Symptoms of Complex Trauma

When scary or unpredictable things happen regularly in childhood, we often develop anxiety that becomes bigger than we can manage. Racing thoughts, intrusive thoughts, worrying about your surrounding, worrying that someone will hurt your or abandon you are all symptoms of trauma

Sometimes buried pain from the past can show up as chronic depression and hopelessness. When we were partially or fully neglected, unloved, or uncertain of how people around us felt about us as children, our ability to develop self worth and self care can become blocked or more difficult than it should be.

Not only should be able to remember content from your childhood - both positive and negative - it’s a sign of possible trauma when you feel like you can’t remember large blocks of time or don’t have a cohesive narrative of your childhood.

Trauma is stored in the body and dissociation makes it difficult to recognize trauma. Not only that, but dissociation of trauma interferes with our ability to know our bodies, feel symptoms of distress, and take care of them.

Chronic trauma and stress also causes such a burden our important bodily systems such as our immune system, endocrine system, and digestive system, that it interferes with our abilities to stay strong and healthy across our lifetime.

Dissociation is a normal response to on-going trauma. It helps us cope with how overwhelming things can be. When we have to dissociate regularly, it becomes something that affects our ability to stay present. We can become forgetful, daydream too much, leave our bodies, and lose our attention.

Chronic trauma often impacts our sleep life - falling asleep, staying asleep, and having restful sleep. Unprocessed trauma can show up in our nightmares, causing our sleep to be less restful. It can be hard to fall asleep and stay asleep as well.

Some complex trauma survivors report feeling different than other people - both in childhood and as adults. We can feel too far away from others or disconnected. We can feel alien or on an island, with others out of reach. We can feel different or strange, that we aren’t a part of the same human family. Sometimes this is referred to as depersonalization and/or derealization.

When we are harmed in human relationships, we no longer trust that others are good. When there is abandonment, rejection, shame, and pain in our most important childhood relationships, we begin to see others as a source of distress instead of comfort. Having trouble trusting, feeling mixed and ambivalent in our relationships, sabotaging relationships, and difficulty maintaining close relationships can all be signs of complex trauma.

Complex trauma survivors often report feeling deeply unlovable and unworthy as a human being. Trauma survivors often have intense voices of shame, self-blame, and self-hate internally that they can’t get rid of. They may feel a deep sense of being bad or damaged.

We hear from a lot of complex trauma survivors that traditional talk therapy has limits or doesn’t work at all. Often, traditional therapy can rely too heavily on words and looking at our cognitions. It dismisses the importance of early childhood attachment work. Trauma work involves the body, the soul and the mind. Providers are often not trained in treating chronic relational shame or dissociation. Even if therapists are well intended, the treatment can feel stuck or ineffective.