Develpmental Trauma

With what I now know about mental health, brain health, trauma, and development, I can easily recognize that I experienced developmental trauma.

Developmental trauma occurs when a child is exposed to multiple, overwhelming, and often chronic traumatic events—things like neglect, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, witnessing violence, or experiencing profound loss. These experiences shape the way a child learns to relate to the world, to others, and to themselves.

How Developmental Trauma Shapes Us
Early trauma disrupts crucial areas of development, leading to:
• Emotional dysregulation—difficulty managing fear, anxiety, anger, and sadness.
• Cognitive struggles—issues with attention, memory, and decision-making.
• Behavioral patterns—tendencies toward withdrawal, self-sacrifice, or self-destruction.
• Relationship difficulties—challenges in forming trust and secure attachments.
• Physical consequences—an increased risk of chronic health conditions later in life.

Common signs include hypervigilance, dissociation, intrusive thoughts, self-esteem struggles, and difficulty trusting others. Many of us learn to function in survival mode without ever realizing that our bodies and minds were never meant to live that way.

The Impact of Being Unseen
For me, developmental trauma wasn’t about a single catastrophic event—it was about the absence of what should have been there. It was the lack of attunement to my needs. The lack of healthy examples. The lack of attention and care.

I was told as a child that my parent wasn’t my source of entertainment. I don’t ever remember either of them getting down on the floor to play with me. I was left to my own devices and told that being bored “wouldn’t kill me.” And while parents aren’t meant to be playmates, they are responsible for teaching—and play is how children learn.

I wasn’t taught how to do most things; if I asked for help, I was met with impatience and frustration. I was expected to figure things out on my own.  But what happens when there is no healthy example to follow?

I didn’t know how to behave in public because I saw one version of my parents at home and another in front of others. Which one was real? No one helped me with my homework; I was expected to absorb everything in class. But when my nervous system was in a constant state of survival, it wasn’t interested in school work.

Making friends was nearly impossible. None of my peers could relate to my experience. One parent was too preoccupied with their own life to even make space for me in their home, while the other numbed themselves with food, alcohol, or men. No one had time for me during the years I needed them most.

So yes—trauma during my developmental years.

What Happens When the World Feels Unsafe?
The human brain is especially vulnerable to trauma in early childhood. The first seven years of life are when we learn whether the world is safe, how to give and receive love, and how to regulate our emotions. But children can’t regulate on their own; they depend on caregivers for co-regulation. Without it, the nervous system develops in a state of stress, making us more susceptible to emotional instability, physical illness, addiction, and a lack of identity.

If you want to understand the biological effects of developmental trauma in more depth, I encourage you to explore the neuroscience behind it—it’s both fascinating and heartbreaking.

But What Now? Is It Too Late for Me?
No. It’s not too late. The beautiful thing about our brains is that they never stop learning, growing, and healing.

The “software” of our nervous system can be updated and rewired. The wounds created in relationship can also be healed in relationship. Therapy, when done well, is one of the safest places to experience that healing.

You are not broken. You are not beyond repair.

Eva