"Did I Have A Traumatic Childhood?" 10 Signs of Childhood Trauma | Psychotherapy Crash Course

hey guys it is tiamara thank you so much for coming back to my channel welcome back today we're going to be talking about the 10 signs that you have had a traumatic childhood you know this topic is a topic that has made me considered one of the experts on the topic of childhood trauma and one of the reasons why is because i'm internationally certified as a trauma therapist but then also because i talk a lot about this everywhere i do speaking engagements last year i did a couple of speaking engagements throughout the nation and most of my topic centered around childhood trauma it's an issue that happens a lot in families and sadly it's an issue that gets ignored it gets hidden it gets minimized and a lot of children grow up under very unhealthy parents and then they try to emerge as adults and that is a very difficult process for them because they lack the psychological and emotional stability that other children growing up had so i'm going to talk about that today but i'm going to try to keep it to 10 things that highlights that you have grown up under childhood trauma so let's just go ahead and jump into this topic thank you so much for coming back to my channel for those who are subscribed and for those who are new to the channel i encourage you to hit the subscribe button so you can stick around with us and be a part of our growing community and validating community i love everybody that comes to this channel they are insightful intelligent open um they are they are what's the word not careless but um they are a very self selfless that's the word i'm looking for guys very selfless they're very selfless subscribers and they have a community oriented mindset and i think that's what has built this channel to be what it is so if you're interested in that kind of mental health environment i encourage you to stick around with that subscribe button if you don't know who i am let me go ahead and briefly introduce myself my name is tamara and i'm an internationally certified and board-certified trauma therapist but i'm also licensed in mental health and i focus on a specialized group of people on children's children teams and families but i also work with adults who are dealing with grief loss and trauma so you're gonna get a lot on this channel as you can see right around me um everything i talk about on this channel centers around trauma so that's what you're gonna get let's just go ahead and jump in so um childhood trauma i want you to think of childhood trauma as something that um impacts you in a way that doesn't allow you to grow and develop and be free-spirited as you would otherwise children when they come into this world they expect that their parents are going to protect them and love them and care for them and they expect that they're going to get fed and they're going to have their basic needs met they also expect love and compassion and when they don't get those things guys that's when the trauma begins when the parent is negligent when the parent is abusive when the parent is sociopathic or psychopathic and i talk about those particular topics right up here in these videos and i encourage you to go ahead and click on those after this video is over and learn a little bit about the psychopathic mother and the psychopathic father and i talk about their specific characteristics and what you need to be aware of because i think a lot of people that come to my channel they're looking for trauma-informed psychotherapy and so when you go to those topics the path the psychopathic mother and the psychopathic father excuse me you're gonna find specific characteristics in an abc format that can help you identify what has happened to you but i will say for children who are growing up in a in a traumatic environment they have a psychopathic mother most of the time and they have a psychopathic father most of the time if they have two normal parents normal parents then something else has gone wrong and i'm going to point out what those other things are the number one sign that you have grown up in a traumatic environment is lack of parental support and when i say lack of parental support i'm talking about substance abuse i'm talking about negligence male treatment i'm talking about an absent mother or father that left you behind without anyone to care for you physically and emotionally right i'm also talking about poor attachment so kids who are not securely attached securely attached to their mom or to their dad i'm talking about kids who are being raised in a um i'm i'm trying to say in a house full of turmoil i think that's the word i'm looking for um kids were raised in a house full of turmoil and chaos right kids who are raised under parents who are permissive these kind of parents really have no attachment to their kids to raise them they let them do whatever they want to do they're a dysfunctional parent parent-child uh household or a dysfunctional per-child relationship or a dysfunctional parental group if it's two parents right that's kind of being permissive the other thing too is personality disorders i think that there are a lot of parents who are lacking the ability to be parents and part of that is because they have not been raised correctly part of that is because they themselves have had a lack of parental support over the years so lack of parental support has a um has a wide reach you know it's not just i don't support you at school or i don't support your dating choices or i don't support you know something that you want to do this is a parent who does not support your basic needs the fact that you need love the fact that you need compassion and emotional and psychological stability the fact that you need to be fed and your basic needs met this is a lack of parental support parents who do not give their children support tend to be emotionally detached parents and emotionally immature parents they don't have the capabilities to be the parent that they need to be all right so lack of parental support the other thing that can uh cause a child to grow up in a very traumatic childhood is frequent guardians having frequent guardians now you know i believe in the families who um involve the grandparents and the grandparents helped to raise the child or the children and the aunts and uncles are great support networks i love that you know entrenched family system i think that is healthy for the child it gives the child a large repertoire of skills and experiences and those kind of kids tend to be very mature they tend to be a very artistic and creative so i think it's a healthy mix but when you have a child who is growing up under multiple guardians because mom was never around dad was never around dad was shooting heroin mom was prostituting so they left me with neighbors and cousins and grandparents and my