Over the years, I have learned that trauma can show up in a multitude of shapes and forms. Our negative experiences in childhood with our parents can trigger emotions of a traumatic moment or be a constant theme running repeatedly into our relationships with people, ourselves, and God.
I hope that this guide will be a great resource on navigating trauma in your life and to be a catalyst to your healing with grace and simple truth.
What is Trauma?
Trauma is a distressing event or a series of events in a person’s life that negatively impacts their relationships, physical, spiritual, and mental well-being.
Some of the symptoms of trauma include:
- Death of loved one
- Neglect ( emotionally or physically) of a parent’s love, affection, approval, and presence
- Sexual ( rape, incest)
- Emotional affliction ( emotional incest, trauma dumping)
- Oppression to a group of people or person
- War, discrimination
Types of Trauma
Childhood Trauma
Childhood trauma is an accumulation of traumatic situations and experiences that affected how a child related to their child-like self in the early years of childhood. Children who go through harmful events may repress these experiences for a variety of reasons. But life experiences and stressors may cause a child to re-live the trauma again in adulthood.
Signs of Trauma in adulthood
- Poor communication
- Fight or flight mode
- Insomnia
- Triggers/flashback
- Intrusive thoughts
- Projection
Emotional Trauma
Emotional trauma is any traumatic event that negatively affects how you process your emotions. Emotional trauma includes when a toxic mother who carries emotional baggage passes her trauma onto her daughter. The emotional trauma can sometimes manifest itself as trauma dumping. The dumping is a behavior that is learned as an unhealthy coping mechanism tactic.
Read related post:How Toxic Mothers Use Emotional Trauma: What You Should Know Now
Emotional trauma can also look like a a parent that is unavailable or is emotionally insecure due to undeveloped ( emotional immaturity) coping skills to deal with their own emotional trauma.
Signs of Emotionally Immature Parents
Emotionally unavailable
- Playing hot and cold
- Emotionally distant ( silent treatment)
- Avoiding intimacy
- Passively listens to you
- Quick to judge or condemn you
- Does not want to know you
Emotionally insecure
- Empaths that take people’s emotions as their own
- Manipulate others to fulfill their emotional needs
- Non-communicative of their wants/needs
- Constant need for validation and reassurance
- Perfectionist
Related post: Signs of Childhood Trauma to Look for in Adulthood
Sexual Trauma
Sexual trauma are painful or traumatic experiences that negatively affected you sexually. You may have experienced molestation several times, and each time felt tremendous pressure to subject yourself to sexual acts in early childhood.
You may have also been pressured to keep painful sexual encounters a secret, which cause you to feel powerless and worthless. Sexual trauma left unhealed are an open doorway to living life to prove that you are powerful ( e.g., being promiscuous, prostitution, etc.) or the other extreme; repressing your sexual feelings because the memories make you feel dirty.
The Causes that you need to know
Lack of self care of your emotional boundaries
You learned to not self care your emotional boundaries with your emotionally immature parents. God wants us to love ourselves by desiring good things for our minds, body, and spirit. This is where boundaries come in to protect your spiritual man ( the gates to your soul, body, and spirit) and practicing self-care of your emotions, thoughts, and will.
You are emotionally mature when you have learned to be fulfilled emotionally with God (13 Emotional Needs) and loving people where they currently are emotionally, rather than looking for them to give you what you need. Only God can meet all of your emotional needs.
We can never look to men for help [save our soul]; no matter who they are, they can’t save us, for even our great leaders fail and fall. They too are just mortals who will one day die. At death the spirits of all depart and their bodies return to dust. In the day of their death all their projects and plans are over. But those who hope in the Lord will be happy and pleased! Our help comes from the God of Jacob!
Psalm 146: 3-5
The generational trauma cycle continues when you are not able to change your way of thinking, live with God’s grace, and apply simple truths to your life which is to seek to abide in Jesus and to continually be fruitful ( grow spiritually mature) with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Applying wisdom to your life is critical to maintaining your healing and freedom journey in the Lord. If left unattended, abandonment triggers or other symptoms may manifest.
Here are some symptoms of trauma when you neglect to apply godly wisdom to your life:
- Unprocessed childhood trauma/mother and Father wounds
- Guilt, regret, shame
- Lack of boundaries/ not able to say no
- Feelings of sacrificing yourself
- Body shaming issues
- Self-criticism
- Depression
- Repressed anger
- Lack of identity ( always seeing yourself in your children)
- Perfectionism ( religious mindset)
- Inability to nurture your child/ Attachment issues
- Anxiety/ Fear
Never learned Your Emotional Identity in God
Your parents never taught you to secure your emotional identity in God. Emotional identity is being able to recognize your emotions, how it affects your emotional well-being, and your sense of how you see yourself. There are several core emotional needs that mothers should provide in their daughters.
When you misplace your emotional identity into your parent’s expectations of their wants and needs you can develop codependency traits. You may not be able to process your own needs because you have been conditioned to people please, live in shame and guilt to secure your attachment with your parent.
Never learned to secure your emotional availability
Your parents never taught you to secure your emotionally availability with those that are emotionally mature. In life it is important to invest your time, talents, and emotional availability with those that God has called you to or has shown that they are emotionally equipped and available to share their life with you. Emotionally immature parents lacked the ability to consistently be available to show you these critical life skills.
Looking for personal Coaching? I offer FREE 15 minute coaching sessions for those experiencing trauma. Book a session here
