Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the channel and welcome back to another episode of The Adult and the Inner Child series. In this video, I'm going to be going over six not fully known childhood trauma triggers.
You might be emotionally aware of these, but you haven't had the opportunity to really name them yet. In my practice, I see them as really common but not really discussed enough. I'm not going to be going into them from a classic like PTSD or C-PTSD sort of framework where I'm talking about flashbacks or abandonment or sensory issues.
I'm not going to be getting into examples like that. I feel like we get overly clinical or too DSME if that's even a word. And when we do that, we lose the narrative.
We lose the personal childhood trauma stories about why we respond and why we react in the ways that we do. These six trauma triggers are from the day-to-day things that deeply affect us, but we tend to not know them as childhood trauma triggers. If you're new to me or new to the channel, welcome.
My name is Patrick Teahan. I'm an LICSW. I am both a therapist and a life coach getting into the toxic family system and childhood trauma recovery.
If you find this video helpful to you, you can go ahead and hit any of the buttons on the screen, like the subscribe button, the like button, the share button. You can't miss with any of these buttons. If you find that the channel is important to you and important to your recovery, you can support the work that goes into this channel over at my Patreon.
If you just like to connect with me, you can do so through my website. I will have all the links in the description to this video below. In my work, nailing our childhood trauma history is the way out of reacting and behaving in ways that we don't want to.
But we can't create a new empowered narrative of who we were without really knowing what the original history is. As a reminder, in this video, in the context of inner child work, when I discuss triggers, I mean any of the following. I mean an activated limbic system or being overly adrenalized into fight, flight, freeze, attach or submit.
I can mean that it's an emotional or body memory stored in our limbic system. It can simply mean going to a big place or an over the top place that puts our energy up or shuts us down. But what I really mean when I say triggered is that our inner child is up and is running our present from a place of being activated, and our adult self, the adult part of us is gone.
You can even think about that as an overly activated limbic system which shuts down our frontal lobes and the adult is sort of MIA. The frontal lobes is where the adult part of us resides or our best communicative self, our best sort of thinking self. So there's that.
Let's jump in and let's see if you guys identify or resonate with any of these. . .
Let's look at the first one - number 6. People who are thoughtless or oblivious. This can be anybody that you know, can be somebody on the street, can be coworkers, can be whatever.
Some examples. . .
People who are gregarious or loud and they're oblivious to how they are. People who are selfish drivers or unaware drivers. People who don't hold the door for others, that's a version of being oblivious or thoughtless.
Loud cell phone talkers in public, that can be sort of triggering. People who didn't contribute to bringing things to the party like you did. One of your kids being on their cell phone when they're visiting family.
People who don't read that others are in pain. And people who monopolize conversations. That's all examples of situations where people are seeming to you that they're being thoughtless or oblivious.
The vibe in general is, people who are self-consumed and we see them as selfish or unaware. This can really activate us and can also enrage us to be honest. Yeah, they're all general annoyances, but a trigger again is when our inner child is up and it becomes bigger.
If you grew up with narcissistic parents, toxic parents, thoughtless parents, oblivious parents, or very self-consumed parents, that's where this frustration or even rage kind of comes from. I think about even if we have a drunk, messy alcoholic parent or a violent parent, they're completely thoughtless and oblivious and unaware that they just woke the whole house up. So there's an example there.
We were treated in childhood growing up without any consideration like that and we can't stand seeing other peoples do the same to others. So we get into this like policing thing of what people do and what they don't know do. Inner children can actually do a lot of moral policing.
You know you're triggered in this stuff when you have like a fight in your head and/or a narrative in your head with like, "Who does that? I would never do that. I could never go to a party empty handed.
" Or, "I would apologize profusely if I forgot to open the door for somebody. " Those are examples of moral policing. When you feel that, you need to think back on your childhood into your family system and think of the parent who might have been very thoughtless and oblivious.
Thoughtless and oblivious to what? That they are thoughtless and oblivious when it comes to others. That probably sounds familiar if you're interested in childhood trauma or you're working on it.
When this is no longer an issue we lose interest in who is or who isn't caring enough to others or what people doing. It's actually really freeing and it's nice. We see people as more complex than that.
