Childhood Trauma: Can Someone Feel Like A Child When Their Childhood Trauma Is Triggered?

There are likely to be moments in every adult’s life when they will feel like a child. When this takes place, it could be said that they will have regressed to an earlier stage of their life.

During this time, someone may feel scared, powerless or helpless, with it being irrelevant that they are actually an adult. What this could show is that something in the external world has ended up overwhelming them.

Too Much To Handle

Another way of looking at it would be to say that they will have lost touch with their adult self and have merged with their child self. The child that they once were will still live inside them and it will be with them until their time on this earth comes to an end.

So whether they have regressed or have simply merged with another part of their being, the experience will be the same. Before long, though, they could soon return to how they felt before.

The Reason

This could take place because what is taking place externally changes and this allows them to return to how they were before. Or, it could be because one has been able to soothe themselves, which has allowed them to feel like an adult again.

If it is not purely the result of their own efforts, they may have received emotional support from another person. What took place will be behind them and they will be able to carry on with their life.

Another Experience

However, although this is what can place every now and then for someone, it could be something that happens almost daily. Consequently, it is likely to have a very disruptive effect on their life.  

They may find that it is hard for them to stick to anything and they could often do things that have a harmful effect on them. The activities that they engage in will be a way for them to feel better.

A Different Scenario

In might be even worse than this, as they could feel like a child more or less all the time. From the outside, they will look like an adult, but they will generally feel like a traumatised child on the inside.

When it comes to how they feel, they could find that they are used to feeling powerless, helpless, hopeless, fearful, and anxious. Therefore, it is going to be normal for them to be all at sea emotionally and to have no inner control.

Looking Back

If they were able to reflect on how long their life has been this way for, they may find that it has been this way for as long as they can remember. Then again, they might not have experienced life in this way for very long.

This is not to say that they went from being emotionally stable to being completely emotionally unstable. But even if there were moments before when they felt like a child, it might not have been as consistent or as intense as it is now.

The Pivotal Point

If they have gone from experiencing life in one way to experiencing it in another, it could show that they experienced something that was traumatic. This could have been the end of a relationship, the loss of a job or a loved one may have passed on.

After this took place, they would have gone from generally feeling like an adult to feeling like a traumatised child. It might seem as though what took place was the problem and that if this hadn’t taken place, they would be fine.

The Trigger

This may appear to be so, yet there is a strong chance that what took place simply triggered what was already inside them. What this is likely to illustrate is that their early years were anything but nurturing.

This may have been a time when they were abused and/or neglected on a regular basis. Many years will have passed since that stage of their life, but the effect of what took place will have stayed inside them.

Hidden

To stay alive during this time, they would have disconnected from their body; losing touch with how they felt in the process. Additionally, numerous defences would have been created by their mind to keep their pain bay.

This would have allowed their conscious mind to forget about what took place, but their unconscious mind/body would have remembered. The lid wouldn’t have kept all of this inner material at bay, though, and this is why there would have been times when certain feelings and ‘irrational’ fears entered their mind.

The Time Has Come

Now that some of this trauma has come to the surface, they will have to deal with it if they want to truly put the past behind them and to live a life that is worth living. Putting up with it or running away from it won’t be the answer.

What took place wasn’t their fault and there was nothing that they could have done at this stage of their life to prevent what was taking place. As they are an adult, they now have the opportunity to do something.

Awareness
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If someone can relate to this, and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can take place with the assistance of a therapist or a healer.

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk