Trauma symptoms caused by childhood abuse
Early symptoms (childhood and teenage years):
Inability to show pain and vulnerability to others
deep belief that you ‘have to be tough’, secretly fearing that you’re weak and pathetic if you ever shed any tears or break down in pain
personality changes from outgoing and social, to isolated and quiet, trying not to be noticed
feeling like there’s something deeply wrong with you, deep belief that you’re some kind of monster who deserves to be punished
fear that if someone finds out about whats happening to you, they will blame you and hurt you worse
anxiety around adults, always being scared you’ll annoy someone and be hurt for it
very low attention to your needs and wants, feeling pride in neglecting your own well being, even neglecting your pain
belief that your value is tied to how much pain and mistreatment you can endure
urge to self harm, or outright hurting yourself
feeling like you want to disappear, or not be born at all, contemplating suicide
self hatred, feeling extremely negative about yourself and feeling like things would be better if you didn’t exist
spending phases of time being emotionless, feeling like a zombie and not caring about anything
foreshortened sense of future (belief that you wont live for much longer, inability to see your future or plan for it)
not feeling the consequences of events in the real time, or not at all; for instance, being completely unphased by a violent outburst or screaming, not feeling pain when you’re hurt, or not feeling the exhaustion when you’re clearly overworked
strong urge to not think about certain topics or events, or inability to do so
fear that your body is wrong and disgusting, anxiety about anyone seeing it but desperate need for validation that you’re normal
deep sense of shame in yourself, your actions and your appearance
strong investment in finding excuses for people who do bad things, always trying to see things from their angle and to forgive them
feeling like the blame for any bad thing in the world can be put on you
not feeling like a human being, belief that you’re less than human
feeling like your home is not here and you do not belong on this planet
feeling uncomfortable being touched and wanting people to back off
uncontrolled ourbursts of rage
looking for anything to soothe your pain or distract you, indulging with obsessions or drugs
early development of anxiety disorder, depression, insomnia, ocd
trying to regress your age and force yourself to stay younger than you are, because you feel like your value is dropping with age and nobody will care for you anymore
trying to desperately take control over some aspects of your life, which can result in overdoing or completely neglecting school, losing yourself in virtual life, eating disorders, self harm or magic thinking that enables you to believe you can control your circumstances
in case of a sexual trauma, innapropriate sexual behaviour, deep shame tied to your body, indulging in sexual interactions even before puberty, feeling like you’re meant to be used, violent or forceful sexual fantasies accompanied with shame, fear of touch, fear of anyone finding out, reaching out for pornographic material to put your experience into perspective
feeling desperate to appear normal and clinging very strongly to the perception that your childhood is normal
Later symtoms, can develop anytime after puberty, can be in 20s or 30s or even 50s:
Flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, freezing up in terror, beyond average amounts of fear and dread
Trust issues, either trusting without suspicion even when you shouldn’t or trusting nobody and feeling completely alone in the world
Episodes of re-living traumatic events from childhood or later in life; emotional meltdowns
Being unable to leave the past and feeling frozen in the moments of trauma
Emotional flashbacks, feeling the events from past as if they’re happening now, except this time you feel it thousand times stronger and completely fall apart from the horror of it
Feeling unstable, ashamed for not being able to control your emotions, fear of being judged, mocked or humiliated for it, trying desperately to not feel it, using distractions or drugs
Self doubt, struggling to know what is real and what isn’t, doubting your memories and emotions, trying to only feel what you believe is obliged from you
Questioning the past over and over again, trying to find sense and who to blame
Trying desperately to put your relationship with your abuser(s) into perspective, feeling both guilt and obligation towards them, but also rage and desire to take over control from them
Self harm, self-destructive behaviour, suicidal behaviour, wanting to die to end the pain
Deep and overwhelming grief over loss of childhood and loss of trust in people you believed wouldn’t hurt you, or believed they were doing it for your good, which now proved not to be true
Depression, loss of joy in anything you used to like doing, loss of optimism in life
Losing the courage to try anything, regardless of how much it would benefit you, if there’s even a slight chance of getting hurt in a way you find impossible to endure, living passively
