Is it possible to be affected by traumatic events from your past that you can’t even remember clearly? Many mental health experts believe that the signs of repressed childhood trauma can have a long-term negative impact on almost every part of your life.
North Atlanta Behavioral Health is a safe and supportive place where adults can address the issues they’ve previously been unable to face. With the compassionate guidance of our experienced treatment professionals, you can learn to manage your psychological pain and embrace the hope and promise of a healthier future.
Learn more about our drug rehab programs in Georgia, take a Childhood Trauma test, or call us now at 770-240-5699.
What Is Childhood Trauma?
Childhood trauma refers to the lasting psychological impact of disturbing experiences that a person endured prior to age 18.
Clinicians often use the term adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) to describe the types of occurrences that can cause trauma. This term first appeared in a landmark 1998 study that was co-authored by Dr. Vincent J. Felitti, and Dr. Robert F. Anda.
Causes of Childhood Trauma (Examples of ACEs)
Examples of childhood experiences that can increase a person’s risk of developing trauma include:
- Physical abuse: Being beaten or otherwise intentionally harmed
- Emotional abuse: Being belittled, humiliated, or otherwise harassed
- Sexual abuse: Any type of sexual contact involving a child
- Physical neglect: Such as not having enough to eat, not being provided with medical care when needed or not protected from external threats
- Emotional neglect: Being ignored or otherwise deprived of love and support
- Substance use: Growing up in a household where people abused alcohol or other drugs
- Mental illness: Having a household member with serious mental health concerns
- Parental loss: Losing a primary caregiver due to separation, divorce, abandonment, or death
- Incarceration: Living with someone who had been in prison, or losing a household member due to imprisonment
- Domestic violence: Witnessing physical abuse between adults in the household
Prevalence of ACEs
Adverse childhood experiences are unfortunately common.
According to an October 2024 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
- 76.1% of high school students have endured at least one ACE.
- 18.5% of high school students have gone through four or more ACEs.
- 61.5% of students told researchers that they had experienced emotional abuse.
- Physical abuse (31.8%) and mental illness in the household (28.4%) were the second and third most commonly reported ACEs.
- With the exception of physical violence, all ACEs were more common among female students than among male students.
- With the exception of physical neglect, all ACEs were more prevalent among members of the LGBTQIA+ community than among heterosexual students.
What Is Repressed Trauma?
The theory of repressed trauma is that a person’s brain may attempt to protect them from continued distress by blocking memories of particularly horrific experiences.
Other terms that are commonly used to describe this phenomenon include repressed memories and dissociative amnesia.
The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) identifies three types of dissociative amnesia:
- Localized amnesia – the most common type, which involves the inability to recall a specific event or all events that occurred during a specific time period
- Selective amnesia – similar to localized amnesia, but the individual can recall some events during the time period
- Generalized amnesia – complete loss of memory, which can include loss of personal identity
The DSM-5 also reports that people who struggle with this type of memory loss are often unaware or only minimally aware of the problem. When presented with evidence, they may dismiss concerns altogether, minimize the significant of their struggles, or otherwise indicate their discomfort with the topic.
9 Signs of Repressed Childhood Trauma in Adults
ACEs and other traumatic childhood events can affect different people in different ways, with potential long-term effects including various degrees of medical, psychological, and behavioral problems.
Some people respond to childhood trauma by repressing the memory of what occurred. Experts are not entire sure how this occurs, but an April 2018 article in the journal Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports notes that particularly traumatic experiences can cause abnormal activity in specific brain circuits that are involved in creating, storing, and retrieving memories.
Though memory repression may provide short-term benefits to a child by protecting them from recalling what they went through, it can lead to a range of problems later in life.
Below are 9 possible signs of repressed childhood trauma in adults:
1. Memory Gaps
Memory gaps in childhood trauma survivors can range from the inability to remember specific events to the loss of entire months or years from their childhood. As described in a September 2017 Clinical Psychological Science article, some people unconsciously fill in these gaps by creating false memories, a phenomenon called confabulation.
In most cases the memories were likely created and stored, but the individual is unable to retrieve them. This is known as retrograde amnesia.
In a small number of cases, which are referred to as anterograde amnesia, the trauma had such a destructive impact that it prevented the victim’s brain from creating a memory of the event.
2. Poor Emotion Regulation
Repressed childhood trauma can contribute to emotional dysregulation in adults. This can manifest as excessive expressions of anger, fear, or sadness in response to events that don’t seem to warrant such strong reactions.
