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How Do Early Traumas Linger Into Adulthood?

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Even though we use the word trauma in recent times, trauma has been part of the human story. People have been through wars for a long period of time, natural disasters are going on, and the spread of violence, even nowadays, has always left marks on our memories. On the other hand, we thought that trauma is experienced in physical terms only in the past. We described our traumas physically like broken bones, a head injury, wounds that could be seen and treated (Jones, 2017). This understanding began to change in the 19th century. After the Franco-Prussian War, many soldiers came home without visible injuries. However, they experienced something that felt like their lives had been quietly broken. They withdrew from activities that once gave them joy, and seemed detached from the world around them. This was called “traumatic neurosis” and became one of the earliest recognitions that trauma could wound the mental health as profoundly as the body (Kardiner, 1959; Norman, 1989).

We now recognize that trauma is not limited to physical injuries. Or it is not considered just a single event or adverse memory. It is an experience that shakes your sense of safety, one that overwhelms your ability to cope, and leaves marks on both body and mind. Ruppert (2014) describes it as an injury that affects both the physical and the emotional, cognitive, and social parts of life.

What we also know is that the time we encounter a traumatic event is significantly important. Since childhood is a time when we learn to trust, manage emotions, and understand the world around us, experiencing trauma during this period can really shape how you view everything in life. We form schemas to use in adulthood, and those formed in the context of trauma can influence relationships, mental health, and overall well-being (Lamont, 2010).In this therapy sketch, we will explore what childhood trauma means, how it can shape adulthood, and how it shows up in the therapy room.

Why and how does trauma in childhood affect adulthood?

Trauma is not just about what happens to us; it’s also about how we perceive and respond to it. When an experience is too overwhelming and out of our coping skills, it threatens our sense of safety and control. As a result, it leaves us feeling helpless and frightened (Cloitre et al., 2006; APA, 2014). This might sound like stress at first glance. We all know what it feels like to juggle deadlines, to argue with someone we love, or to face a sudden setback. We all know that stress is uncomfortable, but it is usually something we can recover from. Trauma is different. Trauma is a moment when life breaks from the ordinary, when what we experienced is so unfamiliar and intense that it exceeds our ability to cope (Kira, 2001).

This distinction matters even more in childhood. Because children do not yet have the same tools, words, or inner resources to make sense of overwhelming events as adults. For example, their resilience is still forming, or their sense of trust in the world is fragile. When trauma happens during childhood, it shapes the blueprint of how a child will see themselves, others, and the world.

Trauma in childhood is surprisingly a new concept. In 1962, Kempe and colleagues described the “battered child syndrome” to name physical abuse (Kempe et al., 1962), and that was the first time ever that we used childhood trauma academically. Sounds a bit late, doesn’t it? And it does not cover our perception of childhood trauma today.  We have a widened perspective now, and we know that childhood trauma is not only about being harmed directly, but can also be about what was missing. For example, the meal that never came, the parent who was emotionally absent, the home that never felt safe. It can also mean growing up around constant tension, like parents separating, violence at home, addiction, or untreated mental illness. These experiences are named childhood trauma because they force a child to adapt in ways that often compromise their sense of safety and belonging (Terr, 1991). A child might learn to silence themselves, to stay hyper-alert, or to numb their feelings just to survive. These adaptations may help in the short term, but they often persist into adulthood and influence how individuals behave in their relationships, make choices, and perceive themselves. Let’s take a closer look at the impacts of childhood trauma.

The Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences

Felitti and Anda’s research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) provided a great framework to understand how adverse childhood experiences can persist into adulthood. The researchers classified these experiences into three groups: abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction. They found that each of these may leave a mark on a child’s developing brain, like how they trust others, and their body learns to respond to the world. And what they discover is simply that the more ACEs a child lives through, the more profound and more widespread the impact on their health. Here is what they found:

  • Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Impairment
    When children grow up in environments of fear or instability, their brains are wired just to survive. This can result in difficulty calming emotions, recalling details, or concentrating in school. A child who is easily startled or quick to anger is not difficult. Their nervous system is always alert because it has been trained to expect danger. Over time, their nervous system gets stuck in danger mode, and it influences relationships and learning, making it more difficult to connect or succeed in ways that seem natural for others.
  • Adoption of Risky Behaviors
    As children become adults, ways to cope with the weight of childhood trauma might change according to the schemas formed in the past. Sometimes these coping strategies look like smoking, drinking, overeating, or using substances. From the outside, these behaviors may appear like bad choices. But they might not be just bad choices in the usual sense. They might be attempts to soothe pain, numb memories, or regain a fleeting sense of control.
  • Illness, Disability, and Social Struggles
    When these risky coping strategies are combined with the body’s stress response working overtime, it can be heavy on both mental health and physical health. Developing physical conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, depression, and addiction becomes more likely. Social difficulties like mistrust, isolation, or repeated crises  often layer on top of this. When we add all this up for individual, it can limit their health, relationships, and opportunities.
  • Early Death
    How is all the weight associated with shortened life expectancy? Trauma might not directly cause death, but the effects of trauma and the ways of coping with it build up over many years. Health issues, limited access to care, risky coping mechanisms, and ongoing stress all come together to take a toll on the body. 

Trauma often shows up years later in unexpected yet meaningful ways. One of the places where these effects become most visible is within the therapy room.

How does trauma in childhood reflect in the therapy room?

The effects of childhood trauma rarely stay in the past. They often live quietly in everyday life, such as the arguments that spiral out of control, in the anxiety before a work presentation, or in the way someone feels their body tense when a loved one raises their voice. What begins as emotional dysregulation or coping in childhood can later look like depression, anxiety, relationship struggles, or even physical symptoms that bring peocple to therapy (Felitti et al., 1998).

