However, some people can't remember anything or only remember limited events from their childhood before age 12. In this case, memory loss may be due to traumatic events. Childhood trauma can lead to dissociative amnesia, where a child dissociates during a traumatic event to protect themselves from its impact.
During this period of innocence, however, researchers have discovered that traumatic experiences such as abuse and neglect are quite common. Kids who experience childhood trauma may not remember such negative experiences from a young age, but a new documentary called Resilience reveals that their bodies do.
Studies show that babies can recall traumatic events, particularly those that occur during the first year of life. While they may not remember the exact details of what happened, they can retain a feeling of the experience, shaping their behavior and responses later.
Some clinicians theorize that children understand and respond to trauma differently from adults. Some furthermore believe that childhood trauma may lead to problems in memory storage and retrieval. These clinicians believe that dissociation is a likely explanation for a memory that was forgotten and later recalled.
In some cases, your brain can change bad memories to shield you from the aftereffects of pain, abuse or trauma. It's a kind of “voluntary-but-invisible” forgetting that's very effective.
The answer is yes—under certain circumstances. For more than a hundred years, doctors, scientists and other observers have reported the connection between trauma and forgetting. But only in the past 10 years have scientific studies demonstrated a connection between childhood trauma and amnesia.
Read an old letter, personal journal, or newspaper article. Listen to an old song that you or someone in your family loved. Cook a meal your mom or dad used to make for you. Smell something that may jog your memory, like a book, pillow, perfume, or food.
Trauma-induced changes to the brain can result in varying degrees of cognitive impairment and emotional dysregulation that can lead to a host of problems, including difficulty with attention and focus, learning disabilities, low self-esteem, impaired social skills, and sleep disturbances (Nemeroff, 2016).
Learning problems, including lower grades and more suspensions and expulsions. Increased use of health and mental health services. Increase involvement with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Long-term health problems (e.g., diabetes and heart disease)
Not remembering trauma can be a coping mechanism, which is when the brain protects someone from experiencing the intense feelings associated with memory. So instead of a clear, detailed memory, someone may have gaps or only remember vague sensory aspects, like a color or smell.
Some of the most common signs of childhood trauma are: fear, including fear when being separated from a parent. frequent crying or tearfulness. regressive behavior, or returning to an earlier stage of development — also a sign of stress.
Trauma can have a serious effect on babies and toddlers. Many people wrongly believe that babies do not notice or remember traumatic events. In fact, anything that affects older children and adults in a family can also affect a baby, but they may not be able to show their reactions directly, as older children can.
Traumatic events are a direct threat to a person's wellbeing. When confronted with trauma, a child may not have the ability to cope with the experience. While very young children may not remember specific events they do remember emotions, images and can be reminded of situations that cause them to be upset.
Trauma Blocking: Driven to Distract After a painful experience, some people may choose to face their feelings head-on while others would rather forget. The latter can manifest as trauma blocking, where someone chooses to block and drown out painful feelings that hang around after an ordeal.
Unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, relationship problems and physical symptoms like headaches or nausea are some of the ways that unresolved trauma can manifest, according to the American Psychological Association.
Without treatment, repeated childhood exposure to traumatic events can affect the brain and nervous system and increase health-risk behaviors (e.g., smoking, eating disorders, substance use, and high-risk activities).
In fact, young children between the ages of 0 and 5 are the most vulnerable to the effects of trauma since their brains are still in the early formative years.
Signs of PTSD
To determine whether you or a loved one may have PTSD that stems from childhood trauma, the following are some of the more common symptoms: Reliving the event over in your mind or nightmares. Becoming upset when there's a reminder of the event. Intense and ongoing fear, sadness, and helplessness.
Traumas like physical and emotional trauma often lead to PTSD which on average, affects roughly 8% of Americans. PTSD can typically be a lifelong problem for most people, resulting in severe brain damage.
Individuals with childhood trauma show much more depression, anxiety, distorted cognition, personality deficits, and lower levels of social support, which may represent the social and psychological vulnerability for developing psychiatric disorders after childhood trauma experiences.
Conversely, trauma—abuse, neglect, exposure to violence, lack of attachment, and other adverse childhood experiences—affect the structure and chemistry of the brain and can stunt its natural growth and maturation.
The trauma inflicted in childhood changes the way a person connects with others. It can introduce a sense of shame or lack of self-worth, which can cause you to form relationships in unhealthy ways. For some people, this might take the form of making unhealthy attachments with unsuitable people.