uncles and my nephews right so a child who was growing up under um a constant changing of guardians and adult supervision that is a traumatic environment you know um the child is not being placed with these adult figures because mom and dad are going on vacation or you know because we have a very entrenched family system where we are very very um close-knit and and tight right no i'm talking about the parents who prostitute and do drugs and they leave their children with other people because they need to go do what they have to do right what they have to do that is what i mean so frequent guardians and a constant changing of guardians can create a very traumatic childhood just think about it every adult has a different way that they view life has a different set of expectations has a different view of you as a child and so they're going to treat you differently right maybe aunt susu is not going to treat you like uncle bo or maybe uncle bo is not going to treat you like grandma karen right or maybe just maybe you're going to get abused by uncle bo but you're not going to get abused by your cousin tiffany and so you're going through these roller coaster emotions and experiences and you're not being validated you're not being comforted you're not being taken care of you're not being protected it's traumatic okay so frequent guardians the other thing that i want you guys to think about is being forced to be separated from your parent and what i mean by this is being forced to be enforced to being separated from your close parent um and that could be through divorce it could be through rejection it could be through foster care and it could also be through adoption you're being placed in the foster adoption system because your parent is an unfit parent an immature parent an emotionally detached parent so you're being put in that system foster or adoption system okay you're being forced to separate from your parent that one that you latch on to naturally right the one that you share a genetic code with and an emotional tie with you're being forced to separate divorce and rejection so the parent could be a mommy dearest parent so the kind of mommy dearest parent that i talk about in this video right up here they can be really cold and detached and so they're rejecting of you and that rejection of you is forcing you to detach emotionally and psychologically from your parent and so that in and of itself is traumatic right and then divorce right divorce separates the kid from that parent that they're close to whether it's both parents or one of the parents um that could be very very traumatic i know my mom and my uncle had it really really hard when their mom and dad were my grandmother and grandfather divorced and it was difficult because my grandmother fell prey to alcoholism and i love her dearly i lost her uh this year and it's been very very traumatic for my family she did not have coronavirus thankfully but we were very very very very close to her nonetheless and my mom and my uncle struggled a lot during the funeral this year and and the burial and so forth but they also struggled a lot when my grandmother my grandfather separated and my grandmother my grandfather separated because of an affair that my grandfather had and it pushed my mom and my uncle into the arms of my grandmother who out of depression fell prey to alcoholism and my my grandfather went his separate separate way and had his new wife and and her children and then they had one kid together but my mom and my uncle were like in the middle of two households the household with my grandmother who was an alcoholic for years before she stopped drinking and then the lifestyle with my grandfather who had created this whole new world for himself and so that was a very traumatic experience for both of my my my mom and my uncle because they were forced to be in two different households they were forced to be in two different worlds that were so vastly different and so the constant switch and change and then the changes over time um you know really took a toll on the both of them and i think it still impacts them in in in many ways and i think that uh this is part of my own intergenerational trauma um it started way way way back with my own father my own you know my own grandmother's uh families but i think that intergenerational trauma fell uh into my mother and my uncle's lap um and i might talk about that a little bit more i know i talk about it up here in this video here guys so go ahead and check that out um but you know being forced to separate from a parent or both parents because of divorce can be very very traumatic okay the next thing that i want you guys to think about is homelessness and extreme poverty homelessness and extreme poverty can separate you as well because what it's doing is it's requiring the parent to make a decision am i going to be homeless and take my children out onto the street to be in the dirt and the soil and the fatigue and the changing weather conditions in the dangerous atmospheres that i'm going to have to sleep in am i going to take my children into that scenario or am i going to place them in foster care or adoptive care or am i going to place them with a family member or a close friend who could care for them right so we have that angle of it then we also have extreme poverty where kids are being raised in households where they don't have food they go to bed hungry they wake up hungry they go to school they eat and then they go home and they're hungry for bedtime they're hungry for morning time right they don't have food they don't have their lights turned on they don't have simple utilities um these kind of kiddos really struggle i had a kid years ago that came into my office for psychotherapy and he would come to me this is when i worked with school districts i was contracted with a k-12 school district and this particular kid came to my office and i just loved him loved him loved him and i love to hug him and i love to laugh with him and play games with him and you know sometimes i would give him snacks you know in the office because he was hungry and sometime i would let him just hang out on my couch and take a nap because he was tired you know but the extreme poverty in his household left him fatigued weak hungry and depressed and so he needed a lot more from me than counseling he needed food he needed clothing he needed a place to sleep and i provided that place to sleep and i provided those snacks for him and therapy for him was not only emotional and psychological it was also physiological too because he got a chance to take a short nap when i'm talking to him he got a chance to do a relaxation um tape where i put that on and he listened to it and he relaxed for like 15 minutes so you know this poor kiddo was in a house full of extreme poverty and then he ended up homeless and i lost touch with them because