Breaking Our Borders Episode 16- Childhood Trauma in Adult Relationships

 Welcome back! I’m Dr. Michelle Border and in today’s episode I’m going to talk more about how childhood trauma affects us as adults. When we have a childhood of abuse, neglect, or trauma we find coping mechanisms to try to reduce the pain of trauma. These survival methods are typically carried over into adult relationships, usually with unhappy results, and we hold borders in our minds that affect our happiness. Let’s get started breaking those borders now. 

Transcript

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Welcome back. I'm Dr. Michelle Border, and in today's episode, I'm going to talk more about how childhood trauma affects us as adults. When we have a childhood of abuse, neglect, or trauma, we find coping mechanisms to try to reduce the pain of that trauma. These survival methods are typically carried over into adult relationships, usually with unhappy results, and we hold borders in our minds that affect our happiness. So let's get started breaking those borders now. But what many of us don't realize is that what happened in our past greatly influences what will happen in our future. All experiences during childhood create our soft concept, coping behaviors, and personality traits. When we experience childhood trauma, we produce behaviors, borders in our minds, and coping mechanisms that can hinder our success in life with career, relationships, and personal happiness. As adults, we have several types of relationships we're involved in romantic, friendship, coworkers, and family. In episode 13, I discussed what it takes to have a healthy relationship. Communication, respect, trust, boundaries, and support are some of the key qualities of healthy relationships. Childhood trauma survivors typically were not allowed to express their emotions or needs, and probably were not taught how to do so in a positive way. Communication was either non-existent in the home or done through aggression, yelling, and accusatory or demeaning words. As children, we learn a lot through experience and examples taught to us by adults in our life. If our experience is negative behaviors, that's what we learn. Then as adults, we are expected to communicate in calm, positive ways when we have no idea what that looks like. In episode eight, I discussed communication skills to help you have effective discussions. It is a skill that can be learned, but requires breaking down some of those borders in our brains to perfect it. I had borders in my mind that my feelings were not valid, and therefore did not deserve to be talked about. As a child, I was taught to stay quiet, not cause problems for others with what I needed or wanted, and I carried that mentality into my adult relationships. When I felt unhappy with something going on, I would stuff it down inside and ignore how I felt. This caused me to build resentment because the other person didn't care about how I felt, when they really had no way of knowing how I felt because I didn't communicate it. There were some times when I would try to communicate how I felt, but in some relationships was shut down by the other person, like my mother did, saying I was too emotional, too needy, or taking it all wrong. This would trigger my memories of my mother's treatment, and I would get quiet and believe my feelings didn't matter again. When a person's voice isn't heard or is criticized, they begin to not trust that if they do express their feelings, then the other person will listen without judgment. So they stop being open to that person, which hinders the relationship. For a person with this type of personality, they may have taken on traits of people pleasing, silencing their own needs, and ignoring any dysfunction around them. They are often classified as codependents because they depend on the other person in the relationship to provide for their emotional needs. A codependent person is someone who exhibits an excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner, often enabling dysfunctional, abusive, or addictive behavior from the partner while neglecting their own needs. They typically have low self-esteem, poor boundaries, and a compulsive need to caretake or control because of their self-worth formed in childhood connected to being needed. This type of person has made their emotions invisible and hoping that by being good, perfect, and making others happy, they will be recognized and their feelings will be made important. Kind of thinking like, if I do it for you, then you will do it back for me. The problem is, often the giving is not reciprocated, and this person is left with still wanting recognition, acceptance, and affection. When they do not get their needs met time after time, they are left thinking they didn't do it right. They need to figure out what others want and how they can be more perfect, so they are given what they need. It's a vicious cycle of trying to make things right with others when they really need to be making things right within themselves. They seem to be the ideal person you would want to have a relationship with, always giving, always making you happy, always thinking of what you need. But eventually all this giving may catch up with them, and they will become burnout on being the giver. They can start to feel resentment and start to dissociate with the people who are always taking from them. They don't see that they are worthy of having their needs met too, have the border in their mind that the only way to get their needs met is to meet others' needs first, and this often leads them to becoming codependent and in relationships with people who are selfish, avoidant, or narcissistic. These personality types will use a codependent as long as the codependent will allow. And without counseling or mental health help, the codependent will allow it for a long time. I was this type of person until I was about 40. It was then that I started my healing journey and was shown that my worth did not depend on validation from others. Other people may have the opposite reaction. They may be more aggressive and assertive in having their emotions heard. They may be more demanding in having their needs and wants fulfilled by the other person in the relationship. This could be that they do most of the talking, they only see their opinions as being right, and think everyone should go along with what they want without compromise. They may seem selfish, commanding, and unbending in making a healthy relationship. Some may have an avoidant attachment personality, emotional unavailability, or have narcissistic traits. These types of personalities struggle to make connections within relationships because they are either afraid to make the connection or they don't know how. Childhood trauma survivors are often still in survival mode when they become adults. Their brains have been altered to feel like they are in a fight or flight response all the time. So when they enter into relationships of any kind, their mind is still in that protective state. It is difficult for them to be open and vulnerable with their feelings because when they tried as a child, they were met with rejection, dismissal, or told they were wrong for feeling that way. They learned early on to shut down their feelings or dissociate so that they didn't experience emotions at all. I knew a person who told me that dealing with the pain of trauma was so hard to handle as a child that they had to completely turn off any emotions they experienced, and therefore did not feel any emotions