Trauma has a lot of damaging psychological effects and it’s not uncommon for victims to suddenly have difficulty concentrating sometimes (Bower & Civers, 1998). Did you ever hold yourself back from getting something you wanted, not because you feared you might not get it, but because you feared what would happen when you did? The tendency to unconsciously sabotage your own chances of success is often associated with a traumatic childhood and it’s common in those who were abandoned or lost a loved one at a young age (Stanculescu, 2013). It’s often instilled in us by an unresolved trauma that causes us to have a negative belief in ourselves and internalize our shortcomings.Īnother way that repressed trauma tends to manifest is through a strong fear of success. Not only do we miss out on a lot of opportunities and stifle our own creativity and ambition because of it, but it can also lead to perfectionism and insecurity. However, a strong fear of failure can be unhealthy if it starts to outweigh a person’s motivation to succeed. Your need for control is most likely rooted in a traumatic experience that left you feeling helpless and vulnerable (Herman, 1998).īeing afraid to fail is something we all experience from time to time, and it’s a normal part of human nature. This shows that you have a deep-seated distrust in both yourself and the world in general.
You budget every little expense, plan what to wear and what to eat every day of the week, and you feel frustrated and lost whenever things don’t go the way you expect. You micromanage everything and plan for things even if they’re still years away. You have a strong need to stay completely in control, to the point where it starts to become unhealthy. You have a hard time accepting positive change and may even try to resist it at first, because deep down inside, you feel like you don’t deserve to be happy. You’re more comfortable being hurt, rejected, or abandoned, and might even come to expect it most of the time. You have an innate feeling of shame or guilt whenever you allow yourself to grow attached to someone or celebrate your own success. When something good comes into your life, your first instinct is to be suspicious of it. With that said, here are 9 signs you are still suffering from unhealed trauma and what you can do about it: 1. But no matter how hard we try to block it from our awareness, the damage still stays with us in our subconscious and often comes out in uglier, much more harmful ways. It can be hard to recognize unresolved trauma on the surface, especially within ourselves. When we don’t have a positive and healthy way of dealing with our trauma, we end up repressing our negative emotions and just pretending that everything is good when it really isn’t. Whether it’s the death of a loved one, the end of a meaningful relationship, or the rejection of a loved one, there are some experiences so heartbreaking that we wish we could erase them from our minds. Sometimes the terrible things we go through are too much for us to bear.