This is the separating between projecting our parents onto the rest of the world and just seeing people as more human. Even if they're jerks, that's the caveat. Some of these examples that I gave you guys, they could be very, very true, but the difference is, it doesn't create such a change in us that's that body memory stuff.
So there's that. Let's move on to number 5. Saying no plus mind reading, combining some of these things.
You're probably aware if you struggled or you're struggling with the ability to say no, but there's more to it. We expect others to read our minds about our struggle. Not about the struggle to say no, but our struggle in general.
Due to shame, the inner child can't stand feeling shamed or being seen as selfish just like in childhood. So we say yes and we self sabotage. I know you guys sort of know that story.
But there's a weird dark side to it for a lot of childhood trauma survivors, and it involves resentment to saying yes and wanting people to read our minds upfront. In many ways, guys, we get stuck developmentally in childhood. This is a little bit tricky to explain.
That's totally appropriate given what our childhoods were like, but we can be immature in saying yes and then projecting childhood stuff onto the person who asked. Here's the pattern. Here's what I mean.
Someone asked you to go above and beyond. You know you can't do what is asked without compromising yourself but you say yes anyway. Side note, you may already have a social reputation for saying yes if you really struggle with this stuff.
So you struggle with the consequence. You're now working on the weekend just because, and now you're resentful. You're resentful at the person not seeing your struggle.
You're hurt about the person not getting that you already had a lot to do and you're not in a good place. Where I'm going here is that good parents know what's going on with their kids, but we didn't get that and we project that need onto others. We kind of often want a bit of omnipotence from people, this all-knowing ability.
Like with our partner knowing we've had a bad week, we might say to them like, "Why are you asking me to go out when you know I had such a bad week? " Where in other words, "See what I mean about that mind reading? See what I mean about you should be more sensitive to sort of my needs?
" That's totally an inner child thing. It doesn't mean that the partner isn't sort of insensitive and that kind of a thing, but I'm keeping the focus on us here. Like with the boss, "How could they ask me when they know I'm busting my butt so much already?
" That could be true. But we're also thinking about like, "Don't they know? " That energy belongs to our parents, because our parents didn't know and that's what I mean about this as an example.
I see this as an ongoing story of childhood neglect. We say yes to be valued from a parent, but we get really hurt and resentful when it doesn't play out like that, like the way that it should have in childhood. The boss doesn't value us in the way that our inner child really wants when that would have been our parent's job.
We want these people to read our minds, and that's the big clue when you know that your inner child is up. Also, this can be learned from our own parents. Does anyone in your family do this thing where they can't ask for help, but then they get super aggressive about not being helped, like the classic Thanksgiving dinner or the family meal stuff?
That's an example of mind reading. I see not saying no as well as not asking for help, I see them in a similar way that's totally an inner child thing. The way out of this one is practicing saying no from our adult space as well as reparenting our inner child, talking about the lack of not being considered, the lack of not being seen in how our parents or our partner or our boss does not have the ability to read what is going on with us the way that our inner child wants them to.
We can say no to our partner about going out, but not really giving them a lot of the business about it. Even though that's hard, we can say no to a boss upfront by being clear and forthright about what our responsibilities are, even when if it's hard. Hopefully that one made sense.
That was a mouthful. Number 4. Having someone be mad at you/being misunderstood.
Yes. No one is super pumped to have someone be mad at them. But for childhood trauma survivors, this is where we ruminate about what we did, why is the person mad, how do we get them to change our mind at us, how do we state our case with them?
How do we get through to them. Some examples like; the bus driver who was disgusted with you when you don't have cash on you, the coworker who was frustrated with you that you've taken time off, or the partner who was upset with you sort of in a bump, or even worse, siblings when they feel like you're not supporting the toxic parent enough. That's probably off the charts kind of trigger.
This one is rooted in shame, having people be mad at us and being misunderstood. Growing up in abuse, it really wasn't safe to have someone be mad at us. In fact, that is the stuff that stays in a kid's body when they are actively shamed and raged at by a toxic parent like, "I can't believe you've done this.
I can't believe you would ask me for that right now" is all that stuff that's really actively sort of shaming a child. And I'm being really light about it. Some kids are just flat out raged at to the point that they leave their bodies.
