It's not just jealousy that can cause issues for people with childhood trauma; it's also insecurity about themselves or how they feel like others see them. This type of thinking often stems back to difficult experiences during childhood when an individual may have been bullied or teased at school.
Past trauma
If you've experienced emotional abuse or betrayal from past relationships, that can start to taint your view of future relationships if the trauma goes unchecked. This is where jealousy can rear its head and feed into those feelings, by making you feel anxious or afraid of losing the person you're with now.
We all feel jealousy at various points. It's part of being human. We all want to be successful, important, loved, seen, and appreciated. But, when we're consumed by envy, it's a sign of childhood emotional trauma.
The cause usually lies in childhood
Many of the highly jealous people have experienced attachments as insecure in their childhood. Even as adults, they constantly fear being abandoned. This fear is so dominant that it manifests itself in delusions of control and jealousy.
Sometimes, pervasive jealous feelings might be an indicator of a deeper issue related to your mental health, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Here are other mental health concerns that could be related to jealousy: Depression. Anxiety.
One possible explanation of the origin of jealousy in evolutionary psychology is that the emotion evolved in order to maximize the success of our genes: it is a biologically based emotion selected to foster the certainty about the paternity of one's own offspring.
Childhood trauma can manifest itself in different ways as an adult, including mental health challenges like depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem.
The Mother Wound is an attachment trauma that creates a sense of confusion and devastation in the child's psyche. It instills deeply rooted beliefs that make the child feel unloved, abandoned, unworthy of care, and even fearful of expressing themselves.
Sleep disturbances: This could mean that they start having nightmares or lose the ability to fall asleep quickly. Sadness: If you notice that you or a loved one is feeling down much more often, it may be a sign that they're coping with a traumatic event.
Feeling jealous is a signal that someone else might be putting a relationship you have and rely on at risk — and you may need to do something about it to either save that relationship or find what you're getting out of that relationship somewhere else. “Jealousy is hard-wired in all of us,” Jalal says.
Emotionally absent or cold mothers can be unresponsive to their children's needs. They may act distracted and uninterested during interactions, or they could actively reject any attempts of the child to get close. They may continue acting this way with adult children.
For those who may not be familiar, “unloved daughter syndrome” is a term used to describe the lack of emotional connection or love between a mother and her daughter. This disconnect can lead to insecurity, anxiety, loneliness, and mistrust of others.
Physical Signs of Unhealed Trauma
You may also be extremely alert because you are constantly looking for the next potential danger. Furthermore, you may be unable to sleep through the night, leading to excessive fatigue or feeling exhausted.
Childhood trauma can cause adults to have a difficult time managing stressful situations. As a result, it is common for people to turn to food, drugs, or alcohol as a coping mechanism. They use these substances to help them deal with their strong emotional responses to triggering people or situations.
Adults who don't know how to heal from childhood trauma may turn to alcohol or drugs to help numb the painful memories. This can lead to substance abuse and mental health disorders that require professional treatment to overcome.
It's not just jealousy that can cause issues for people with childhood trauma; it's also insecurity about themselves or how they feel like others see them. This type of thinking often stems back to difficult experiences during childhood when an individual may have been bullied or teased at school.
The current research aimed to shed light on why people differ in romantic jealousy. Our findings suggest that people differ in jealousy partly because of genetic influences, but mostly because of nonshared environmental influences.
The three interrelated components of the jealousy experience are cognitions, emotions, and behaviors.
Jealousy can come from feelings of low self-esteem or lack of confidence. And when someone is unhappy about themselves, feels anxious and insecure, this can lead to feelings of jealousy and being out of control. Jealousy is slightly different from envy.
If you're the target of jealousy, you may feel like someone (usually a partner or friend) is trying to control your life. They might do things such as check up on you, try to tell you what to do (or not do) and how to act, or limit your contact with friends and coworkers.
Understand your triggers
Jealousy may be driven by low self-esteem or a poor self-image. If you don't feel attractive and confident, it can be hard to truly believe that your partner loves and values you. Other times, jealousy can be caused by unrealistic expectations about the relationship.