The beauty of being an adult is you get to be whoever you want to be. However, there are some strings attached from childhood.
Every experience from your past plays a role in shaping your future, shaping who you become as an adult. This includes all the good memories, but sometimes more so the bad ones.
You may not notice the emotional scars you still carry today or how they impact specific areas of life. If you’re one of the many struggling with social anxiety, there’s a possibility it can be linked to emotional mistreatment during your childhood. Let’s take a closer look at this connection.
What is Emotional Mistreatment?
Emotional mistreatment is considered a form of abuse or neglect that is not physical in nature. The goal of emotional mistreatment is establishing control over the other person through degrading comments, insults, criticism, embarrassment, or threats. Additionally, emotional mistreatment can also consist of invalidating actions/behaviors, limiting social engagement, abandonment, and inconsistent mood swings.
Emotional mistreatment can happen in any type of relationship, including among family members during childhood. Physical abuse is more widely understood and observed due to the evidence left behind. With emotional mistreatment, however, the signs are more subtle.
Signs of Emotional Mistreatment
If an individual experiences emotional mistreatment as a child, it can have immediate impacts but also branch off into future issues. Children are still developing and learning how to process their emotions, so exposure to any type of danger can influence many factors.
Difficulty Regulating Emotions
Children who have faced this type of mistreatment often receive backlash or dismissal from a show of emotion. Hiding or suppressing emotions causes emotional development to be stunted.
A child who has to suppress their emotions can become an adult who cannot regulate them. Dysregulated emotions can lead to difficulty connecting with others, work performance issues, low self-esteem, impulsive behavior, and social isolation.
Isolation
Experiencing mistreatment as a child teaches them to be skeptical and cautious. As they grow up, they tend to avoid uncomfortable social situations, opportunities, or vulnerability. This defense mechanism of avoiding can be problematic because it limits support systems and causes social disconnect.
Hypervigilance
Being the subject of emotional mistreatment as a child teaches the brain and the system to always be on high alert. They are hypervigilant because they are keenly cautious to avoid further mistreatment.
Poor Self-Esteem
Receiving repetitive emotional mistreatment as a child can alter the formation of confidence, identity, and personality. Having negative interactions with a caregiver leads to lower self-esteem and an unhealthy
attachment style.
How Childhood Emotional Mistreatment Leads to Social Anxiety
The caregiver/child relationship is supposed to be a nurturing, safe, and secure one. A child should always feel supported, loved, and accepted.
Any type of childhood trauma places them at an increased risk of developing mental health issues in the future. This hits harder for children due to the state of their development process at the time of the trauma. Not having the full capacity to process emotions or have coping mechanisms handy places them at a disadvantage.
Emotional mistreatment lends itself to the development of insecure attachment styles with the caregiver. Not feeling protected and safe can make them anxious and hyperaware of the emotional state of their caregivers. This constant vigilance makes every social interaction fraught, as they feel they can’t trust others. This anxiety surrounding social interactions can lead to avoidance and isolation.
Getting Help
When you’re dealing with childhood trauma and social anxiety, it can feel like a vicious cycle. However, you can break free. With the right therapy, you can dive into your childhood experiences, healing the wounds that are causing your present anxiety. Learn more about this on our trauma page. If you want to begin your healing journey, reach out to us to schedule a consultation.
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