EMDR THERAPY: SIGNS OF REPRESSED CHILDHOOD TRAUMA IN ADULTS
Sometimes you feel like somethings just isn’t quite right. You respond to certain places, people, and experiences in ways that you don’t understand. You wonder if something happened to you that makes you feel this way. You may want to consider whether you should look for signs of repressed childhood trauma in adults.
Experiencing trauma during your early years is incredibly difficult. For some individuals, their brains chose to push the memory down into their unconscious, so they can continue to live their lives – perseverance. This isn’t something we decide to do, this is just how your brain copes with trauma. But the childhood trauma may cause you issues without you even realizing why.
CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND MEMORY LOSS
Adverse Childhood Experiences are traumatic events that happen in your life before you reach adulthood. There are 10 ACEs, and each traumatic experience can harm your ability to function as an adult if you don’t cope with them.
THE 10 ACES ARE:
1. Physical abuse
2. Verbal abuse
3. Sexual abuse
4. Physical neglect
5. Emotional neglect
6. Alcoholic parent (s)
7. Victim (s) of domestic violence
8. Family member(s) with mental illness
9. The disappearance of parent(s), whether through divorce, abandonment, or death
10. Family member in prison
These traumas can impact your brain’s ability to form memories. It could be due to a physical impact on your brain. Or it could be your brain’s attempt to cope with the emotional and psychological impact of trauma.
Sometimes you can develop dissociative amnesia. This memory loss is when you are unable to recall critical autobiographical information. Dissociative amnesia can impact all aspects of your life, whether mild or severe. Repressed memories from childhood trauma are classified as a type of dissociation. You separate yourself from your past, which helps you to cope.
8 SIGNS OF REPRESSED CHILDHOOD TRAUMA IN ADULTS
Identifying the signs of repressed childhood trauma in adults can be tricky. Many of these signs align with other mental health issues. However, some signs are very specific to childhood trauma.
1. Strong unexplained Reactions to Specific People
Have you met someone and immediately felt “off” by them? This feeling may be a sign of repressed childhood trauma. Your mind and body warn you the person isn’t safe, even if you don’t know them. As a result, you may feel your body shift into a more protective stance or you may have a strong desire to leave the situation. But you are unable to identify why. This reaction may be because that person reminds you of someone who traumatized you in the past.
2. Lack of Ease in Certain Place
Places can also induce these feelings of stress, fear, and anxiety in someone experiencing repressed childhood memories. When you experience trauma, your brain memorizes details about the event – the colors, the smells, the sounds. Being in a similar place to your trauma memory may trigger that fear deep within you and cause you to shift into fight or flight mode.
3. Extreme Emotional Shifts
Controlling emotions can be challenging. For those suffering from repressed childhood trauma, it is an even more difficult battle. If you have unaddressed ACEs, you may find you are extremely upset by the everyday actions of others. You may find yourself going from feeling relaxed and at ease, to feeling angry or fearful, all because of something seemingly small. Often this change is because that seemingly small thing subconsciously reminds you of some aspect of your repressed childhood trauma.
4. Attachment Issues
Many ACEs cause you to have an intense fear of abandonment. Attachment issues can be due to development disruptions caused by traumatic experiences. You may find that you become intensely attached to people and feel upset or highly emotional about leaving. Even if it is just your partner leaving for an evening out or your friend going out of town, it causes anxiety and fear.
5. Anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion many people cope with throughout their lives. Those who have repressed childhood memories may experience more anxiety than others. Once you start uncovering your repressed trauma, you will be able to reveal how anxiety ties to your trauma experiences.
6. Childish Reactions
As we emotionally mature, moments of immaturity and childish outbursts reduce. But when this happens frequently, and you find yourself regressing into a child-like state, you may be coping with an adverse experience. Childish reactions may be a sign you are dealing with repressed childhood memories. You may throw tantrums, speak in a child-like voice, or are stubborn about small things. These regular regressions are indicative that you have memories that are locked up.
7. Consistent Exhaustion
You have a limited amount of mental and emotional energy in a day. If you repress traumatic childhood memories, you subconsciously spend much of your energy on that. Exhaustion robs you of the energy you need to build and form new relationships and makes it difficult for you to connect with others.
8. Unable to Cope in Normal Stressful Situations
Life comes with seemingly constant stressors. They are typical adult experiences. People with repressed childhood trauma find themselves unable to cope with these everyday events and often lash out or hide. You may find yourself lashing out or throwing tantrums when things don’t go your way. You are regressing to that original state you were in during the traumatic event and trying to protect yourself.
HOW THERAPY HELPS TREAT SIGNS OF REPRESSED CHILDHOOD TRAUMA IN ADULTS
Knowing the signs of repressed childhood trauma in adults is the first step toward recovery. You need to recover those memories in a safe place where professionals help you understand and cope with the trauma.
Using EMDR and Internal Family System (IFS) therapies, we can help reduce the physiological symptoms of childhood trauma and use IFS to help you integrate your child parts and reparent these hurt parts.
Click here for more information on EMDR Therapy.