Yes, unresolved childhood trauma can be healed. Seek out therapy with someone psychoanalytically or psychodynamically trained. A therapist who understands the impact of childhood experiences on adult life, particularly traumatic ones. Have several consultations to see if you feel empathically understood.
In order to properly heal PTSD, getting effective treatment, such as PTSD counseling, is key. While healing childhood trauma is not always easy, it is possible! Trauma-based therapy can help you pinpoint triggers, create healthy coping mechanisms, and lessen the severity of your symptoms.
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.
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).
Effects of Childhood Trauma on the Brain
The trauma becomes “encoded” into the structure of the brain. This means that the traumatic experiences cannot be simply “forgotten.” They must be processed by the individual through a therapeutic process.
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.
Trauma is not physically held in the muscles or bones — instead, the need to protect oneself from perceived threats is stored in the memory and emotional centers of the brain, such as the hippocampus and amygdala. This activates the body whenever a situation reminds the person of the traumatic event(s).
Grief can be stored in various parts of the body, such as the heart, lungs, throat, and stomach. People may also experience physical sensations like heaviness in the chest or tightness in the throat when experiencing grief.
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.
However, because of improvements in brain imaging technology, we now know that neuroplasticity is a lifelong quality. This means that regardless of age, it may be possible to rewire your brain and nervous system from childhood trauma by having new, positive, and supportive experiences.
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.
Initial reactions to trauma can include exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, dissociation, confusion, physical arousal, and blunted affect.
Unprocessed Memories
These dynamics may be clearest in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Whether the trauma happened in childhood or later in life, undigested memories can continue to haunt us.
Attachment and relationships
Another warning flag of childhood trauma that carries over into adulthood are problems forming attachments and relationships. For example, if your childhood trauma was caused by a loved one or caregiver, you may learn to mistrust adults.
While flashbacks can occur in the old and young, age exacerbates these symptoms due to increased memory loss and alterations regarding context of past trauma. Age also affects the impact of physical symptoms on your body.
The research on childhood trauma recommends 15-30 months, but I've had clients who were satisfied with what they accomplished sooner, sometimes much sooner.
The child may struggle with self-regulation (i.e., knowing how to calm down) and may lack impulse control or the ability to think through consequences before acting. As a result, complexly traumatized children may behave in ways that appear unpredictable, oppositional, volatile, and extreme.
Examples of emotional neglect may include: lack of emotional support during difficult times or illness. withholding or not showing affection, even when requested. exposure to domestic violence and other types of abuse.
Experiencing a traumatic event as a child negatively impacts mental health, cognitive function, the ability to form satisfying relationships, and an individual's sense of self-worth.