Feeling irreparably damaged and ruined
Getting lost in maladaptive daydreaming, fiction, or the virtual world, feeling unable to face reality, falling to obsessions or addictions to endure the pain
Feeling other people’s feelings as if they’re your own, especially feelings of pain, anxiety, fear, nervousness, anger or grief; trying to soothe them and especially having strong reactions to anger
Feeling overwhelmed whenever around people, feeling the urge to self-isolate and to be completely alone
Being hit with extreme amounts of rage and struggling to process it; worrying about misdirecting the rage or acting on it, violent fantasies
Getting stuck in a mindset of a child and barely able, or unable to do any grown-up tasks
Struggling to achieve even minimum function, or not functioning at all
Losing the will or the energy to participate in any activities you used to enjoy
Fighting or indulging the urge to normalize what happened or make it ‘not that bad’, trying to re-live it in a way that wouldn’t be traumatic, especally with sexual trauma, needing to perceive it as if it would be normal only if it was ‘consensual’ or more controlled and trying to find a way to frame it as ‘not that big of a deal’ and denying it’s hurting you
Beating yourself up horribly for still being upset and traumatized by events that happened long ago
Inability to have friends or form connections with others, high alert for betrayal and manipulation
Avoding places and people connected to the trauma, getting easily triggered and forced to re-live something that needs recovery time of days or weeks
Losing your sense of reality; not being sure where you are or what year is it for some periods of time, feeling like you’re going crazy
Only being able to focus on surviving a short amount of time (just trying to get thru the day or week)
Extreme anxety; trembling, spending prolonged amount of time tense and expecting danger and pain at every second, inability to calm down, limbs not working properly, fainting out of fear
Continually activated “fight or flight” response, always feeling endangered, trouble digesting food because your body shuts down your digestion in order for you to be able to escape faster, vomiting, stomach pains after eating
Hyperventilation, problems with breathing, feeling there’s “no air” in small or crowded spaces
Chronic exhaustion, feeling heavy weight over your body, having difficulty moving at all
Chronic pain, tension in your body never leaving, physical pain appearing when you’re experiencing emotional pain, chest pain, heart palpitations
Problems with blood pressure, fainting easily
Dissociation (feeling detached from your emotions and/or body, feeling numb and unreal, your body not feeling yours, feeling outside your body or like you’re stuck in someone else’s body)
Memory issues, not being able to remember whole parts of your life, weak short term memory, not being able to look back on your life in linear way or put the events in they order they happened in, mixing several events into one, remembering feelings but not events
Increased sensitivity to noise, getting very upset at any non recognizable sound, reacting with irritability or rage to background noises, or with terror at loud noises; needing complete silence, or constant soothing background noise
Extreme sensitivity to stress, having to block out stressful things from memory, having physical reactions to stress, like shaking, your hair falling out, feeling incapable of dealing with even minimally stressful tasks
Dry mouth in the night, overheating during the nightmares, getting so distressed after sleep you can’t move from the bed for hours, not calming down for days
Not being able to control your body, falling down and shaking uncontrollably, even trashing around as your body processes violence done to it
Not being able to relax or calm down without experiencing physical pain, feeling addicted to abuse and indulging in self harm, or letting someone else hurt you so that you might gain a moment of not feeling tense, stressed and scared
Feeling sensations of pain or discomfort on your body even when nothing is happening to it, especially the body parts that have been violated in some way; in case of sexual trauma it would mean private parts, in case of overworking yourself or break yourself with effort, pain in all muscles and joints
In case of sexual trauma, reoccurring memories of it, trouble figuring out your sexuality, wanting to escape your body or perceiving it in a distorted way, urge to repeat the trauma to get desensitized to it, hypersexual behaviour or complete lack of interest in sexuality
Weight gain or loss, hatred of your body and desire to change or hurt it, or complete neglect over body, lack of any self care of even acknowledging you need it
Difficulty sleeping or being awake, feeling too high alert to fall asleep or dropping out of consciousness from overexhaustion
Inability to focus or finish tasks, procrastinating or feeling sick just knowing there is a task you have to do.
If you struggle(d) with 5 or more of early ones, or 5 or more of later ones, you’ve been dealing with trauma.
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