How Does Complex Trauma Affect Child Development?
Adults generally don’t remember their childhood at this current point in time, but that doesn’t mean that the things that they experienced have completely left their mind’s eye. Quite on the contrary, what you go through as a child will stay with you without a shadow of a doubt, especially if the experiences in question were the least bit traumatic. In this article, we are going to address the issue of complex trauma and its effects on child development, especially in the context of attachment with a caregiver or a parent.
You see, developmental traumas can occur when a child has a lived experience that gives them any degree of negativity. This can be as simple as getting spoken to harshly, but the other end of the spectrum reveals some truly frightening horrors that can cause symptoms that require immediate care. One such symptom is a constant cycling between states of hyperarousal and hypoarosual. Hyperarousal refers to when someone is extremely active and responsive to stimuli, and they might also be overly sensitive to them which will be quite easy to see. Hypoarousal, on the other hand, is used to describe an inability to perceive stimuli no matter how much effort is placed into the task at hand.
Trauma during childhood can impact interpersonal relationships for adults. They might have trouble trusting anyone at all, and as a result of the fact that this is the case, they will struggle to form connections that will help them grow and learn. Everyone needs a support system, but it can be downright impossible to have when you are incapable of trusting the people that are all around you. A large percentage of people in trauma recovery can also see flashbacks that will occur while they are sleeping in the form of dreams or potentially even while they are awake in the form of hallucinations.