In some cases, the event or circumstance that triggered the over-the-top reaction may remind the individual of a traumatic experience from their childhood. This can occur even if the individual doesn’t recall the trauma or fails to make a conscious connection between what they’re experiencing in the present and what happened to them in the past.
3. Low Self-Esteem
Over time, someone who is repeatedly told by parents or other important people in their life that they are worthless or not deserving of love may begin to internalize these unjust criticisms.
Eventually, they may not even remember where these negative feelings began, but they will find it extremely difficult to overcome them
4. Self-Sabotage
This ties in with low self-esteem. When good things start happening to someone who believes they don’t deserve good things, they may unintentionally begin undermine their happiness.
If these acts of subconscious self-sabotage “succeed,” the person may interpret it as evidence that they truly weren’t worthy of the progress they’d been making or the successes they’d achieved.
5. Trust & Intimacy Issues
When the people who were supposed to protect and support you do the opposite of that, it can be difficult to completely trust anyone else or to allow yourself to be vulnerable.
As a result, an adult with repressed childhood trauma may either emotionally isolate themselves or limit themselves to superficial relationships, never being able to get past their deep fear of being violated or abandoned again.
6. Being a People Pleaser
Parents who abuse or neglect their children often blame their victims for their own actions. They may claim that the child provoked the behavior, or that they were using violence as a way to teach the child how to behave.
This, of course, is abhorrent. No child ever “deserves” to be beaten, ignored, or denied care. But a child who hears these justifications over and over may begin to believe them. This can cause them to adapt their behaviors based solely on what they hope will prevent future abuse.
For adults with repressed childhood trauma, this internalized blame can manifest as a pattern of ignoring their own wants and needs so they can focus on making their friends, partners or colleagues happy. Though they likely no longer fear physical abuse, people-pleasers may be motivated by a desire to avoid criticism and prevent abandonment.
8. Hypervigilance & Hyperarousal
When the brain perceives a threat, it activates the sympathetic nervous system, which controls the body’s “fight or flight” response. This triggers short-term changes such as elevated heart rate and respiration, increased energy, and vision changes that improve a person’s chances of either defeating or escaping the threat.
Continued exposure to danger, such as what a childhood trauma survivor may have experienced, can cause parts of the fight or flight response to become permanently activated. In other words, it causes the individual to believe that they are always in imminent danger, which clinicians refer to as hypervigilance and hyperarousal.
Potential effects of hypervigilance and hyperarousal include chronic muscle tension and other pain, exaggerated startle response, restlessness, anxiety, and paranoia.
9. Mental Health Disorders
As described in a December 2025 article in the Journal of Psychiatry and Psychiatric Disorders, untreated trauma and chronic stress can increase a person’s risk of developing several mental health disorders.
Conditions and concerns that have been linked with untreated trauma include:
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Borderline personality disorder (BPD)
- Anxiety disorders
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Depression
- Bipolar disorder
- Eating disorders
- Self-harm
Potential Effects of Repressed Childhood Trauma
Undiagnosed or untreated childhood trauma can increase your risk of developing several mental health concerns.
But the impact of unaddressed childhood trauma isn’t limited to mental health. Multiple research efforts have revealed that having a history of ACEs can increase the likelihood that you will experience:
- Disrupted brain development
- Diminished cognitive functioning
- Risky and/or criminal behavior
- Substance abuse and addiction
- Chronic health problems
- Tobacco use
- Severe obesity
- Attempted suicide
- Early death
Also, several signs of repressed childhood trauma – such as mood swings, difficulty trusting others, emotional numbness, and hypervigilance – can undermine your ability to form and maintain healthy friendships and romantic relationships.
These symptoms can also affect your performance in school and at work, which in turn can be harmful to your job prospects, career development, and financial well-being.
Find Treatment for Repressed Childhood Trauma in Atlanta
North Atlanta Behavioral Health offers personalized outpatient care for adults who are struggling with the psychological impact of childhood trauma, other mental health concerns, and co-occurring addictions.
Treatment options at our outpatient center in Atlanta, GA, include a partial hospitalization program (PHP) and an intensive outpatient program (IOP). Our team will work closely with you to understand how you have been impacted by your past trauma, then develop a truly customized plan to address your unique needs and help you achieve a much healthier and more hopeful future.
Call 770-230-5699 today to learn more, or verify your insurance now.
