Learning how childhood trauma does affect adulthood relationships provides you the necessary insight to heal.
Childhood Trauma Does Affect Adulthood Relationships
The trauma, or wounding, you experienced growing up especially in your relationships does naturally affect your relationships in adulthood.
Fundamentally, trauma growing up impacts the way you see yourself, others, and life in general. When someone mistreats you, abuses you, or neglects you growing up, you will naturally personalize this as a child. Often, the child picks up the message that there is “something wrong” with them authentically.
Trauma Changes the Way You See Yourself
Trauma makes a child believe that there is something wrong with them that made another person hurt them. This belief while mistaken is understandable.
When a child decides, they are “not enough” or they are “too much,” they will naturally make up they need to change how they interact with others to fit in.
This is completely understandable because the need to belong is inherent for us as human beings. Historically, we couldn’t survive without belonging – and it’s literally harmful to our health to be lonely.
Your beliefs about yourself naturally though impact how you interact with others. Examples of this include:
- Struggling with perfectionism out of the belief you must be perfect to be accepted or loved,
- Putting up walls with others because you no longer feel safe with or trust others,
- Becoming a people pleaser because you’re afraid if you’re honest people won’t like you,
- Developing a pattern of being in toxic relationships,
- Struggling to communicate effectively,
- Not being able to set boundaries,
- Feeling like you don’t love yourself,
- Developing codependency which means acting as if you’re inferior to others or superior,
- Having a short fuse with others,
- Becoming anxious, anxious-avoidant, or avoidant in your attachment style rather than the goal which is securely attached
Not Feeling Safe Connecting with Others
Attachment theory explains how we feel close to other people. If we have enough safe experiences with reliable, kind people growing up this leads to a secure attachment style.
Unfortunately, childhood trauma negatively impacts your ability to feel safe. This is especially true if you experienced chronic, or complex, trauma such as living in an abusive home or having an absent parent.
When you don’t feel safe with others, you naturally behave differently in your adult relationships.
Putting Up Walls with Others
Some people to try to feel safer put up walls with others. They may ghost people rather than communicating. They may struggle to have empathy or even seem narcissistic at times.
These people who put up walls often feel “numb,” “cold,” or “robotic” towards others as well. They may often put up walls too not only emotionally but literally by not being available to others. They may throw themselves into work, hobbies or outside relationships including affairs to create distance from their partner.
These people who fear intimacy have an avoidant attachment style.
Terror of Abandonment and Desperate Clinging
Other people, to try to feel safer with others will lose themselves trying to make others happy. They decide that if they hide all their needs, wants and boundaries from others than they don’t have to risk rejection.
As a people pleaser, they are terrified of upsetting others or others being mad at them. They often feel a lot of guilt as well even for having emotions such as anger towards a loved one. They may also cling to a partner who logically they know isn’t right for them or mistreats them. They are more afraid of being alone or receiving nothing than receiving mistreatment. They often believe that “getting crumbs” from someone is better than getting nothing at all.
These people have developed an anxious attachment style. (Some people also develop a combination of these styles and are anxious-avoidant. Commonly, these people will desire a relationship but then feel “bored” quickly. They may also self-sabotage.)
Confirming Your Beliefs
Trauma, as mentioned earlier, impacts the way you see yourself.
Sometimes, a person decides they are “less than” others.
Other times, a person to cope with their pain decides they are better than others. This can be for any reason including being more attractive in their minds, smarter, funnier, richer or even better at being “bad.” (Note: This type of narcissistic presentation is considered “vulnerable” narcissism and is different than those people who genuinely believe they are better than others.)
Whatever a person decides about themselves, they then seek out people who see them the same way they see themselves. For instance, a person who thinks they are superior wants to date people who never say “no” to them. Or a person who thinks they are “not good enough” will seek out people who mistreat them as this mistreatment is familiar.
Changing What You Believe to Change Your Adult Relationship Patterns
This psychological phenomenon of seeking relationships with others who see you the way you see yourself is supported by social verification theory.
Fortunately, you can heal the way you see yourself, your attachment style, and how you interact with others. Building your self-awareness around your beliefs, and your patterns, is a great way to heal. To support yourself, please work through the provided worksheet:
If you want to download this worksheet as a pdf please sign up here:
You Absolutely Can Heal from Trauma and Have Healthier Relationships
While childhood trauma does impact our ability to connect well with others in adulthood, it is completely possible to heal.
Please take your time with the above worksheet and then when you’re ready for the next step in your healing, please read the following resources:
- Dating with Trauma: What You Need to Know
- Can You Heal Trauma on Your Own? 4 Clear Steps to Heal
- Healing Childhood Abandonment Trauma on Your Own
- The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma
- Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery: Applying the Principles of Polyvagal Theory for Self-Discover, Embodied Healing, and Meaningful Change
- Setting Boundaries: 100 Ways to Protect Yourself, Strengthen Your Relationships and Build the Life You Want Starting Now!
