Attachment with Parents (Part 4/4)

Your past helps define you as the per­son you are today. While it may feel like your child­hood was long ago, the attach­ment with par­ents, grand­par­ents, or kin, whether good and bad influ­enced you and shaped you into the per­son you are today. Child­hood trau­ma relates to a trau­ma or neg­a­tive life expe­ri­ences that hap­pened to some­one in ear­ly child­hood. The most com­mon form of child­hood trau­ma is abuse or neglect. There are also cer­tain inter­ac­tions or lack of inter­ac­tions between a child and their pri­ma­ry care­giv­er that can lead to child­hood or attach­ment trau­ma. Let’s learn more about the signs of unhealed attach­ment trau­ma and how to move for­ward.

Signs of Unhealed Attachment Trauma

The Comparison Game

Some­one who has attach­ment trau­ma, espe­cial­ly unhealed attach­ment trau­ma, is also like­ly to have low self-esteem. Indi­vid­u­als with this type of trau­ma may have felt like they were con­stant­ly crit­i­cized or com­pared against their own sib­lings, class­mates, or peers. Since this was a com­mon occur­rence as a child, it’s com­mon­ly brought into their adult­hood with­out even real­iz­ing it.

Lack of Boundaries

Bound­aries are essen­tial in any type of healthy rela­tion­ship. Indi­vid­u­als who expe­ri­enced trau­ma in their child­hood may not know how to set bound­aries or set bound­aries that are either too loose and gen­er­al or too firm. Peo­ple with bound­aries that are either nonex­is­tent or too loose have been used to let­ting peo­ple treat them with no respect. Peo­ple who have too firm of bound­aries may be doing so to pro­tect them­selves.

Relationship Struggles

Child­hood trau­ma can also hurt the rela­tion­ships that are formed with oth­ers while grow­ing up and into adult­hood. There may be a fear asso­ci­at­ed with get­ting too close to peo­ple. This can make it hard­er to form and build rela­tion­ships. While avoid­ance is com­mon, anoth­er com­mon sit­u­a­tion is jump­ing in and out of rela­tion­ships. Some indi­vid­u­als may have a hard­er time being alone, and they’ll try to fill any empti­ness they may have to prove that they are love­able.

How to Move Forward

Now that we’ve learned about a few of the signs of unhealed attach­ment trau­ma let’s learn more about how to move for­ward. No mat­ter when the trau­ma occurred, mov­ing for­ward is pos­si­ble. These are a few of the dif­fer­ent ways that you can start.

Allow Yourself to Feel

One of the best ways to move for­ward is to admit to your­self and acknowl­edge your dif­fer­ent thoughts and feel­ings. Allow­ing your­self to feel can help you process those thoughts and emo­tions and move for­ward. The longer you con­tin­ue with­out pro­cess­ing those emo­tions, the longer you’ll be stuck in the past.

Be Open and Honest

Not only should you be open and hon­est with your­self, but you should aim to have this same lev­el of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with oth­ers. This can be eas­i­er said than done for some­one who has a past of attach­ment trau­ma. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is a human essen­tial. It’s just as impor­tant as food, water, and shel­ter. Try to get out of your com­fort zone and prac­tice com­mu­ni­cat­ing with oth­ers. This will help you devel­op healthy social skills to build healthy rela­tion­ships mov­ing for­ward.

Seek Additional Support

You may not be able to change your past, but you can change your future. Dr. Brad­ford Stuc­ki, a licensed and trained men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al can help you move for­ward in your life again. He will work with you to get to the root cause of your unleashed trau­ma, help you cope with the signs and symp­toms you’re expe­ri­enc­ing, and be able to cope and heal. Set up a con­sul­ta­tion to learn more about trau­ma ther­a­py and how we can sup­port you as you move for­ward.

Reach Out Today to Set Up a Con­sul­ta­tion