14 Signs of Repressed Childhood Trauma in Adults

Why Do People Repress Traumatic Childhood Memories?

Most experts view repressed memories, or dissociative amnesia, as a defense mechanism to protect from the intense emotional pain and distress associated with those experiences.^{1, 2, 4, 6} Repressing childhood trauma helps the individual cope and function in daily life without being overwhelmed by trauma.^{3, 4, 6, 7} It is an involuntary response and not a conscious decision someone makes.^{2, 3, 4}

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) identify the types of trauma incidents proven to deeply impact a person’s mental and physical as an adult.^{5, 6} Individuals with high ACE scores are at an increased risk of having memory loss related to their trauma.^{5, 6}

ACEs that can result in repressed childhood memories are:⁵

• Physical abuse
• Sexual trauma
• Incest and sibling sexual abuse
• Emotional abuse
• Physical neglect
• Childhood emotional neglect
• Family history of mental illnesses
• Divorce or separation from a parent
• Family history of addiction or substance use
• Violence against one’s mother or caregiver
• Having a family member incarcerated

14 Signs of Repressed Childhood Trauma in Adults

Even when repressed, childhood trauma can often manifest in problematic ways later in life. In fact, some researchers believe that this defense mechanism can take a toll on both a person’s mental and physical health.^{2, 6} This may help explain why one’s repressed memories can often reemerge as different illnesses, relationship or trust issues, and unhealthy lifestyle choices.^{2, 5, 7}

Here are fourteen common signs of repressed childhood trauma to watch for in adulthood:

1. Missing Time or Lost Memories

Most children over the age of three start to develop memories that they can later recall in adulthood. However, trauma survivors may not be able to access these childhood memories.^{3, 4} Some survivors have unconsciously blocked out weeks, months, or even years of their childhoods. This is often the result of a child dissociating from a traumatic experience.^{1, 3, 4, 6, 8}

Dissociation involves detaching from your thoughts, feelings, or even your body and is a frequent occurrence in trauma survivors.^{6, 8} People who dissociate may struggle more than others to remember specific details of a traumatic event.^{1, 8} Dissociative amnesia is known to affect over half of those who have experienced sexual abuse and incest, including sibling sexual abuse.^{2, 6, 8}

2. Feeling ‘Flooded’ When Reminded of the Trauma

Repressed memories can often be recovered when a person encounters something that reminds them of a traumatic event, such as familiar sights, sounds, or scents.^{2, 3} When this happens, it’s typical for a person to feel emotionally flooded by the memory and the difficult feelings associated with it.^{6, 8}

Being flooded by a traumatic memory can cause someone to experience:^{1, 6, 8}

• Feelings of ‘reliving’ the traumatic experience
• High levels of anxiety or panic attacks
• Strong urge to escape from or avoid the trauma trigger
• PTSD flashbacks or uncontrollable memories that replay in the mind
• Strong negative emotions like disgust, anger, shame, or grief

3. Black & White Thinking

Black-and-white thinking is another byproduct of unresolved childhood trauma. This kind of cognitive distortion reflects the mind’s way of labeling things or people as either good or bad. Black-and-white thinking is also a defense mechanism people may use to make quick decisions during times of stress.^{6, 7}

Black-and-white thinking can cause many problems for a person including:^{2, 6, 9}

• Extreme mood swings
• Overreactions
• Impulsivity
• Erratic relationships
• Difficulty emotional regulation

4. Trust Issues

Many people who have experienced childhood trauma develop trust issues that continually affect their relationships in adulthood. Those who were betrayed, abandoned, abused, or neglected as children often expect others to repeat these patterns.^{7, 9} This mindset can lead one to avoid pursuing new relationships or push away loved ones, becoming hyper-independent because of the trauma. Trust issues often negatively influence a person’s closest connections, including romantic partners, family, and friends.^{2, 6, 9}

5. False Memories

According to research, trauma survivors frequently ‘misremember’ events from childhood.^{2, 3, 4} False memories are not stories a person makes up to get attention; rather, they’re things one vividly remembers happening to them despite never actually occurring. Some experts believe that false memories are the mind’s way of trying to ‘fill in the gaps’ left by episodes of dissociative amnesia.^{2, 3, 4}

6. Mental & Physical Health Conditions

Those who have experienced childhood trauma are 2-5 times more likely to suffer from a mental or physical illness.^{3, 5} Childhood trauma can also lower a person’s immunity, increasing the risk of infections and illnesses.^{5, 6} Additionally, survivors are more susceptible to chronic health conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and autoimmune disorders.

