It’s easy to believe that children heal rapidly from trauma or adverse life events. Children often seem very resilient. Trauma recedes into the past, and you grow up and go on living your life. Right?
In reality, it’s not always that simple. The impacts of childhood trauma on your brain development and function are more likely to follow you into adulthood. When negative symptoms start to affect you, you may not connect them right away to the childhood trauma from your past. However, it’s often the case that you can only heal by going back to those negative formative experiences.
Dr. Ronald P. Winfield and the team at Greater Lowell Psychiatric Associates, LLC, of North Chelmsford, Massachusetts, support you as you unpack the connection between past trauma and present-day symptoms. We use a variety of methods to allow you to process your childhood experiences, including psychotherapy. We can also help you stimulate new neural growth in your brain with treatments like TMS, creating new pathways for your thoughts, feelings, and reactions.
Trauma can refer to a variety of experiences that can result in harmful impacts. Physical sources of trauma may include injuries, childhood illnesses, or violent discipline. Emotional trauma may arise from child abuse, sexual assault, or loss early in life.
Some adults have no doubt that they went through trauma in childhood. Others may not be sure. Disruptive experiences or life events like a move, a divorce, a house fire, or a car accident can leave lasting damage that you may not realize continues to affect you.
One way to unpack your childhood trauma history is to look at your brain today. You may be affected by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), complex PTSD, depression, or anxiety as a result of your past experiences. Understanding the connection is the first step of improving your mental health.
During childhood, your brain develops and changes more rapidly than it ever will again. You learn, make connections, and build knowledge. Experiencing trauma typically impacts this process for the worse. Here’s how.
Your brain function isn’t static. As you use your brain, it forms neural pathways that strengthen over time. Trauma can prevent healthy pathways from forming in your brain. It can also leave you trapped by unhealthy patterns, habits, and behaviors that, due to past trauma, register for you as normal.
Could your struggle with opening up emotionally relate to emotional neglect in childhood? Or, you may pathologically avoid advancement at the workplace due to anxiety rooted in childhood insecurity. If you notice that you experience negative mental health symptoms or mental or emotional challenges beyond the norm, childhood trauma could play a significant role.
While it’s true that trauma damages the brain, you should also know that treatment and healing can bring new brain growth. It’s not too late to recover from your childhood trauma. The growth you missed as a child can be made up now, in adulthood.
Your provider at Greater Lowell Psychiatric Associates ensures that you don’t go through this journey alone. With expert advice and knowledge, Dr. Winfield and his team identify and provide treatments and therapies that assist with your recovery.
Simply talking about your past experiences with a counsellor can make a big difference. When you speak to a therapist about past traumas, you release old ways of thinking and being and move forward. Brain-retraining treatments like EMDR or TMS may also help you move past old wounds and finally heal.
Reach out to Greater Lowell Psychiatric Associates online or over the phone today and schedule your first appointment now.
