If you ask someone about their personality, they may list various perceived attributes. However, the odds are stacked against them mentioning their attachment. One of the most powerful and enduring influences on our beliefs, thoughts, values, and opinions is typically invisible to almost everyone. This is not a case of blaming everything on the past. Rather, attachment theory is a crucial step in understanding the driving forces in your life.

For example, the role of attachment trauma can be massive. Every time you interact with someone, it will shape those interactions. Growing up with neglectful, unreliable, or abusive caretakers can leave you living an anxious and insecure life today.

What is Attachment Trauma?

It might be your parents, older siblings, close family members, or other caretakers. If they are offering reliable, nurturing care in your most vulnerable days, you likely formed a secure attachment with them. From that foundation arises the general pattern of your relationships, friendships, etc., over the years and decades.

Sometimes, however, the treatment you receive during childhood is downright traumatic. It may involve:

• Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
• Loss of a loved one via death, divorce, incarceration, etc.
• Your most fundamental needs are ignored
• You lived in a home that was heavily impacted by a lack of boundaries, substance use, mental or physical illness, domestic violence, controlling tactics, and more

If the behaviors you witnessed and endured in your earliest days were dangerous and dysfunctional, it fulfills the criteria for attachment trauma. You’re left with unresolved trauma and without the basic skills you need to deal with it.

Children lack the cognitive skills to handle or comprehend the abovementioned scenarios. As a result, they struggle in school and with typical social interactions. They develop unhealthy coping mechanisms to survive. Those same tactics become even more counterproductive as a child grows into adulthood.

A Few Examples of Attachment Trauma’s Impact During Adulthood

Social Withdrawal and Self-Isolation

After what you’ve been through, there is a perceived logic to avoiding others. You were taught from the start that people can’t be trusted. This includes those closest to you. However, adults with attachment trauma will still try to connect, and that’s where you’ll find some red flags. They seem unable to sustain long-term friendships, romances, jobs, etc. This track record appears to “prove” that yes, it’s better to avoid deep connections.

Controlling Tendencies

When you were too young to control anything, you were neglected and exploited. Therefore, it’s not unusual for adults with attachment trauma to be called “control freaks.” They’ll go to any extreme to feel less vulnerable.

Unexplained Physical Signs

Trauma causes physical distress, but the connection is not always made. A person with attachment trauma may struggle with aches and pains with no apparent explanation. These often include headaches, digestive issues, sleep disturbances, and muscle tightness.

A General Sense of Numb Dissatisfaction

Someone with attachment trauma senses that there’s much more to life than the painful lessons they’ve internalized. Hence, they may dissociate in an attempt to numb this discomfort. This can sometimes take the form of self-medication in ways like substance use, risky behaviors, and other dangerous choices.

There’s Good News

You can change your attachment style. With the help of a trauma-informed therapist, you can take powerful steps to develop ways to connect securely with others. You can process and resolve attachment trauma and step into a life without self-blame, loneliness, and confusion. Nothing you did warranted the treatment you endured.

But now, as adults, you can develop ways to feel safe and connected. To learn more about this healing journey, I invite you to reach out to set up a free and confidential consultation.

There appears to be growing evidence that childhood trauma can be linked to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The association involved adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) increasing the likelihood of having ADHD. As you’ll see below, there are valid reasons why such a connection may exist. But first, as with any such discovery, caution must be taken.

Pediatric clinicians rarely use screening tools for trauma when evaluating a child suspected of having ADHD. Of course, a history is taken and parents are consulted, but until trauma screenings become more common, nothing can yet be called conclusive. Also, we must keep in mind that children with ADHD are often rejected or bullied. This could be the ACE that serves as the link. Let’s look more closely.

Symptoms of ADHD and Childhood Trauma Often Overlap

Some of the same parts of a child’s brain that change due to trauma are also altered by ADHD. As a result, both groups (not to mention the co-morbid population) may display similar symptoms, e.g.

• Inability to regulate emotions
• Sleep disturbances
• Hyperactivity
• Easy distracted
• Social difficulties
• Struggles with concentration, losing things, and executive functioning skills
• Restlessness and agitation
• Problems with learning
• Negative self-image
• A sense of being on high alert

Since almost 1 in 5 children who are exposed to trauma also meet the criteria for ADHD, even a seasoned clinician can be unsure about what exactly is going on.

Can Traumatic Stress Be Considered a Risk Factor for ADHD?

Adverse childhood experiences are traumatic events that occur before the age of 18. They can involve (among many other things):

• Neglect or abandonment
• Psychological, physical, or sexual abuse
• Death of a loved one
• Natural disaster
• Victimized by a crime
• Domestic violence
• A household that includes any of the following: disability, substance abuse, incarceration, divorce, etc.

