Are These Your Childhood Trauma Symptoms?

As long as those with post childhood trauma symptoms in adulthood continue to be diagnosed with labels that only partially address their life experience and perspective, or worse, are given completely erroneous diagnoses, they will continue to live on the outside peering in. That is unacceptable on so many levels.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), “Patients sharing the same diagnostic label (diagnosis) do not necessarily have disturbances (problems, symptoms) that share the same etiology (the cause, set of causes, or manner of causation of a disease or condition) nor would they necessarily respond to the same treatment.”

If we approach this logically then the reverse might also be true.

 Patients sharing the same etiology (cause) do, necessarily, share the same diagnostic label (diagnosis) and would, necessarily respond to the same treatment.                              Let’s take a look at the commonalities amongst adults with post childhood trauma symptoms in adulthood. Due to dissociation you may not have even identified the following issues. When the following behaviors crop up you may either blame external sources such as your mate, relative, boss, co-worker, your child, etc. Or you may assume they indicate an inherent defect in yourself. They are neither. They are symptoms of the lingering effects of chronic childhood trauma.

Following are the first three of the eleven listed in WORTHY: A Personal Guide For Healing Your Childhood Trauma:

• We have a vicious inner-critic. No matter how well we do in any area of our life we continue to berate ourselves in comparison to others. We are never “good enough.” Personal criticism shreds us and often sends us into an emotional tailspin. A criticism is never just another person’s opinion to us, as our triggers lie so near the surface, tightly enmeshed with our core survival instincts which have been finely honed since childhood.
• We are incapable of emotional intimacy. At our very core we have assimilated that to reveal our flaws and weaknesses to another is tantamount to requesting they reject and abandon us. We live with the false belief that if we told people what we really want and need and what we don’t want, they would not remain with us. As children our feelings and needs were rarely, if ever, considered. We learned to disconnect from the hurt and disregard of that fact, by disconnecting from our own emotions. We now have no idea how to reconnect. The mere thought of tuning into our feelings is an Amityville Horror in the making.
• We are incapable of sustaining long-term feelings of self-love and self-acceptance. We seek approval, significance, and signs of self-worth from outside sources. Some ways we choose include: possessions, degrees, an attractive partner, a prestigious job or career, through our children’s accomplishments, the aesthetics of our body, fame or infamy. Our need for significance is so strong that we are as willing to meet it negatively as we are positively. Some negative ways we employ are: being unfaithful to our partner, living beyond our means in order to impress others, lying to impress or manipulate others, creating drama, moving more often than is necessary, choosing hurtful or illegal activities that give us a false sense of power.

Despite how painful it can be to read those descriptions of our inner landscape, the good news is we are not alone. We are not inherently defective, as we had come to believe. If that is true then we are also wrong that we are not lovable. Although we fragmented to survive as children, all the parts are still there. There is a path to wholeness. I have walked it and I can take you there. 

Available at Amazon  >  Worthy: A Personal Guide for Healing Your Childhood Trauma

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Copyright ©2018 Josephine Faulk, MPH. Excerpt from WORTHY A Personal Guide For Healing Your Childhood Trauma by Josephine Faulk,MPH.  Available, along with accompanying Workbook, on Amazon.