as an adult. It greatly impacted all of their relationships in a negative way, causing them to be unable to make bonds in their relationships. These people often react to others' needs with anger or aggression because they do not know how to positively interact with emotions. So they typically do what was done to them as children. They ignore, reject, or lash out against what the other person is feeling. As a child, I was treated this way by my mother. I have encountered many relationships in adulthood where people have treated me like she did, saying things like, you're too sensitive, you took it all wrong, or I was just joking, can't you take a joke? These are excuses for their behavior where they do not know how to handle your emotions, so they blame you for not having the right ones. This is a coping mechanism for their own trauma, but will cause them to continue to have unhealthy relationships if they don't recognize and deal with this behavior. There can be various levels of each of these types, the codependent, avoidant, and narcissistic, but these are general types of personalities as a result of childhood trauma. Oftentimes, a codependent type will be attracted to an avoidant or narcissistic personality type. The codependent has a need to fix or take care of others to make them happy. The avoidant or narcissist personality wants someone to take care of them, make them feel good about themselves, and focus all attention on them. The two feed off each other's coping methods, which strengthens the unhealthy aspects of their personalities. The codependent continues to work towards making the other person happy, while the avoidant or narcissist continues to take while giving little in return. This cycle of one giving and the other taking will continue until one breaks the cycle, typically the codependent, and stops allowing the unhealthy relationship to continue. As adults, we have to decide what we are going to do in our future with a career, family, and home. At the age of 18, we are now able to make decisions for ourselves about the path our life will take. Those decisions will be deeply affected by the way we were raised as children. During our childhood, we should be given opportunities to explore experiences that allow us to find out what we're good at and what we enjoy doing sports, musical pursuits, art, social groups, etc. These give us a chance to discover what we enjoy doing and what we're good at, and possibly how that may turn into a career. In dysfunctional homes, there are not usually a lot of opportunities for these experiences. This may be because of a lack of money to support these activities, or the parent doesn't show interest in the child experiencing these activities. Without these experiences during childhood, an adult may struggle to know what interests them and take jobs just because they are available, not because they enjoy the work, and then may switch between jobs often because they are unhappy with the positions. They may figure out later in life what they really want to do for a career, but by then may be financially strapped to debts and support their family so they can't quit their job and get training for a new career. Being stuck in a job that you're not happy with can cause more anxiety and depression, especially if that job doesn't provide enough money to sue or your family comfortably. Another problem with choosing a career is that trauma survivors often have low self-esteem and lack confidence in their abilities. Years of being told they were worthless, criticized for their choices or actions, and told they generally are bad at everything can cause an adult to think they're not smart enough or talented enough to pursue college or career training. The dream they have for their future seems unreachable. With no one to offer support and encouragement during the teen years to show them they are capable, they take whatever job they can get. And like I mentioned before, it probably won't be something they enjoy. In high school I intended to go to college, took college prep classes, and wanted to be a photographer. When the results of my PSAT test came back, my guidance counselor told me I didn't score well and probably shouldn't think about going to college. I did not have encouragement from my family either, so I doubted I would make it in the college world. I did take one semester of courses after high school, but decided it wasn't what I really wanted to do because I didn't feel like I would be successful there. Years later, after working in different positions that I didn't enjoy, and having my first son, I decided I wanted to be able to provide more financially for my family, and at age 28 went back to college to become a teacher. My son, and the upcoming birth of my second son, spurred motivation in me to complete my degree. I was fortunate that my ex-husband and I could manage finances and care for our sons while I went back to school. It was definitely worth it, but not something a lot of people have the confidence and determination to do, or the financial means when coping with childhood trauma as an adult. Another factor of adult life that can be impacted by childhood trauma is parenting. Many people repeat behaviors they see from their parents, even if they didn't like what they saw, experienced, or heard. This is why the cycle of trauma is passed on from one generation to another. We learn what we live. Some people will do the opposite of their parents or learn different methods, but oftentimes we don't even realize that we have learned certain behaviors from our parents and end up repeating them. We grow up thinking that what happens in our world is normal, that this is how everyone lives, that things that happened in our homes happened in everyone else's too. Unless we are shown differently, taught differently, or recognize within ourselves that it's not, we will repeat many of those patterns. We may make the same mistakes that our parents made by using unhealthy parenting methods and cause our children to suffer from some of the same issues we carried into adulthood from our own trauma. I've heard people say, it was good enough for me, so it's good enough for my kid. But was it? Some people don't want to look within themselves to see if anything is wrong in their own behaviors. This may be because they don't want to relive the pain from their childhood, or they don't want to do the work to improve what needs mending. Childhood trauma, from whatever source, abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction, can cause multiple negative effects on its victim, effects that carry over into adulthood and make an impact on your mental, emotional, and physical health. These effects can also impact your relationships, success, and your children. The only way to reverse these effects is to acknowledge what has happened, accept that you have been impacted by trauma, and seek healing. This can be done by seeing a counselor, reading self-help books, listening to mental health podcasts, or getting support from trauma groups on social media. I hope you will continue to listen to my podcast for more information and healing tips on childhood trauma. Please check out my website at breakingarborders.com for suggested self-help reading and journal prompts to help with your healing. I'm going to add one to go along with this episode to help you think about what you may have brought into your adulthood due to childhood trauma. Be sure to follow me on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Thanks for listening to