Trauma happens to almost everyone at some point in their lives. But what happens to the rest of your life when it occurs during your childhood? Believe it or not, childhood trauma can leave behind scars that may get worse well into adulthood—if you don’t get help for it. The long-term effects of childhood trauma can vary from minimal to severe, depending on the person. That’s why it’s important to know its impact, so you can take steps to get the help you need if it all starts sounding familiar.
The Source of Trauma: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
When you experienced trauma in childhood, it means a scary, violent, or life-threatening event happened to you between ages zero to 18. On the other hand, your trauma also could have come from the environment you were raised in, or even witnessing a traumatic event happen to someone else.
Most of these childhood trauma experiences fall under what the mental health community defines as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). According to the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, it’s estimated that over 60% of adults in the United States have had past exposure to ACEs, with emotional abuse being the most common. Examples of ACEs include:
- Substance abuse within the family
- Mental illness within the family
- Physical, verbal, emotional, or sexual abuse
- Witnessing school or community violence
- Experiencing a serious accident
- The loss of a loved one
- Physical or emotional neglect
- Experiencing poverty or homelessness
Adverse childhood experiences are incredibly challenging for you as a kid to cope with when they happen. Yet as an adult, they’re often still hard to cope with on your own. And the more ACEs you have, the harder it gets—setting you up for a number of damaging long-term effects of childhood trauma.
Are You Experiencing the Effects of Childhood Trauma Today? It Depends
The consequences of childhood trauma may or may not linger into adulthood. For some, they can, and for others, they subside beforehand. The circumstances around the traumatic event itself can determine the long-term impact of childhood trauma. These major influences include:
- The event’s level of severity
- Whether the traumatic event impacted someone close to you or not
- How your caregivers reacted to the trauma (did they support and understand you?)
- Experience with past trauma prior to the event occurring
- Whether you received support or backlash from your community
If the event was (1) severe, (2) involved a loved one or close friend, the effects of childhood trauma are more likely to linger into adulthood. The same goes if your (3) caregiver and (5) community didn’t provide support or proper attention to you at the time, or if you’d (4) dealt with other ACEs prior to the traumatic experience.
Grappling With the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma
As you experience childhood trauma, your brain and body go through physiological reactions that can alter the course of your life. If the ACE was influential enough, there are a number of long term effects of childhood trauma that you can experience as an adult:
Long-Term Health Consequences of Childhood Trauma
Behind the scenes, childhood trauma can produce a wave of changes inside your body. You automatically shift into fight-or-flight thanks to a sudden increase of stress hormones. However, as childhood trauma stays unprocessed, it can continue to keep you in this elevated state. Over time this produces long-term consequences. Some of the health symptoms of childhood trauma in adults that you can develop include:
- Substance abuse and addiction
- Stroke
- Heart disease
- Cancer
- Obesity
- Diabetes
Emotional Effects of Childhood Trauma in Adulthood
Of all the long-term effects of childhood trauma, its impact on your emotions may be the most consequential. The emotional and psychological damage that childhood trauma generates can leave you unable to cope well. As a result, you can experience a number of debilitating emotional concerns, such as:
- Increased fear
- Loss of interest in activities you enjoy
- Self-destructive behaviors
- Anger or aggression
- Lack of trust in others
- Appetite changes
- Poor self-esteem
- Anxiety
- Increasing thoughts around safety or death
- Suicidal ideation
Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma in Your Everyday Life
As your physical and mental well-being get negatively affected by your lingering childhood trauma, it can spiral into your daily functioning and future trajectory. The volatility and instability that childhood trauma stirs up can cause a number of problems in your everyday life, including:
- Poor academic or job performance
- Ongoing relationship issues with friends, family, and significant others
- Difficulty keeping routines
- Difficulty fulfilling personal responsibilities and daily tasks
Overcoming the Consequences of Childhood Trauma at Sana at Stowe
If you can relate to the long-term effects of childhood trauma in your own life (especially addiction and substance abuse), what should you do? It’s important to know that you can overcome your trauma—as well as its consequences—with professional help. At Sana at Stowe, our New England-based dual diagnosis treatment program takes a holistic, trauma-informed approach to your healing. That means we can directly address your childhood trauma as well as your addiction and mental health struggles simultaneously. If you’re ready to move forward with life on your terms (and not trauma’s), get in touch with us today.
