Higher rates of depression, suicidality, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and aggressive behaviour have been reported in adults who experienced childhood maltreatment. Traumatic childhood events also contribute to increased drug use and dependence.
Emotional Responses
Children who have experienced complex trauma often have difficulty identifying, expressing, and managing emotions, and may have limited language for feeling states. They often internalize and/or externalize stress reactions and as a result may experience significant depression, anxiety, or anger.
Conclusion: There is strong evidence of an association between childhood trauma and later mental illness. This association is particularly evident for exposure to bullying, emotional abuse, maltreatment and parental loss.
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).
Childhood trauma in adults also results in feeling disconnected, and being unable to relate to others. Studies have shown that adults that experience childhood trauma were more likely to struggle with controlling emotions, and had heightened anxiety, depression, and anger.
Childhood trauma physically damages the brain by triggering toxic stress. Strong, frequent, and prolonged, toxic stress rewires several parts of the brain, altering their activity and influence over emotions and the body.
Trauma-induced changes to the brain can result in varying degrees of cognitive impairment and emotional dysregulation that can lead to a host of problems, including difficulty with attention and focus, learning disabilities, low self-esteem, impaired social skills, and sleep disturbances (Nemeroff, 2016).
Trauma may cause changes in the body and affect neurotransmitters in the brain, increasing the risk of psychotic symptoms or schizophrenia. Childhood trauma may trigger schizophrenia in those susceptible to it, and people may experience symptoms between their late teens and early 30s.
Children don't magically “get over” trauma when they turn 18. Trauma, toxic stress, and adverse childhood experiences permanently change a child's body and brain, which can have serious, lifelong consequences, according to a recent report from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.
Types of Childhood Trauma
Sexual or physical abuse. Natural disaster (hurricane, earthquake, flood) Car or plane crashes. War.
Trauma can cause your brain to remain in a state of hypervigilance, suppressing your memory and impulse control and trapping you in a constant state of strong emotional reactivity.
The brain will sometimes hide particularly stressful, traumatic or fear-related memories. This can be protective in the short term, when the emotional pain of recalling the event is still profound.
A groundswell of other researchers, brain scientists and mental health professionals say damage from ACEs is reversible and people of all ages — particularly those ages 0 to 3 — can recover.
There were significant differences in the impact of childhood trauma on IQ across the 3 groups. Exposure in HCS was associated with a nearly 5-point reduction in IQ (−4.85; 95% confidence interval [CI]: −7.98 to −1.73, P = . 002), a lesser reduction in siblings (−2.58; 95% CI: −4.69 to −0.46, P = .
People with six or more ACEs died nearly 20 years earlier on average than those without ACEs (60.6 years, 95% CI=56.2, 65.1, vs 79.1 years, 95% CI=78.4, 79.9). Average YLL per death was nearly three times greater among people with six or more ACEs (25.2 years) than those without ACEs (9.2 years).
Luckily, trauma counseling can help children, adolescents, teenagers, and adults heal their trauma. Trauma therapy is a particular approach to counseling that acknowledges and highlights how a traumatic occurrence can affect a person's emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and behavioral welfare.
Some of the symptoms of trauma in children (and adults) closely mimic depression, including too much or too little sleep, loss of appetite or overeating, unexplained irritability and anger, and problems focusing on projects, school work, and conversation.
Ages 5 through 8 identified as crucial period in brain development and exposure to stress.
Other manifestations of childhood trauma in adulthood include difficulties with social interaction, multiple health problems, low self-esteem and a lack of direction. Adults with unresolved childhood trauma are more prone to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicide and self-harm.
Childhood trauma can occur when a child witnesses or experiences overwhelming negative events in childhood. Many childhood experiences can overwhelm a child. These can occur in relationships such as with abuse, assault, neglect, violence, exploitation or bullying.