7. Substance Use & Addictions

People with a history of childhood trauma are more likely to struggle with addiction as a way to cope with unresolved emotional pain.^{5, 7, 9} These behaviors serve as a temporary escape from the distressing memories and emotions associated with their past trauma. The addictive substance or behavior provides a numbing effect, allowing the individual to avoid confronting and processing painful experiences, thereby keeping the trauma repressed and unaddressed.

8. Insecure Attachment Style

Many childhood trauma survivors struggle to form lasting, healthy, and stable relationships. Often, these issues can be due to attachment trauma that develops from neglectful, abusive, absent, or inconsistent caregivers. This can manifest as intense fears of abandonment and trust issues. One may also be excessively controlling, exhibit a pattern of shutting down, or push people away.^{2, 6, 7, 9} Over time, these behaviors will adversely impact one’s relationships.

9. Low Self-Esteem

Many trauma survivors blame themselves for what happened to them as children despite having no fault. While self-blame may offer someone the illusion of having control over future traumatic experiences, it often leads to low self-esteem.^{2, 6, 9}

Low self-esteem can manifest in many ways, including:

• Feelings of shame and inadequacy
• Excessive need for external validation
• Poor boundaries or inability to stand up for oneself
• Making poor decisions or life choices
• Perfectionism, or inability to accept flaws and mistakes
• Persistent self-criticism or negative self-talk

10. Mood Swings & Chronic Stress

Unresolved trauma can lead to a build-up of toxic stress that continues to impact a person into adulthood. Many survivors will experience strong emotions, mood swings, and overwhelming stress. Experts believe that this is largely because trauma can rewire the developing brain, affecting regions associated with stress, fear, and emotion regulation. Over time, this can make people more susceptible to fear and other difficult emotions.^{2, 6, 7}

11. Inability to Focus

Repressing memories usually isn’t deliberate, but it still requires mental bandwidth. When someone’s mind is working to repress trauma, one may experience an inability to focus.³ This can lead them to become easily distracted, forgetful, and disorganized. While many attribute these symptoms to ADHD, they can also be linked to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).¹

12. Revictimization

Trauma survivors will often engage in revictimization, or repetition compulsion, which is the act of repeating actions and behaviors associated with one’s experiences. This tendency is largely unconscious in nature but can result as a consequence of unresolved trauma.^{6, 9} In short, what a person fails to address will often negatively impact their choices in the future.

Some of the ways that trauma survivors may re-victimize themselves include:^{2, 7, 9}

• Choosing abusive, neglectful, or dysfunctional partners and friends
• Self-destructive behaviors that keep one from reaching their goals
• Neglecting physical or emotional needs
• Unhealthy sexual behaviors that mimic past traumas related to sexual violence
• Harming or abusing others
• Allowing others to abuse them

13. Dissociative Episodes

People who have repressed traumatic memories from childhood may also suffer from dissociative episodes. In these moments, one may lose touch with themselves or reality and are more likely to occur when a person is overwhelmed, upset, or triggered. However, episodes can affect a survivor at any time. Many who dissociate as adults begin this behavior early on in childhood as a way of coping with situations they couldn’t avoid or escape.^{1, 3, 6, 8}

Here are some of the signs of a dissociative episode:^{1, 8}

• Feeling emotionally numb or detached from feelings
• Having an out-of-body experience (i.e., seeing yourself from above)
• Losing sense of what’s real
• Unintentionally blanking or zoning out
• Being in a dream-like state
• Trouble remembering actions, people, or places

14. Avoidant Behavior

Trauma survivors often exhibit avoidant behaviors by evading certain people, places, situations, or things that trigger traumatic memories. For example, some survivors may refuse to communicate with family members or visit their hometown. They may also avoid discussing certain topics, especially ones related to their childhood.

