has had. The moment of recognition marks the beginning of the battle of vocalising these internalised and suppressed feelings for the first time out loud, which is also the first step towards a successful recovery.

Self-destructive traits in childhood trauma recovery

Abuse survivors often develop addictions as a means to fill the void surrounding their internal emotional conflict. These needn’t necessarily be on the realm of substance abuse; one can have habitual addictions like a spending addiction or love addiction. Obsessive-compulsive addictive behaviour has a strong link with trauma – one that many therapists seem to overlook. 

Dissociation

For some people, this void results in a feeling of being disconnected from their bodies. Dissociation is best described as if you’re watching your life happen from outside of your body and you can’t seem to find a way to get back in. Patients often won’t address this hollowness and out-of-body experience because they either lack the vocabulary to express what dissociating actually feels like, or because they don’t feel like they have the right “push” to try and explain it further.

The role of the therapist is to provide this safe space and charge for them to be able to explore this unusual state more.

Fragmentation and the trigger response

Sometimes, childhood trauma victims have a strong need to express their emotions due to an outward trigger – to cry, to scream, to vent. However, the given moment they’re in won’t allow them to do so because it doesn’t seem appropriate. 

What happens in such a case is fragmentation; they will split their personality into different parts and let the triggered one suppress the emotions in the back while another fragment comes forward to take control of the conscious state. Even though they forwarded another fragment to suppress showing their pain, the abuse victim actually wants their pain to be seen, so the forwarded fragment may irrationally act out in anger.

Childhood trauma victims engage with other people in a so-called trauma bond. This means that the victim doesn’t bring their adult self to the relationship, but their suppressed childhood self. They hope that their partner will heal them and take on a motherly figure. 

None of these actions are intentional. The patient may not even realise that their actions stem from fragmentation, not even after being told so. The therapist needs to help them identify this independently, which will increase their context and answer the question of “why did I act like this”.

The trauma paradox

Paradoxically, childhood trauma victims feel the most emotional overwhelm when there is nothing emotionally tiring happening on the outside. Inconveniences, drama, stress... all things we tend to sway away from serving as a distraction for abuse survivors. When they’re left alone to process their emotions, that’s when the feeling of hopelessness strikes. Keeping busy means detaching, but it’s also running away from something that will catch up with you sooner or later.

Trauma victims view safe spaces as dangerous and seek dangerous situations as an escape. When childhood abuse victims engage in peaceful relationships, it’s almost as if there isn’t enough noise to distract from the screaming internal child they now need to face.

In conclusion

More often than not, childhood trauma victims will not recognise themselves as such until much later in life. This also means that they suppressed their emotions for so long that they start developing fragments that will face everyday life for them, dissociating from their past experiences.

They love having distractions from what they’re keeping inside, so they will often seek more dangerous situations instead of being in a calm state when their inner child gets to come to the forefront. Recovering from childhood trauma means identifying these self-destructive patterns and allowing the patient to put their (re)actions into a wider context. Understanding why something is happening to us is the first step towards regaining control.