Missing Time or Lost Memories Most children over the age of three start to develop memories that they can later recall in adulthood. However, trauma survivors may not be able to access these childhood memories. Some survivors have unconsciously blocked out weeks, months, or even years of their childhoods.
Childhood trauma and memory loss go hand-in-hand. Blocking out memories can be a way of coping with the trauma. Memory loss from childhood trauma can affect your life in many ways. Your memory loss may even make you believe that you were never a victim of childhood trauma.
These traumas can impact your brain's ability to form memories. It could be due to a physical impact on your brain, which impairs your ability to create memories. It also could be from your brain's attempt to cope with the emotional and psychological impact of the trauma. Sometimes you can develop dissociative amnesia.
In most cases, not being able to remember your childhood very clearly is completely normal. It's just the way human brains work.
Adults can generally recall events from 3–4 years old, with those that have primarily experiential memories beginning around 4.7 years old. Adults who experienced traumatic or abusive early childhoods report a longer period of childhood amnesia, ending around 5–7 years old.
Unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, relationship problems and physical symptoms like headaches or nausea are some of the ways that unresolved trauma can manifest, according to the American Psychological Association.
The trauma inflicted in childhood changes the way a person connects with others. It can introduce a sense of shame or lack of self-worth, which can cause you to form relationships in unhealthy ways. For some people, this might take the form of making unhealthy attachments with unsuitable people.
Without treatment, repeated childhood exposure to traumatic events can affect the brain and nervous system and increase health-risk behaviors (e.g., smoking, eating disorders, substance use, and high-risk activities).
If you can recall times when you've overreacted, and perhaps have even been surprised at your own reactions, this may be a sign of trauma. It's not uncommon for people suffering from emotional trauma to have feelings of shame and self-blame.
Signs of PTSD
To determine whether you or a loved one may have PTSD that stems from childhood trauma, the following are some of the more common symptoms: Reliving the event over in your mind or nightmares. Becoming upset when there's a reminder of the event. Intense and ongoing fear, sadness, and helplessness.
Do these events cause a ripple effect throughout our lives? The short answer is “yes.” There are many adverse long-term effects of childhood trauma that stay with people throughout their lives. For some, the consequences are more severe than for others.
Dissociative amnesia is a memory disorder. You can't remember information about your life. This may happen after you live through trauma or a stressful situation. A person with this condition has large gaps in their memory.
Psychological or emotional trauma can result in memory loss. A person's brain may suppress memories as a protective mechanism to prevent the retrieval of painful emotions associated with a traumatic event. Memory loss can occur as a byproduct of repeated situations such as child abuse or domestic violence.
The answer to this question lies in examining our patterns: our behavioral patterns, our emotions, our thought patterns, our relationships and our persistent, cyclical, recurring issues. Chances are if there is unhealthiness or instability in any of these patterns, there is unhealed trauma at the root.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Children and adolescents with PTSD have symptoms such as persistent, frightening thoughts and memories or flashbacks of a traumatic event or events.
Childhood amnesia is totally normal. Babies and young children are constantly learning, but their brains don't store experiences into long-term memory. Research shows that adults of all ages are equally bad at remembering specific details from their early lives.
If the trauma is left untreated, one can experience nightmares, insomnia, anxiety, depression, phobias, substance abuse, panic attacks, anger, irritability, or hopelessness.
For some people, the tremors are big movements in the muscles. For others, they are tiny contractions that feel like electrical frequencies moving through the body. TRE® is not painful—in fact, most people enjoy the sensations.
New Neurons and Old Memories
Irina Calin-Jageman, a researcher at Dominican University, is a co-leader of the “Slug Squad” lab that has found evidence that active forgetting processes in the brain do not always completely erase memories. “Everything isn't just gradually, completely gone,” she said.
Trauma Blocking: Driven to Distract After a painful experience, some people may choose to face their feelings head-on while others would rather forget. The latter can manifest as trauma blocking, where someone chooses to block and drown out painful feelings that hang around after an ordeal.
The same reason you can't remember your childhood years. During your teenage years your brain goes through a huge re-structure. The memories from these years are usually forgotten during these years. The same applies for when you are a young child.