7 Ways Childhood Abuse Follows You

Trauma occurs in many forms
ranging from verbal to physical and our sexual.
Whether you’ve personally experienced abuse or have witnessed it,
we want you to know that
it’s not your fault nor are you alone.
Not only is it hard to talk about,
but it follows you even after it’s over.
We hope wherever you are today
that you’re in a safer place.
Our hearts go out to anyone
who’s been a victim of childhood abuse.
In our description box below,
we’ve included a few hotlines
in case you need to contact someone someone for help.
As always, you can also reach out in the comment box.
Here are 7 ways childhood trauma follows you into adulthood.
1. You can’t seem to remember much of your younger years at all.
Do your high school years feel like a blur?
You might find yourself drawing a blank
when someone brings up a childhood memory
and you can’t recall the same one.
People with childhood trauma may experience flashbulb memories
in which they remember vivid moments but not the full event.
When you look back on the past,
it’s made up of more black holes than fully written chapters.
You might even feel like someone or something has stolen your childhood,
depending on the severity of the events.
2. You find yourself in toxic relationships.
If you’ve ever watched or read ”The Perks of Being a Wallflower”,
you’d be familiar with the quote,
“We accept the love we think we deserve”.
When you grow up in a household
devoid of love and emotional support,
healthy relationships are a foreign concept to you.
In fact, many people who face childhood trauma
often adopt the fearful avoidant attachment style
where they want emotionally close relationships,
but find it hard to trust or depend on others completely.
Consequently, without knowing it
you might seek destructive relationships,
mistaking the mistreatment and uncertainty for excitement.
3. Or you feel like you don’t deserve love at all.
People who experienced abuse in their childhoods
might avoid romantic relationships altogether,
believing they can’t be loved by others.
This is known as the anxious preoccupied attachment
where the individual wants to establish emotional intimacy with others
but often fears rejection.
As a result, vulnerability is usually avoided
when they’ve only been hurt by people they once trusted.
This kind of trauma doesn’t just ache.
It ruins you.
4. You develop passive aggressiveness.
Did you grow up in a household with anger all the time?
It can be so scarring that
you might even grow fearful of this emotion.
You learned at a young age that
none of your emotional needs were important,
so you’ve only resorted to brewing or suppressing them.
As you reach adulthood,
you’ll continue to exercise passive aggressive behavior
because straightforward communication was avoided
when you were a child.
5. Negative self-talk is amplified.
Childhood trauma gets into victims heads
and makes them believe they won’t ever be good enough.
It’s not something they can just snap out of
or fix with positivity.
It’s scary and real how convincing their parents have been
when their words and actions cut them deep.
6. You ride an emotional roller coaster.
You might either feel too much or not enough at all.
Trauma can cause a disruption in your emotional well-being.
Signs include trouble making decisions, impulsive behavior
and random outbursts of anger or frustration.
7. You don’t know who you are.
Identity is difficult,
but it seems more impossible to grasp or pin down
when you face childhood trauma.
It’s slippery like a fish.
And the more you try to see yourself,
the less you begin to recognize who you thought you were.