When to Seek Professional Help

The passing of time doesn’t always heal unresolved childhood trauma, but therapy and treatment can. Grow Therapy is an online therapist directory that can help you do a detailed search for professionals who specialize in trauma based on location, insurance accepted, and type of therapies offered. If you prefer to see a therapist remotely, BetterHelp or Talkspace provides therapists who specialize in trauma-informed care.

If you are struggling with more severe PTSD symptoms, you may want to explore PTSD medication options. Online psychiatry services such as Brightside Health provide more comprehensive care for individuals who experience childhood trauma.

Here are some signs that indicate you should seek professional support for repressed childhood trauma:

• Flashbacks, nightmares, or repeated trauma-related intrusive thoughts or memories
• An inability to function, focus, or complete basic tasks
• Intense panic attacks, irritability, mood swings, or depressive episodes
• Thoughts or urges to act in reckless or self-destructive ways
• Frequent or serious PTSD-related dissociative episodes that you can’t control
• Other negative PTSD symptoms

8 Free Worksheets for Trauma Healing

This collection of worksheets provides practical tools and strategies for managing trauma symptoms.

 

 

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Treatment for Healing Repressed Childhood Trauma

While there isn’t a proven method of retrieving repressed memories, there are many different types of therapy for trauma that can help people process the trauma they do remember and possibly unlock repressed memories.^{2, 3, 4} When combating childhood trauma, it’s important to choose a therapist who specializes in trauma-informed therapy.

Here are some evidence-based treatments for addressing trauma to explore:⁶

• Cognitive processing therapy (CPT): CPT helps a person to process and understand the trauma they went through and to reframe negative thinking patterns and cognitions they adopted because of the trauma. CPT is a subtype of CBT that was specifically developed to target and treat trauma.
• Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): EMDR for PTSD reprocesses traumatic memories by utilizing brain mechanics and eye movement to help your brain desensitize and recategorize traumatic memories. EMDR does not always require a person to directly discuss their trauma and tends to be a more short-term treatment compared to other approaches.
• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): CBT for PTSD focuses on processing the trauma and understanding the negative beliefs and unhelpful thinking patterns developed because of the trauma. CBT often focuses on the present instead of the past, and provides tangible exercises to practice between sessions in order to reinforce what was discussed during sessions.
• Somatic therapy: Somatic therapy focuses on the body and healing the mind-body connection to release trauma from the body, whereas other forms of therapy often place more emphasis on the cognitive aspects of trauma and healing. Since it is common for a person to disconnect from their body as a way to cope after experiencing trauma, this can be helpful to regain connection to all aspects of a person’s experiences.
• Accelerated resolution therapy: Accelerated resolution therapy combines rapid eye movement and cognitive reprocessing in order to heal repressed childhood trauma. Accelerated resolution therapy tends to be shorter-term than many other approaches, and it does not require the individual to share what they are processing out loud to the therapist.
• Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP): KAP combines psychotherapy with the pharmaceutical drug ketamine in order to help a person move through stuck points within their healing journey. KAP is currently one of the only active treatments that approach healing by altering the mind state and activating other areas of the brain that would not normally be firing.
• Narrative exposure therapy (NET): NET focuses on helping a person to create an account of their traumatic experience and how it has impacted their life afterward. NET focuses on helping a person to heal by telling their story and taking charge of how they would like the rest of their story (i.e., their life) to unfold moving forward.
• Prolonged Exposure therapy (PE): PE is a type of exposure therapy that exposes a person to triggers and memories in order to reduce a person’s avoidance and to build their confidence and resiliency moving forward. PE not only focuses on the story of what happened but is also a very active form of therapy where people are faced with things that increase their stress levels so that their nervous system can learn that triggers and memories do not pose an actual threat to them.