6 Ways Delayed Responses to Trauma Can Impact Primary Caregivers

Delaying a response to a difficult situation happens often. Avoiding looking at your child’s grades online, looking the other way when you know your child’s behavior isn’t acceptable or respectful, and staying quiet when your spouse’s anger gets explosive, even though he or she isn’t abusive, are all ways a primary caregiver may be responding to trauma that was never fully processed or healed.

A simple definition of trauma is a traumatic event or series of events that impacts a person’s sense of self, relationships with others, and everyday life. Trauma responses can be immediate or delayed, and they can be normal and temporary, depending on the individual.

Trauma responses can also be detrimental to a person’s way of life in certain areas if not healed. When a primary caregiver isn’t aware of how his own trauma has impacted him, it can reveal itself in how he parents his children.

The Difference Between Delayed and Timely Response to Trauma

If you experienced trauma as a child or even as a young adult or teen, it can be difficult to discern whether you’ve processed the grief and other emotions that can coincide with trauma.

Immediate physical responses to trauma may include restlessness or a feeling of not being sure what to do. You may have excess energy but struggle to know how to use it. Cognitive responses that are more immediate include an inability to concentrate or struggling to discern the time lapse during a traumatic event.

However, delayed response to the same trauma may be that instead of struggling to concentrate, you detach yourself from responsibilities that would require concentration. You don’t go to work, struggle to eat and sleep, and experience thoughts that seem unwanted and intrusive related to the traumatic event. This keeps you in a perpetual cycle of intense fear and anxiety.

These are just a few ways that unhealed trauma can surface and resurface later. If you find yourself trying to forget the traumatic experience long after it happened, or you notice a perpetual pattern of emotional distress in certain relationships, you may need to consider the impact that trauma and stress related to it can have on you and your children.

A healthy primary caregiver can take care of themselves while also staying attentive to a child’s needs, emotionally, physically, and mentally. If you’re a parent who has felt ashamed for a lack in one of these areas, please don’t avoid seeking help.

Taking care of your mental and emotional well-being is an important, brave step. It can mean freedom for you and your relationship with your children as you pursue what it looks like to have healthy thoughts, behavioral patterns, responses, and how to process negative emotions in a healthy way.

As you learn these skills, you can apply them to your life and avoid a cycle of unhealthy relational patterns passed down to your children or grandchildren. It’s never too late to heal from trauma.

Here are six ways delayed responses to trauma can impact primary caregivers

You fear the future for your child and have trouble allowing him or her normal experiences because of the fears you’ve held onto over time

Experiencing the premature death of a sibling, spouse, child, or parent impacts anyone who has to endure this depth of sorrow. Some people process the loss through family relationships, healthy coping mechanisms, or counseling. Others may struggle to process the loss even years later.

If the loss of a loved one still haunts you, your fear about your child’s well-being could be related.

You avoid talking about your emotions as they relate to healthy processing in your child’s life

Maybe you have a senior who is graduating this year, and you’ve avoided all the painful emotional talk so far with ease. In fact, you may have hidden your true feelings from yourself. Struggling to feel anything or dissociating from emotions can be indicative of a trauma survivor who didn’t process traumatic experiences in healthy ways.

Recognizing your emotions is a skill you can learn. Counseling often helps provide tools to know what triggers are attached to varying emotions. For example, temporary anger may not actually mean you’re mad at your child. It could be the remnants of a deeper sense of hurt and longing, disappointment, or feeling abandoned.

If expressing emotions or identifying what they mean is a struggle, reach out today to an office near you.

You are overly sensitive to a pattern that’s considered normal childhood development

Teens are not known for being warm and fuzzy with their parents. If you have a warm and fuzzy teen, that’s awesome. But it’s a normal period of development in adolescence to pull away. If you tend to experience your child’s lack of attention as a personal affront, it may be that you’re not acknowledging the pain of your past, and your adolescent is actually just being her age.

It’s normal for adolescents to pull away from their parents and draw closer to friends. This is why adult children don’t typically stay with their parents well into adulthood. They become their own people and view the world around them separate from their parents.

In many instances, adolescents grow into young adults who come back around and value their parents’ feedback and friendship. But if you’re struggling to associate your child with reasonable and common development, it’s worth reflecting to see what traumatic events may have spurred this reaction.

You tend to rely on your child as a supportive friend rather than a relationship with a healthy adult in your life

Sometimes this can happen in marriages that aren’t healthy. It can also be that one parent experienced a lack of parental oversight in their growing-up years.

Leaning heavily on your child for support isn’t fair to him or her, and it is not healthy for you either. It could be that you need to talk to your spouse about finding friendship in marriage, or it may be that you’re struggling to be vulnerable in your adult friendships.

If you sense your ability to share deeply is limited to your child, it should be a warning that can impact your child’s ability to develop emotionally. Talk to a trusted adult or a parenting support group if you see this pattern in your child-parent relationship.

You put off making decisions related to your child’s well-being and future

If you struggle to lead your child in making wise decisions about his or her future or about his or her well-being, it may be that you’ve experienced trauma. The response to it was delayed so much that it stunted your own cognitive confidence.

Not healing from trauma means we, as parents, can suffer from all kinds of effects, physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral. One cognitive struggle can be the lack of decision-making skills that adults who are on track developmentally can handle.

Letting your child make his or her own decisions without any input or oversight from you, especially related to their health, well-being, or long-term future decisions, can be detrimental to their overall sense of self. It can hurt their relationships, career, employment, or college decisions and cause them to feel unsupported.

All children need a parent to lean on. If standing firm on decisions is tough, seek out the help of a counselor who can help you explore why making choices is difficult.

Your struggle with depression, anxiety, or both is preventing you from being present in your child’s life

If prolonged periods of sadness, fear, worry, or panic attacks are something you’re dealing with, it’s okay to ask for help. Letting a counselor in can restore your outlook and give you the ability to be present for your child.

It’s not uncommon for delayed responses to trauma to surface in ways that don’t seem related. If you can’t quite find the energy for everyday life or your lack of joy has unraveled all your usual interests and friendships, it’s a clue that your struggle is rooted in something deeper.

Talk to a trauma-informed counselor to get started on a pathway to healing from your painful past. Our offices are all over the country, and counselors are trained to help you get back to being the primary caregiver you long to be.