Inside the therapy room, trauma doesn’t just show up in the stories a person tells. It shows up in how they sit, how they pause, and how they relate to the therapist. For someone who grew up never knowing if the adults around them could be trusted, building a bond with a therapist may feel almost impossible at first. Imagine a person who apologizes every time they share something personal, because somewhere along the way, they learned that their feelings were too much. Even when the therapist is steady and kind, that steadiness itself may feel foreign, sometimes even threatening.

Trauma can also shape a person’s self-perception. Some individuals lose their thought mid-sentence, as though their mind is trying to protect them from revisiting old pain. Others may talk quickly, circling around the topic really quickly, but never quite address the real issue, because they do not know how to explain. Moments like forgetting what they wanted to say, laughing in the middle of describing something painful, or suddenly going blank are not random. They are survival strategies that are carried into adulthood.

This is where a trauma-informed approach matters most. The therapist sees these patterns as resistance or avoidance and considers them as echoes of ways the person once found a sense of survival in the past. A trauma-informed approach helps individuals to be taken care of with patience, understanding, and curiosity. Over time, the therapy room can become the first place where trust is established, where stories can be shared, and where new ways of being can slowly take root.

But what can be missing in everyday life and even the therapy room is that trauma is rarely visible at first glance. Such manifestations may initially appear normal or may go unnoticed. This is why careful and thoughtful assessment is essential.

How do clinicians assess childhood trauma?

We might think assessment is more like ticking boxes, especially in the therapy concept. But it goes beyond that. We can think of it as a pair of glasses that allows the details of the experience to be seen in the therapy room, so that the therapist can form a whole picture. Clinicians often begin with the biopsychosocial model, which involves considering the body, mind, relationships, and the social world in which a person lives. Because trauma is contagious, it doesn’t sit neatly in one area of life. For example, it can show up in sleep patterns, physical health, emotions, and even in the way someone connects with others. A careful assessment takes all of these layers into account. 

Equally important is the story you tell. Trauma is often carried in memories, in silences, or even in the way someone avoids specific topics. Giving you the space to share your narrative, in your own words and at your own pace, can reveal as much as any standardized measure. However, that doesn’t mean structured tools have no place. Standardized questionnaires and psychological tests can help us map out symptoms, highlight patterns, and provide a baseline. For example, self-report measures on anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress can help track change over time. Still, these tools are always interpreted in context. A score on a scale is only meaningful when it is based on your narrative and current circumstances.

Shortly, during therapy, assessing trauma is one of the core things that therapists do. However, it is not a diagnosis in the narrow sense, but rather about understanding how past experiences persist in your body, emotions, relationships, and in everyday coping mechanisms. A trauma-informed assessment recognizes that behind every symptom there is a history, and behind every history there is a person who has carried it for a long time.

Takeaways:

  • Trauma is not just about what happens to us; it’s also about how we perceive and respond to it. 
  • When an experience overwhelms us and exceeds our coping skills, it threatens our sense of safety and control, leaving us helpless and frightened.
  • Childhood traumas affect children’s behavior because they lack the tools or resources to understand overwhelming events. These adaptations may help temporarily, but often persist into adulthood, affecting relationships, choices, and self-perception.
  • Trauma can manifest years later in unexpected ways, often visible in therapy. Assessing trauma is a key part of therapy, not a diagnosis, but a way to understand how past experiences affect the body, emotions, relationships, and coping strategies.

References:

  • American Psychiatric Association. (2014). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing.
  • Cloitre, M., Stolbach, B. C., Herman, J. L., van der Kolk, B., Pynoos, R., Wang, J., & Petkova, E. (2006). A developmental approach to complex PTSD: Childhood and adult cumulative trauma as predictors of symptom complexity. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 22(5), 399–408. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.20444
  • Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(98)00017-8
  • Hart, H., & Rubia, K. (2012). Neuroimaging of child abuse: A critical review. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 52. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00052
  • Jones, E. (2017). The psychology of killing: The combat experience of British soldiers during the First World War. Journal of Contemporary History, 41(2), 229–246. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009406062070
  • Kardiner, A. (1959). Traumatic neuroses of war. Hoeber.
  • Kempe, C. H., Silverman, F. N., Steele, B. F., Droegemueller, W., & Silver, H. K. (1962). The battered child syndrome. Journal of the American Medical Association, 181(1), 17–24. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1962.03050270019004
  • Kira, I. A. (2001). Taxonomy of trauma and trauma assessment. Traumatology, 7(2), 73–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/153476560100700202
  • Kumari, V. (2020). Adverse childhood experiences and mental health. The Lancet Psychiatry, 7(5), 389–390. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30123-6
  • Lamont, A. (2010). Effects of child abuse and neglect for children and adolescents. Child Family Community Australia Paper. Australian Institute of Family Studies.
  • Leeb, R. T., Paulozzi, L. J., Melanson, C., Simon, T. R., & Arias, I. (2008). Child maltreatment surveillance: Uniform definitions for public health and recommended data elements, version 1.0. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
  • Norman, R. M. G. (1989). The concept of traumatic neurosis: A historical perspective. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 34(7), 698–705. https://doi.org/10.1177/070674378903400710
  • Pfefferbaum, B., North, C. S., & Flynn, B. W. (2014). Research on the acute impact of disasters on children and their families. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 49(4), 288–296. https://doi.org/10.1177/070674370404900502
  • Ruppert, F. (2014). Trauma, fear, and love: The cause and effects of trauma and bonding. Green Balloon Publishing.
  • Terr, L. C. (1991). Childhood traumas: An outline and overview. American Journal of Psychiatry, 148(1), 10–20. https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.148.1.10
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