Strengths can be found in childhood survival strategies.
Complex posttraumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) is much more prevalent than anyone might surmise. Because adults who managed this attachment trauma as children learned many adaptive survival skills that they utilize in adulthood, they are often very well-functioning members of society. No one might guess what challenges lie beneath the surface.
With the pervasive relational trauma that results in CPTSD, a child is required to subvert her own natural and healthy needs, preferences, inclinations, and emotional life to the parent’s selfish demands. A child intuitively knows when a parent has no room for them emotionally and will suppress her instincts and impulses to buoy that parent — out of love and out of a desire to glean any support for herself from the parent.
A child managing this complex attachment trauma is, quite literally, put in the dilemma of having to choose between his psychic and physical well-being and his critical connection with the adult(s) in his life. To a child, it feels like survival. The seriousness of this dilemma cannot be underestimated. In many ways, it is survival — physical, emotional, intellectual, and psychic.
In the aftermath of this childhood, most adults are left with the many burdens of senseless attachment wounds. Wounds that could have been quite unnecessary if the child had been given the love, respect, and awareness that her needs, natural dependence, and reliance on the adults in her life demanded tender attention.
There can be little to nothing to feel good about surviving a history of complex trauma. At the same time, what I have observed, time and again, in my clients with a complex trauma history are coinciding strengths. Along with the challenges, adults with a history of complex trauma can also embody these adaptive life skills:
1. Responsibility: As children, survivors learned (too) early on to be responsible for themselves and others. Often, these responsibilities were well beyond their true age-appropriate ability to perform. Because, at times, it was literally an issue of survival, these kids learned persistence in taking responsibility, problem-solving, and stepping up. As adults, their challenge is to require and allow others to take appropriate responsibility for tasks, behaviors, and relationships and to not automatically step in as caretakers. As adults, the value in this same behavior can look like being a responsible parent, spouse, employee, or friend. In life, they can be reliable, consistent, and persistent. They can demonstrate many qualities of leadership.
As adults, the value in this is they can exhibit the strengths of meeting and solving life challenges through competence, problem-solving skills, creativity, and a “find-a-way” attitude
2. Competence: As children, survivors learned never to need anything by way of support because they quickly found their needs would go unanswered. As adults, the challenge for them at times is to tackle a sense of learned helplessness. Another challenge is to take pride in their efforts and abilities. As adults, the value in this is they can exhibit the strengths of meeting and solving life challenges through competence, problem-solving skills, creativity, and a “find-a-way” attitude. They can know exactly what to do in any given situation, or they move to figure it out.
3. Functioning well through a lot of distress: Clients use words like “soldier on,” “bear down,” and “push through” to describe how they learned to manage distress. For these adults, it can be difficult to know how to regulate distress or that they even have a choice in the matter. They can overestimate their ability to tolerate distressing events and become “blindsided” with overwhelming feelings they don’t see coming. The value in this is when they learn to notice when they’re distressed; they can regulate it better. And, if you’re in a critical and stressful situation, these are the people you want on your team. What began for them as children as anticipatory fear of what’s coming can result, as adults, in an ability to plan ahead, and to create order out of chaos.
4. An uncanny ability to “read the room.” As children, survivors learned to read other people — to read their tone, their movement, their words, and their emotions. This was helpful to safely avoid danger, to know what a situation called for, and to generally rise to what any circumstance required. As adults, their challenge can be to not feel swamped by other people’s emotions or dilemmas and to not let other people’s needs take over in every situation. As adults, the value of this is that they can intuit what others may need. Through this, they can be empathic, caring, and kind. They may seek to understand another’s perspective; they can allow for differences and look to find fair solutions for all.
5. A desire and ability to connect with others. While perhaps overly responsible as children, a challenge can be to learn balanced and mutual connectivity; these children are so used to being “of service” that they aren’t always sure how to just “be” in relationships. Learning they deserve mutual support is a challenge. At the same time, because seeking connection with loved and important others was critical, as adults, they may continue to place high value on connection and belonging. They seek to be inclusive and to create space for others to join in, come along, and enjoy creative, even playful, connections.
Through work with a competent therapist, the burdens our younger parts carry can be released, and the strengths found there can be used to enrich adult life today. The work of Dick Schwartz, Pete Walker, and Janina Fisher, among others, may guide you in learning more.
Copyright 2024 Jennifer Lock Oman
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Jennifer Lock Oman, LISW, BCD, is a psychotherapist with over 35 years of professional experience. Her passion has been the study of human emotions, and their centrality in motivation, connection, and change. Currently, her interests also include the study of Complex PTSD and the clinical application of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model of therapy to healing relational trauma.
