Trauma & Acute Care Open Access

A Note on Existential Trauma from Childhood to Womanhood

Michael Tahoe^* Department of Psychology, Lüneburger Zentrum für Stressmedizin, Lüneburg, Germany
^*Correspondence: Michael Tahoe, Department of Psychology, Lüneburger Zentrum für Stressmedizin, Lüneburg, Germany, Email:

Received: 03-Dec-2021 Published: 24-Dec-2021

About the Study

Trauma has far-reaching consequences for adult women, affecting their physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, social, and economic well-being. This is especially true for women who were abused as children, especially if the abuse was performed by family members or other close relatives. Trauma survivors might appear astonishingly strong, demonstrating unique coping mechanisms in the face of terrible circumstances. In essence, individuals are capable of dealing with the trauma by developing and implementing crisis coping mechanisms. However, it's vital to keep in mind that employing such methods can have long- term psychological consequences. Model depicting the long- term psychological repercussions of a child's survival mechanisms in the face of persistent traumatic maltreatment. The child tries to understand why he or she is being victimised by rejecting the abuse, downplaying its importance, erasing memories of the events, and believing that the abuse is appropriate and justified as a result of his or her own behaviour.

These behaviours may initially assist the victimised child in tolerating painful experiences while they are occurring; but, such survival methods can have a severe impact on how the traumatised child functions over time and into adulthood. These methods can create hurdles to therapy and rehabilitation (for example, adopting denial as a defence strategy), and they're frequently misdiagnosed as other pathological diseases and mental health diagnoses (for example, major depressive disorder) during non-trauma-informed evaluations. Victims who are unaware that they have been traumatised are inadequately to cope with the overpowering feelings and/or numbing that commonly accompany abuse.

There are other circumstances when the trauma patient does not show any signs of having been through anything traumatic. The victim may not consider what she has gone through to be traumatic, especially if it was just a normal part of her life at home or in her environment. She may regard an event from her youth as having occurred many decades ago, as if it were ancient history, with no relevance to today's difficult times in her opinion. These are examples of how a trauma sufferer may unknowingly refuse to receive much-needed treatment or evade receiving suitable care when help is requested. For example, if a woman is examined by a clinician but does not identify the abuse she has experienced (past or present) as her primary problem, she may label or view herself as having another problem (e.g., depression or substance abuse). Some traumatised women see themselves as utter failures, owing to their lack of knowledge of the devastating psychological effects of past violence.

When the avoidant client discusses a traumatic interfamilial occurrence, he or she has a desire to reduce the significance of the event or its perceived negative impact. Painful stories are generally presented in an emotionally distant, intellectualised manner, and are frequently justified in some way or avoided entirely by focusing on less frightening content. The individual develops a habit of self-reliance and a perspective of self as independent, strong, and normal after developing a worldview that others When PTSD is the result of human choice cannot be relied on. A tendency to discount and devalue experiences of closeness, intimacy, and vulnerability goes hand in hand with this behaviour.

When individuals or institutions on which a person depends for survival significantly violate that person’s trust or well-being. Betrayal trauma theory predicts the degree to which a negative event represents a betrayal by a trusted or needed other and will influence the way in which events are processed and remembered. Positing that psychogenic amnesia and dissociative awareness are often necessary for survival in cases in which abuse occurs at the hands of a parent or caregiver. When persons or organisations on which a person relies for survival violate that person's trust or well-being in serious ways. The degree to which a negative incident symbolises a betrayal by a trusted or required other is predicted by the betrayal trauma theory, which will influence how events are processed and remembered. This idea, which claims that psychogenic amnesia and dissociated awareness are often necessary for survival in circumstances of abuse by a parent or caregiver, is based on the evolutionary psychology assumption that humans are good at detecting betrayal in others as a means of survival.