Those who experienced childhood trauma of any kind can experience problems into adulthood. Whether there has been emotional or physical abuse, those who experience childhood abuse often find ways to cope with the neglect or abuse and it can make dealing with situations as an adult more difficult. If you have experienced childhood trauma, speaking with a mental health professional and visiting a therapist often can help you work through your past and put you on a better path for the future. Ogden Psychological Services wants to help adults and children alike overcome mental challenges. 

What Is Trauma?

Childhood trauma is more often than not classified as abuse and neglect. This is the most common type of trauma, but other experiences can cause issues into adulthood. Other traumatic events that can affect mental health and physical health are:

• Natural disasters
• School violence
• Intimate partner violence
• Commercial sexual exploitation
• Accidents or life-threatening illness
• War experiences
• Military family stressors
• Sudden loss of a loved one

Stability, Guilt, And Shame

Common problems that those with childhood trauma experience are finding stability, guilt, and shame. These usually result from being made to feel less than or guilty as a child that carries into adulthood. This can be a struggle they have for the rest of their life and hard to break through.

Shame can often come from themselves even after they have left the toxic childhood situation because of the trauma. Trauma disrupts the stability and the child’s sense of safety, which can fracture their reality and cause these thoughts of shamefulness can carry into adulthood, relationships, jobs, and more. 

Attachment Issues

Because of the lack of attention during childhood, these adults often have unhealthy attachment styles. Some of these attachments can include

• Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment
• Fearful-Avoidant Attachment
• Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment

These styles may lead to fear during intimate relationships, avoidant attachment to family or children, and require ongoing validation. These attachment styles often come with a difficulty expressing emotions in a healthy way which can cause communication issues as well. 

Mental Health

Complex childhood trauma affects the whole body and mind. It usually presses its way forward whether patients want it to or not. Abuse or neglect can lead to mental health issues such as personality disorder, depression, anxiety, and other mental health diagnoses. 

Those young children that have experienced trauma may start to show signs of mental health issues around elementary school age. This can come in the form of isolation, not connecting with peers, behavioral changes, loss of previous skills, academic difficulties or older children may act riskier. These behaviors can continue into adulthood or cause them to lose out on opportunities such as graduating high school, making friends, or enjoying hobbies that can help enrich the lives of adults. 

Loss Of Childhood Memories

A sign of childhood trauma is the inability to recall childhood memories. Those who have high ACEs scores had significant gaps in childhood memories. While the distant past may seem fuzzy to some, some children with extreme abusive pasts and continued abuse could develop multiple personality disorders, more commonly known as Dissociative Identity Disorder which has major amnesia when alternating between different personalities. 

Chronic Illness

Traumatic experiences can manifest themselves in our bodies as chronic illnesses and other health problems. Those children who may have experienced sexual exploitation had a higher risk of cancer diagnosis and those who experienced multiple kinds of trauma were found to have other heart, liver, autoimmune diseases, and chronic headaches. 

Healing With The Help Of Therapy

For those who experience health problems because of childhood trauma, medication may not be enough. Therapy combined with medication can help get adults who experienced trauma, back on track. Adults who are not sure if they have experienced trauma can still benefit from talking about it in therapy. 

Ogden Psychological Services offers trauma therapy for patients who have experienced any kind of trauma. We help to create individualized plans for each patient and work to achieve your goals. Our therapists use many techniques and apply the best methods to help your specific situation. If you feel our office and therapy practices could be right for you, contact us today to set up an appointment.

Sadness is a common feeling that accompanies other mental health issues, including depression and grief. While there is overlap between sadness, grief, and depression and they can often accompany one another, they are different mental health challenges. 

Knowing more about each one can help patients seek the right kind of therapy and improve their thinking. While it may be easy to feel, sadness, grief, and depression should not be self-diagnosed and can be helped through therapy. 

Stages Of Grief

Grief usually begins after a loss, death, end of a relationship, financial loss, or major life change. Many of which are traumatic. It is very personal and can change from situation to situation and from person to person. There are 5 common known stages of grief that present in most patients, but other models may say there are 7 or more. Grief comes with feelings of sadness and depression that may last longer or shorter than expected. 

Denial- The first step in the grief process is denial that the situation is occurring or happened at all. This can look like the acceptance stage of the grief process at first, but dealing with the situation is the only way to get over grief. This stage can also include shock or the shutting down of cognitive processing. 

Anger- This stage is used to mask the feelings of sadness, depression, and true loss that the person may be experiencing. It may seem easier to be angry at something than to face what is really going on. Some patients focus their anger on inanimate objects, other people, or themselves. It also presents itself as bitterness and resentment. 

Bargaining- Statements such as “what if” or “if only” tend to come out during this stage. This is a mechanism to help the person regain control or have a sense of control. Those who are religious may also try to bargain with God to try and make a deal to let them live or relieve the pain. Some people may say “If only I had done ______, then this wouldn’t have happened.” 

Depression- Although this is a stage in the grief process, those who are clinically depressed may have different symptoms than those who are in the grieving process. Depression can be difficult and messy and will often be the landing point of any loss. Depression can come from a deep feeling of not knowing what the next steps are or fear of the unknown. 

Acceptance- The final stage is acceptance of the loss. While this is the final part, it may not come with happy or uplifting feelings. Over time, happier feelings may come, but just because someone reaches the acceptance stage, does not mean they will not experience sadness or moments of weakness. Acceptance is looking at the situation as moving forward and that there are more good days than bad. 

Symptoms Of Depression

Unlike grief, depression does not need a situation or trigger to present itself. Those with depression can have everything in the eyes of the beholder and still feel intense sadness. A diagnosis of depression can save a life and help the sadness to be less debilitating. 

Symptoms of depression include:

• Feelings of sadness and hopelessness
• Reduced appetite and weight loss
• Feelings of guilt and worthlessness
• Frequent thoughts of death or suicide
• Unexplained physical symptoms (headaches or back pain)
• Slowed thinking
• Loss of interest in normal hobbies

For many, this can lead to a decline in academic performance, child neglect, drifting away and straining relationships, struggle to keep a job, and being miserable without really knowing why. Depression is also extremely common in the postpartum period after a woman has given birth. 

Between children, teens, and adults, symptoms can vary. Although some instances may seem normal, depression should not be taken lightly and signs should be considered detrimental. Skipping school, or poor performance can be more than just an act of rebellion and should be cause for concern. 

When To Seek Help

Living with depression is hard for people of all ages. Those with suicidal thoughts should seek help immediately, and if your grief seems like too much to bear on your own, there is help available. Therapists and counselors can listen to your concerns and help you work through feelings of helplessness. 

If you are a parent and suspect that your child may be dealing with symptoms of depression, there is just as much effective therapy means for younger children. If you and your family have experienced grief, therapy can be helpful in limiting childhood trauma and teaching healthy coping mechanisms for young minds. 

Therapy With Ogden Psychological Services

We are here to help patients feel at ease and cope with hard life situations with a focus on their unique needs. Our therapists can work with those who have mental health diagnoses or other issues. We have experience treating people of all ages and work to develop goals that are attainable. 

You can count on us to help you feel comfortable in our office, while also putting in some hard work to improve your mental situation. We believe that everyone can grow and change with hard work and cognitive therapy. Ogden Psychological Services also offers Neurofeedback therapy which can help to reframe your thinking. You can view more about our services on our website and read faqs. Fill out a contact form to get started today.