12 Emotional Scars Abused Children Carry Into Adulthood

Suffering from any abuse leaves deep emotional scars. While bruises, cuts, and broken limbs will eventually heal, emotional trauma takes a lifetime to overcome. The problem is that abuse causes a betrayal of trust.

For example, a child depends on his parents to protect him and keep him safe as he grows. The only thing they should be concentrating on is playing and enjoying the carefree lifestyle. However, when a parent rapes them in an abusive way, it destroys their trust in the people they love the most.

It is not like packing a toy that they will never see again; the pain is much deeper. The agony runs so deep that the brain is often reconfigured to cope with the pain.

If only you could unread those pages from the book of your life, or if there was a way to erase the images and flashbacks that come to mind. Unfortunately, these traumas are written in the fiber of your being.

Emotional scars change adulthood

Victims of abuse learn what they must do to survive. Things that have happened to you give you the drive to survive, as much as possible. His past has conditioned him to respond in certain ways to people and life stressors.

For all the times you felt helpless as a child, your self-protection mode is accelerated. Here are 12 emotional scars that abused children carry into adult life. You can easily place people in your life who fit the description of these problems.

1. Inability to trust

As mentioned earlier, once trust has been broken, the child is upset. In adulthood, it is difficult to make friends or have a meaningful relationship. These people are always on guard and looking for signs of deception.

2. Sexual inadequacies

It is commonplace for a person who has been sexually abused to view sex as a dirty and shameful act. What was created to please others and connect on a physical level has turned into a horrible nightmare. Some will become hypersexual to combat the trauma that lingers around this act, while others will become a-sexual and avoid it altogether.

If a girl was sexually abused by a male family member, she might turn to a same-sex relationship as she cannot bear the pain of being with another man. When such an intimate act becomes contaminated, it alters the receptors of pleasure. Some of these children don’t know how they could enjoy something that caused them so much pain.

3. Fear of men and women

If their parents physically hit a child, they may fear getting close to someone again. If the father used a belt to abuse them, they may turn away from people who wear a belt as it can be a trigger for their trauma.

Even in adulthood, when the threat of abuse wears off, the brain remembers. Triggers can be so small, but they lead the person’s mind to abusive acts.

4. Constant need for validation

Seeking approval from those around you is an important part of healing past wounds. A child often grows up with feelings of worthlessness and that something was wrong with them. To counter these feelings, they will seek everyone’s validation and approval.

They need to do a good job and make sure they get the attention they deserve, well, most of them. Some want to get up on the corner and make the world go away.

5. Low self-esteem

Self-esteem is difficult to repair once it has been broken. Even if abuse is not involved, one child may have high self-esteem while the other can barely look in the mirror. Through counseling and the use of positive affirmations, esteem problems can be repaired.

6. Mental illness

Unfortunately, those who have been abused often face mental health problems in adulthood. Depression, anxiety disorders like obsessive-compulsive disorder, and personality disorders are common. The brain rewires itself and finds ways to cope, but new coping methods are often disorganized and cause adverse changes.

7. Emotional instability

Self-regulation is something that people learn at a young age. When you are upset, you can calm down or calm down by counting your blessings or thinking of something nice. Unfortunately, many adults lose the ability to self-regulate and this causes problems.

They will look for ways to calm down, which can cause serious problems for them. A person could be agitated because they did not get a job promotion at work. They need a high and something to burn off the pinch of adrenaline and cortisol, the stress hormones, that they feel inside.

Some turn to illegal acts, such as stealing, to try to combat those feelings. Once they drink something insignificant, it calms their senses and they can relax. It’s strange what abuse does to bodies and how emotional scars are different for each person. However, some engage in self-destructive patterns that cause more pain.

The goal of most adults is to find someone to spend their lives with. You want the fairy tale and you are happy forever. Unfortunately, finding a stable partner is not always an easy task when carry emotional scars and baggage.

You do not trust, you are always waiting for the other shoe to drop and the past haunts your present. Many people who have been abused will have multiple marriages or will jump from one relationship to another without fully committing themselves. Others will cling to the first partner who shows them any attention, and many will get caught up in abusive associations that don’t know how to end.

9. Stress and physical effects

Many children cannot remember the abuse that occurred, especially at a young age. When it comes to sexual abuse, many people form mental blocks so that they cannot remember those horrible events that raped them. While the brain does everything it can to remove these events from the memory bank, the body remembers.

Interestingly, your body can feel the stressors of the events that happened to you. Many people with chronic stress and physical joint pain are often caused by past abuse. Now, not every case in which a person has joint pain comes from a horrible childhood, but it can affect.

10. Substance abuse problems

Self-medicating methods are common for someone with deep-seated emotional scars. They will look for ways to ease the pain. Often times, the doctor begins by purchasing medications such as antidepressants and benzodiazepines. However, many of the drugs do not work or their effects are short-lived.

They will use marijuana and everything they have in their hands. It is estimated that one in seven children is abused each year. Since formative years predict the future, it’s a sad statistic to reckon with.

11. Resentment and aggression

Resentment and aggression are common in abuse. Adults will resent what happened to them and the people who caused these actions. Also, they can become aggressive to thwart any further abuse.

Think of the bully in the high school yard. They seem to be in control and running the show, making all the kids bow to their orders. They scare and intimidate others using control.

As a result, this child is probably being abused, neglected, or has other problems that need help in his life. The only way they know how to deal with things is by being in control. Now, how many people in your adult world act the same? They can be harboring emotional scars from the past.

12. Sleep disorders and nightmares

While you can control your thoughts somewhat during the day, your mind is free to wander and wander through the past chapters of your life at night. Your subconscious mind processes everything from the day, including triggers from the past. Chronic nightmares and other sleep disorders are common because anxiety is greatest when it’s dark outside and everything is quiet.

Sleep disorders can range from insomnia to night terrors, and all of these sleep problems are equally troublesome to handle.

Final thoughts on dealing with emotional scars from childhood