they left town and so forth but that kind of scenario if you guys can relate it's very very traumatic and i think we all have parents that struggle every now and then finances my family did and my family's um pretty good with income we all have really good jobs and really good careers but we still had moments where we struggled financially like that's just life that's who we are as humans so we can all kind of relate um but that extreme kind of poverty guys is something that just takes you by surprise you know you're not ready to say i'm gonna have to sleep on the ground tonight that is very very traumatic or i'm gonna have to sleep in a in a shelter with strangers that i don't know because when you sleep your guard is down you know so that is very very traumatic okay the next one guys is severe bullying and assault severe bullying would be being harassed every day um pictures being taken of you and being your head being cut off and placed on somebody else's body um you know being cyber bullied all the time being stalked online being assaulted sexually physically emotionally psychologically all of that is traumatic if you had that growing up over the years that was a traumatic piece of your childhood and i'm not talking about somebody just calling you a name or someone you know kind of bullying you for a little bit and then when they get in trouble they stop i'm talking about being harassed constantly being bullied constantly being stalked being assaulted that is traumatic all right the next thing i want you guys to think about is unexpected grief i think that's one of the most traumatic uh situations you could ever go through as a tryout is that unexpected grief and loss losing a mother to a severe car accident losing a father to a drive-by shooting losing a mother to a drug overdose losing a cousin that was very close to you or a grandmother to a cancer or a health condition unexpected death murder grief loss can be extraordinarily traumatic because again it's unexpected the key word here is unexpected it is not expected you don't expect to go through the pain and the sorrow that you have to go through because again it's unexpected right you expect that your mother's going to be there she birthed you you expect that your father is going to be there because they were there during the birth process or they were there to raise you or your grandmother's going to be there for years to come and when that ends unexpectedly that is a huge shake to your world so that's another thing that's traumatic the next thing is home um or domestic violence home or domestic violence now what i mean by this is domestic violence would be um you know being hit or abused or assaulted or treated unfairly by your spouse and domestic abuse or violence does not have to be physical it could be emotional and psychological getting an ear beating because you said something that the person didn't like is abuse being called names or being cursed at because that person is in a bad mood is abuse so that's very very abusive just like being smacked or hit or punched or assaulted would be okay and home violence i think what i was getting at with that is growing up in a neighborhood where there's guns growing up in a neighborhood where there's shootings and drive-by shootings and where your house has been robbed or burglarized so that kind of violence okay all of that is traumatic as well and last but not least is severe neglect and male treatment and what i mean by this is a baby being born into the world and being left to his or her own devices being left without any sensory stimulation any communication from the mother or the father whether that's intentional or unintentional there are some mothers who can't give to their child because they have um postpartum depression or they're struggling with severe severe depression or some kind of psychosis and so they may leave the baby unattended to for hours that is traumatic there's a lot of um neglect that can happen if a parent is not in the right frame of mind when the child is brought into the world if we're not just looking at an infant or a baby or a child then we can go to adolescence right if you're if you're malnourished because you don't have the the food that you need in your home because of homelessness or extreme poverty that is an issue as well all of these things can be traumatic guys and i want you to understand and kind of see it this way that trauma is any situation that you do not have the in in inborn or ingrained abilities to deal with it's a traumatic situation that you do not have the ability to cope with it's something that is unexpected or sometimes it's expected like you know maybe your dad is is in the army right and you know that he could die but you're just praying that he doesn't right that's expected trauma you expect the possibility but unexpected trauma again is like a murder a death a loss lack of parental support that kind of thing both kind of traumas we're never really prepared to deal with even if we think that we are psychologically prepared right so i think sometimes we can you know we can think okay i'm strong i'm smart i can do this i'm i'm you know i'm sensible i'm logical i'm rational i can handle this and it's not as cut and dry or as simple as we may think it is and for children growing up in traumatic households they really do not have the inborn tools to deal with what they're dealing with kids are very very resilient let me throw that out their kids are very resilient and some of them are extraordinarily smart and intelligent but again they're still children and so growing up in a traumatic environment can lead to adult trauma and we're going to talk about that in that in the next couple of videos guys we're going to talk about that uh in the next few videos i'm going to talk on sunday about bipolar parents or parents who are dealing with bipolar disorder and some of the traumatic things that can happen in that relationship thank you so much for being with me today guys in this video i encourage you to give it a thumbs up if it was helpful to you and go ahead and hit that subscribe button if you want to stick around with us i will see you in the next couple of videos which will be on sunday and i look forward to talking to you then all right guys i'll see you then bye-bye you

Channel: Támara Hill, MS NCC CCTP LPC

Views: 26,259

Keywords: Childhood trauma, dr phil, Did I have A Traumatic Childhood, trauma, mental health, ptsd, cptsd, child abuse, did i have a traumatic life, how do I know i was traumatized, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, stress, emotional abuse, ptsd symptoms, how do i know i was abused, sexual assault, child, how do i know i was mistreated, mistreated, abusive relationship, narcissistic abuse, Verbal abuse

Id: _P1V7q53Fk0

Length: 20min 50sec (1250 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 10 2020