The more ACEs a child endures, the greater the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), and other serious conditions like heart disease,  stroke, and more. ADHD is being added to that list by many mental health professionals.

At the same time, it’s being observed that having ADHD puts a child at a higher risk of trauma. A child with ADHD is typically more likely to struggle with co-existing mental health disorders. However, as touched on above, ADHD itself can increase the odds of being traumatized. Long-term research and observations find children with ADHD experience more mistreatment and injuries than others in their age range.

Therefore, when considering this post’s title, the answer has to be yes. There is enough of a connection between childhood trauma and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder to warrant new diligence and protocols when considering such a co-morbidity.

What Can/Should a Concerned Parent Do?

As is often the case, you’ll need a careful blend of diligence and calm. You don’t want to jump to conclusions and create an array of worst-case scenarios. At the same time, if your child is displaying the symptoms listed above and/or has undergone any of the potentially traumatizing events listed above, it makes sense to get input from a qualified medical team.

Several different assessments, tests, and evaluations help guide you and your child in the most logical directions. All along this journey, however, never forget how complex the factors can become. This means it will become incumbent on you, as the parent, to undergo serious self-education. You will be an important component in the diagnosis process.

Take-Home Message

Unfortunately, ADHD and ACEs are increasingly common realities. Since associations and connections are being made, you can help your child immensely by doing some homework and connecting with an ADHD or trauma therapist who can serve as a guide. Let’s talk soon. Contact our office to request an appointment.

With anxiety being the most common cause of mental health issues on the planet, it’s logical to ponder why. What causes anxiety disorders and what can we do about it? For some folks, the presence of chronic stress is a source. Also, genetics and dysfunctional coping mechanisms can be the root of anxious tendencies. Too often, however, not enough attention is paid to the role childhood trauma can play.

Events ranging from bullying to violent abuse and beyond can cause immense damage to a child’s mind and body. It can predispose them to anxiety disorders by the time they reach adolescence. Let’s take a much-needed closer look.

Some of the Common Causes of Childhood Trauma

Trauma is typically in the eyes of the beholder/victim. Virtually any negative experience can be traumatizing to a child — making them feel unsafe, alone, or out of control. That said, some causes of trauma are more common than others. For example:

• Physical, emotional, and sexual abuse
• Living in a household that exposes the child to domestic violence, substance abuse, chronic illness, and disabilities
• Medical crises
• Neglect and abandonment
• Losing a loved one via death, divorce, incarceration, etc.
• Being bullied
• Accidents or natural disasters

How Childhood Trauma Can Trigger Anxiety in Adolescence

Measurable neurological changes can be caused by childhood trauma. This can and often does change how a person’s brain functions. It can even alter brain structure. As a result, survivors of childhood trauma may display challenges when it comes to, for example:

• Maintaining self-awareness
• Gauging the intentions of other people
• Regulating emotion

Impaired neurological connections can also increase an individual’s likelihood of suicidal ideation.

Trauma and Your Amygdala

Perhaps the simplest way to identify the links between childhood trauma and anxiety is by exploring the part of the brain that serves as its emotional center. The amygdala has many functions, but a major one involves the identification and assessment of potential threats. It plays a big role in how we decide to react to eternal stimuli.

Childhood trauma has been found to bring the amygdala to an overactive state. It literally increases its size in proportion to the amount of danger we perceive and experience. Therefore, trauma survivors may respond to perceived risks with as much intensity as actual threats.

Trauma is Unpredictable

Another trigger is living in an environment that is unreliable and unpredictable. A traumatized child may not ever know if their parents or caretakers will step up and protect them. Such children may not have:

• Stability
• Regular meals
• Nurturing
• A feeling of safety and security

This is fertile ground for anxiety disorders during adolescence and beyond.

Trauma Causes Hyper-Vigilance

Your brain structure and functions have been changed. An unstable environment has laid the groundwork for anxious thoughts and behaviors. All of this can lead you to sense danger everywhere. Each sound or touch feels like a warning. A twinge of pain anywhere in your body can be taken as a lethal symptom. Much of your day is spent in a state of high alert in which all your sensations are amplified. In turn, this further over-activates your amygdala and the cycle begins all over again.

You Are Not Alone

Childhood trauma is unacceptably common. Nearly 70 percent of children experience at least one traumatic event by the time they turn 16. Meanwhile, as mentioned above, anxiety disorders are the most common mental health condition in the world. Such a combination of realities demonstrates that you’re not alone.

But there’s good news. Anxiety can be treated and so can trauma. The key lies in connecting with a trauma-informed therapist who can help you identify the patterns that led you to this place. From there, the road to recovery becomes more clear.