Worrying about someone being mad at us will take over just as it did in childhood. It's like a shame attack. Healing this is to reclaim the ability to be misunderstood.
What do I mean by that? I mean that the adult part can parent the child on the difference at being terrifying to have a toxic parent be mad at you when they have all the power, to the difference of having like a grumpy coworker who was frustrated, real or imagined. We were greatly misunderstood growing up.
I'm still trying to make sense of this. I've been in practice for awhile. Our parents didn't see us as children.
Toxic parents usually see their kids as selfish adults who are making choices at their expense, which is super messed up. But that's the definition of being misunderstood, that the expectations were off. We weren't seen as children, that we weren't seen as children and we were expected to be forward thinking adults.
Hopefully that makes sense to you. So that kind of childhood wrecks regular old frustration. It is humanly impossible to not have others be frustrated at us or mad at us from time to time, right or wrong.
It's very freeing to allow someone to be grumpy or even sort of toxic and not take it in. One of my favorite recovery ideas is to just let other people feel their feelings even if it's about us, but that wasn't safe growing up. And if we heal shame, everything is just so much more manageable.
Imagine the ability to be like, "Oh, my coworker's a little bit pissed at me. I get it. They were frustrated.
They had to pick up my slack. It'll pass or we'll work it out. " Imagine having that ability, that's super from the adult.
But the inner child, that stuff needs to sort of get healed. Moving on. Number 3.
Other people's moods. Very similar to the last one, but this one's a ringer. We are hypervigilant about disappointing people or people not telling us what is really going on with them and then later blowing up at us.
Moods. The partner who is quiet or even sad because they're thinking about something or they have something going on, or the boss who seems disinterested in us, but who knows what's going on for them, or the coworker who is crying in their cube about something going on in their personal life. Those are all examples about other people's moods.
They usually highly affect childhood trauma survivors. Wounded inner children feel responsible for it and they'll ruminate about what could have been done or about what they're not telling us, or what the person isn't sort of telling us. I see this as rooted in both shame and vigilant about having to adjust constantly to toxic adults or even having very emotionally up and down parents.
Often, clients including myself, describe their parents' mood as inconsistent. That's a super important word and when you think about toxic parenting and a story that the child has to monitor and watch for the good times, watch for the good moods, because they are actually the good times are more rare than the bad ones. So, inconsistent parenting, inconsistent moods, inconsistent care for people, that's what I sort of mean by that.
We are super, super tuned in to other people's moods potentially for those reasons growing up. And yes, chances are, if you're interested in these videos, you're probably hypersensitive. That is both a blessing and a curse.
But to be honest, there is work to do with our inner child about not letting them feel like they are responsible for everyone's emotional experiences. This can be really hard to let go of as it was for me. How to parent our inner child on this one is to let them know that in the present, everybody is on their own path.
Everyone is responsible for their own feelings. And it doesn't always mean that something really bad is about to happen when other people are feeling their feelings, but also to validate your inner child that growing up, you did have to know what others were feeling in order to keep yourself safe and to keep yourself afloat. So there's that.
Number 2, this one's weird. Ambiguity. This is really what I find to be.
One of the most prevalent triggers, is not knowing how things are going to go. Some examples; not hearing back from a job, having a global pandemic going on and not knowing what the future is going to bring, not knowing if they enjoyed the date as much as you did, having an email exchange at work that you read as heated or aggressive but then it just gets dropped for a while, having to wait for exchanges and a bump with a partner or someone we care about, not knowing if your partner was really upset, waiting on social plans to get shored up while sitting on with feelings like FOMO and not wanting to be alone. This one is tough.
I believe it's rooted in fundamental security. My mentor says that every child needs a safe home base to be able to weather what life brings to them. We didn't get that in childhood.
From a childhood trauma view, we grew up without that safe home base and we were insecure. We waited to feel okay. It's almost like when you think about insecurity, I find that many of my clients struggle with insecurity including myself.
It was external things that made me feel okay. It did not come from an internal source. In my case growing up, the security issues are around waiting.
