Ever had one of those conversations when someone offers an idea that utterly misses the mark?
Someone commented, “You should write about how kids were impacted by the COVID lockdowns,” after reading one of my pieces the other day.
And I completely understand their concern. People want to discuss topics they believe are pertinent. But their recommendation also made it very clear: most people have no idea how deep childhood complex trauma (CCT) really runs.
The lockdowns were difficult for many children, no doubt. When we discuss CCT, though, we’re not referring to a singular, though prolonged, event. We’re discussing a slow, continuous process that reshapes a child’s entire reality—how they manage emotions, interact with others, and view themselves. Everything. And since it occurs gradually in ways that may seem “normal” at the time, most individuals are unable to even start to understand it.
So, let’s talk about why childhood complex trauma is so damn hard for people to see.
1. People Think of Trauma as a Singular Event
When most people imagine “childhood trauma,” and they’ll clearly identify an abusive father, a violent occurrence, or a vehicle accident. Something spectacular. Something apparent.
Indeed, these events are quite horrific. But what is childhood complex trauma? It’s different. It’s not only about what happened, but what continued happening——or even never happened at all.
- It’s growing up with a parent who’s emotionally absent though physically present.
- It’s learning that your emotions essentially don’t matter, because every time you expressed them you were punished or disregarded.
- It’s constantly walking on eggshells and never feeling secure enough to just… exist as an adaptation to living in an unpredictable home situation.
Trauma of this sort doesn’t leave bruises. It disorders your nervous system. It teaches you beliefs about yourself that are untrue—beliefs that will follow you into adulthood—like the idea that you must perform or please to be worthy of love.
People also fail to recognize that it’s not a single event. “That’s how childhood was,” they simply say.
2. People Underestimate the Long-Term Impacts
Most people assume that if an event or experience was “really” traumatic you’d realize it. You’d remember. And that the impacts would be obvious and immediate.
But that’s not how it works.
A young child living in a home where they never feel emotionally safe doesn’t simply collapse as a result of the neglect. They adapt. They figure out how to get by. They develop coping mechanisms that facilitate survival, such as turning off feelings, hyper-independence, or relentless seeking of approval.
And these strategies are effective. Until they aren’t.
- Until that child matures and comes to see they have no concept of how to create boundaries in relationships.
- Until they burn out from an inability to stop over-functioning.
- Until their body begins to deteriorate under chronic stress, but they don’t know why.
People assume trauma is something that happens to you—not something that shapes you from the inside out—so they cannot relate these adult challenges to their childhood experiences.
3. People Confuse Stressful Events with Developmental Trauma
Let’s return to that COVID lockdown example.
Indeed, youngsters found the lockdowns difficult. Still, not all stressful events result in trauma.
By itself, a difficult experience is not necessarily traumatic—especially if a child has a stable, loving environment to help them to process it. It’s actually the nature of the experience that determines whether it becomes traumatic:
- How emotionally overwhelming the experience is.
- Whether one feels a sense of powerlessness or helplessness.
- Whether there’s someone safe and attuned who can help regulate the experience.
A child who went through lockdowns but had emotionally present parents who organized their days, provided reassurance, and made them feel safe? That kid will most likely be okay.
But a child who already lived in an unstable house or whose parents lacked emotional availability? The lockdowns may have confirmed what they already felt—that they were alone. That the world posed hazards or was patently unsafe. That no one was available to help them.
Stress and trauma differ in that regard.
People also ignore the whole developmental component—the long-term, relational element that truly defines CCT—when they propose that childhood complex trauma is only about difficult experiences like COVID.
4. Childhood Complex Trauma Is an Invisible Force Behind So Many Adult Issues
The real twist here is that most people fail to make the connection between childhood trauma and the difficulties they experience as adults.
Because it doesn’t only show up as, “I had a hard childhood,” it further reflects as:
- Depression and anxiety, as your nervous system never learned how to feel safe.
- Long-term stress dysregulating your immune system and digestive tract, therefore causing any number of chronic health problems.
- Perfectionism, overworking, and people-pleasing, since you learned early on that your value is related to what you do, not who you are.
- Relationship problems, because no one modeled healthy attachment for you, or love felt conditional.
People also fail to link these things since they don’t scream “TRAUMA” on the surface.
They just think, “I have anxiety.”
Or “I’m not good in relationships.”
Or maybe “I guess I’m just wired this way.”
When in reality so much of it is rooted in events (or lack thereof) during childhood.
5. If You Grew Up With It, It Feels Normal
The trauma you were born into is the toughest kind to identify.
You most likely never considered your childhood traumatic if it lacked warmth, validation, or emotional safety. You simply view it as the way things are.
- If you grew up with emotionally unavailable parents, you might not realize how profoundly that affected you until you recognize your difficulty creating strong, trusting connections as an adult.
- If your needs were routinely disregarded or dismissed, you might not understand how much that has become part of your belief system—until you start to minimize your own suffering and refuse to seek help.
You never doubt something when it’s all you’ve ever known. It’s your “normal.” You just adapt.
And that’s why it’s so damn difficult to recognize childhood complex trauma.
The Bigger Picture: What We’re Missing
People will keep missing the bigger picture as long as they view trauma as a single, isolated event rather than a prolonged, developmental disruption.
We’ll continue to behave as though addiction is only about willpower.
We’ll continue to treat chronic illness as though it were random bad fortune.
We’ll continue to wonder why so many people feel emotionally worn out, lost, and detached.
You cannot unsee it, though, once you begin to realize how much of this results from childhood experiences—the way we were wired to cope, the way we learned to relate, the way we adapted to survive.
Final Thought: Making the Unseen Seen
Childhood complex trauma is more than just one awful event. It’s about the entire trajectory of your upbringing, the way it shaped you, and how it continues to influence your life.
And that’s why so many of us have such difficulty wrapping our heads around it. Why we find it so difficult to grasp.
Trauma’s not limited to what you remember. It has to do with your development and who you became.
And we’ll keep asking the wrong questions—and missing the most crucial answers—until we understand that.