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It is difficult to recover from trauma no matter when it happens. However, if adversity occurs during childhood, it can be particularly difficult to overcome. Unlike adults, children have very little control over their environment. If a child lives in an abusive home, their ability to withdraw from that environment is extremely limited, while an adult will usually have more emotional and financial resources to escape.
During this time, children are still learning what healthy relationships look like and how to cope with difficult situations. If a child grows up in a home where abusive behavior is the norm, it can skew their understanding of what is and is not acceptable in a relationship. Even when trauma is inevitable, such as death in the family or serious illness of a family member, children still develop their coping skills, making it even more difficult for them to understand what has happened. pass.
So how can adults who experienced adversity in childhood deal with this trauma now that they have grown up?
How to measure your childhood trauma
the Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) quiz, is a measure of childhood trauma. The test itself is short – just ten questions – and examines family adversity as it grows up, including physical or sexual abuse, neglect, and family members with mental health or substance abuse issues.
The higher the score, the more likely a person is to developing chronic health problems in adulthood, such as anxiety, depression, diabetes, asthma, cancer, obesity, coronary heart disease, and substance abuse. People who score 4 or more have a significantly higher risk than those who did not experience adversity as children.
If you have a high ACE score, knowing that these early experiences can negatively impact your health and well-being as an adult can be quite overwhelming. However, it is very important to remember that your ACE score is only a indicator of what you’ve been through, no guarantee of what your future will look like.
“Just because a person has had multiple ACEs doesn’t mean that later problems are inevitable, it just makes them predisposed,” said Genevieve Rivera, executive director of the American SPCC, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating parents and preventing child abuse. “We have strategies, practices, tools and routines that can help us reconnect our brain and our body. ”
Start by seeking professional help
“If you have a history of trauma, if you had a hard time growing up, what you can do is get in touch with support in advance,” said Melissa Goldberg-Mintz, clinical psychologist and founder of Secure Database Psychology, PLLC. “It’s something you can do preventively. ”
For people with high ACE scores, there is a high likelihood that they will develop problems such as PTSD, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, anger, and suicidal impulses. That’s why it’s essential to be proactive in finding the mental health care you need. “It’s really important to have a professional in your area to guide you,” Rivera said.
Seeking help is often the first, most essential step in overcoming the lingering effects of childhood adversity, and it can serve as the foundation for building a healthy and functioning life.
Learn to recognize and develop healthy relationships
“The connection is the best medicine we have,” Goldberg-Mintz said. If a child who is going through adversity also experiences a warm and loving relationship, whether a parent, grandparent, or guardian, this will often provide a protective buffer against the development of problems. later in life. “The best way to deal with emotional pain is to connect with people we feel strongly about,” she said.
However, adults who did not experience a romantic relationship as a child can still work on developing healthy relationships later in life, which can help avoid some of these outcomes. Humans are social creatures. We crave connection, and if we don’t get it, our mental and physical health can suffer. Understanding what healthy relationships look like and what the boundaries and expectations of those relationships should be.
Make your physical and emotional well-being a priority
Since adversity in childhood can lead to a number of chronic health problems later in life, whether physical or mental, it is important to focus on taking care of your well-being. physical and emotional.
“You want to make sure that your basic needs are met,” Goldberg-Mintz said. This includes getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy diet, and connecting with others. “If your basic needs are not met, you will be more vulnerable to these poor results. ”
This can be difficult, especially because conditions like depression and anxiety make it particularly difficult to get enough sleep or exercise, the more you can focus on your own physical and mental well-being, the better. ‘is.
Build your resilience
Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from adversity. Some children who experience adversity are able to develop resilience, while others have more difficulty. “Research shows that even a single supporting parent figure in a child’s life goes a long way in helping them build that resilience,” Rivera said.
However, for those who struggled to develop resilience as a child, there is still room to develop these skills in adulthood, and that comes down to seeking professional help and focusing on building those healthy relationships. Resilience has a way of naturally developing when we do these things.
“We all have resilience within us, but we have to work to build it,” Rivera said. “Research has actually shown that our bodies experience a positive biological response when we are surrounded by healthy relationships.”
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