I was raised by two very neglectful alcoholics. My siblings and I waited for the adults to come home without knowing when they would be home. In addition to that, it was ambiguous about what kind of condition they would come home in because we knew we were banking on trying to get our needs met, which meant sort of our security.
That meant the field trips signed, the milk money for school the next day, whatever we needed, or simply just needing the feel like there was an adult home. All of that stuff, that waiting, I feel contribute to the ambiguity and security. I think ambiguity bothers us because we struggle in being secure within ourselves.
Sure. And waiting to hear back on a job is tough or waiting for a second date that we really liked is sort of hard. But wouldn't it be great if we didn't get so consumed in it?
The inner child reparenting on this one is to develop from the adult in a good enough way a belief system that is rooted in, "We'll be okay no matter what. " Security. I really think it comes from having a deeper, deeper relationship with our inner child so that we can feel secure to ourselves.
Another belief thing is the ability to be able to turn stuff over, to turn it over to fate or the ability to let go. A spiritual practice in some sort is very helpful to let go of sort of things. Why?
Because due to our trauma, we rely too heavily on external confirmation that we're okay than rather developing it from within. That's what I mean by ambiguity on that one. And the last one.
The last one is a big one. The last one is feedback. I look at feedback as three types; positive, negative, and neutral.
They are all triggering in their own weird ways. Positive feedback can be triggering to shame, because as childhood trauma survivors, our body can interpret compliments or doing well on something as potential manipulation, or it can just feel icky. I think that this is due to growing up somehow where we were manipulated, or doing well was at a siblings expense, or the parent being positive was somehow icky to how that parent lived their life.
Positive feedback is difficult because it's like how the person is giving us that feedback. It doesn't match the insides. That's why it's often hard for us to take a compliment because it just feels kind of.
. . You know your shame is activated if you can't take a compliment.
Negative feedback, this is sadly more comfortable for us because it's probably more familiar. But it can also be triggering if growing up, criticism was really unfair. Like, "Well, your brother did a better job at that, even though they're five years older than you.
" That kind of stuff. Another issue is negative feedback can be devastating because we might take it too seriously because we feel like people don't have the right to criticize us because they don't know what's going on with us. Coming back to the earlier one's sort of about mind reading, that's also a familiar vibe from childhood where too much was asked of us or the feedback was really coming from a place of awfulness or it being really unfair.
All of that, the reactions to feedback in the present may not be sort of warranted. Neutral feedback is weirdly the worst. For example, if you're cooking a meal for someone like, "How was the meal?
" And they're like, "Yeah. Meh. It's all right.
" It's so ambiguous. It's so meh. It's so neutral.
I think that drives us crazy because we don't trust what they mean. You know what I mean? It's like if a professor was sort of like, "How was the papers?
" He's like, "Yeah, it was all right. " You know? You know you did the thing and there's not anything big, there's not really a negative about it.
I think we struggle more with this one because now we're going to ruminate. We're going to ruminate about like, "Do I trust them? They must have hated it and they're trying to be nice.
" That's a common one. All that stuff. Most importantly, in the group work that I do, it's modeled to take care a lot of these feedback issues and intimacy issues because each person in my group, they're getting healthy feedback from healthy people.
The trauma survivors' job, each member's job is to be able to ride their body's trigger while trying to stay in present and receive the feedback, receive the intimacy from other group members. That's where we're trying to undo all of this stuff there. And as my mentor says, "Growing up, feedback got wrecked" which hands down is such a wise thing, because it's like we're growing up in such conditional love that the feedback is just so warped.
The work there is really hard about getting feedback. Some other things you guys can do from your inner child is when you notice that you're triggered around the feedback, is to think back, what does it take you back to in childhood? You might have grown up in a very emotionally flat household where people really didn't communicate much so you really didn't know what they were thinking, so that makes me think about neutral feedback sort of being a trigger.
Or, that you were manipulated and goated into things where positive feedback can be sort of a trigger. That's what I mean about those dynamics. That is the six in my mind, almost the top common triggers that I see in my practice and through my own recovery.
And I hope that they were helpful to you guys. If you have questions, if you relate to them, feel free to leave a comment below. As always guys, may you be filled with loving kindness, may you be well, may you be peaceful and at ease, may you be joyous.
I'll see you guys next time.
