When it comes to mental health issues, we find ourselves wondering why we feel a certain way. Then, the question of how and when the issue began naturally follows and garners our attention.
It’s a logical line of thinking. Understanding the roots of a problem can initially offer us some comfort. After all, this knowledge can be quite helpful when taking steps to address our problems.
Take chronic anxiety, for example. It can be challenging to discern a cause-and-effect. But have you ever considered the potential role of childhood drama in the development of your anxiety?
Common Causes of Anxiety
Stress at work or school or via a personal relationship
Grief, loss, and mourning
Financial problems
A side effect of medication
Substance abuse
Stress-related to a medical illness
Childhood trauma
Of course, countless variations and combinations exist in the realm of causes. For now, we’ll focus on the last one on the list because it’s not always identified in connection to chronic anxiety.
Childhood Trauma and Anxiety
When analyzing the long-term impact of childhood trauma, the focus will justifiably be on experiences like neglect, abandonment, or abuse. Keep in mind, however, that trauma is relative. This is true on a person-to-person basis. It’s also true that child perceives events differently than adults. Their brains are more malleable and thus, susceptible to input (real or imagined).
All this is to say that you don’t have to endure obvious childhood trauma to be scarred by it. If events felt traumatic to you as a child, they were — and thus have the potential to create — problems into your adult years.
Whatever the trauma, children find ways of coping. In the immature emotions of a child, these coping mechanisms are often dysfunctional, e.g.
Disconnection, detachment, and denial — leading to future physical or emotional illnesses
Self-blame — leading to overcompensating for imagined flaws
The anticipation of similar experiences as the norm — leading to anxiety
As a child grows into a teenager and then an adult, they will inevitably encounter a wide range of stressful life situations. The coping mechanisms they internalized as a child may be flawed or self-sabotaging. But it’s all they know, for now. It is literally part of their programming.
A recent study looked at connections between generalized anxiety disorder and childhood trauma. Brain scans showed a direct relationship between the two. Children can become wired to feel fear and sense danger even in the most benign of circumstances. The anxiety is virtually imprinted onto the child’s brain and hence, is not something that can be wished away with only self-help or pep talks.
Childhood trauma is now considered a risk factor for high rates of aggressive behavior, depression, suicidality, PTSD, and chronic anxiety in adulthood. It should come as no surprise that roughly one-third of people now develop some kind of anxiety by age 18.
Getting to the Root of Your Chronic Anxiety
An important step toward recovery in adulthood is feeling safe. This is why therapy is so widely recommended for anxiety caused by childhood trauma. Your counseling sessions can be where you start to re-wire your brain’s perception of danger, threats, and stress. Even when medication is prescribed for childhood trauma victims, psychotherapy is also part of the treatment.
Therapeutic goals might include:
Identifying the pathways and triggers of your anxiety responses
Recognizing how trauma was stored in your body
Developing the tools you need to balance your emotions
Revising how your automatic patterns work and respond in both stressful and calm times
You have been struggling for a long time. Isn’t it time you take the important step toward healing?
Please read more about anxiety treatment and reach out for a consultation, we’re here to support you.
