Childhood Trauma

Childhood trauma is an emotionally painful, frightening, and distressing event. It can be abuse, neglect, severe family dysfunction, or surviving a natural disaster. No matter the circumstance, it leaves its mark on a person.

As an adult who survived the childhood trauma of my father’s suicide, I attest to the fact that survivors experience mental and physical health challenges, as well as relationship struggles.

 The good news is that we are not destined to remain traumatized victims of our past. Instead, we can acquaint ourselves with our patterns that we acquired during our survival mode and learn from them.  Repeated behaviors are easiest to spot because we repeat them.  

Why some survivors are motivated to notice unhealthy patterns of thought or behavior while others do not is not something I can explain. I can only say that we’ll tune in if and when we see its value. Tuning in helps us to learn that we can’t expect to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome. 

Truthfulness became paramount for me the moment Mom did not tell me the truth about my father’s death. Strange as it may seem, her fabricated story about his death motivated me to find out the truth. Ever since then, I’m the kind of person who hates to be duped. Lying to me is the worst thing anyone can do to me. 

Truthfulness is a great quality. But I cannot demand it from anyone. Doing so only creates relationship difficulties. I have to keep two things in mind when I feel my passion for truthfulness taking over. First, I have to remember it is not a life-threatening situation. Second, not everyone believes that truthfulness is paramount in their life. 

Why Bother?

Why bother learning from childhood trauma? Maybe childhood trauma is something we’ll always remember because there is always something to learn from it.