Last week, I visited my dentist. During our chat, she mentioned that her friend insisted she needed to see a counsellor because of childhood trauma. This scenario is quite common—when we gain some knowledge about mental health, we might give advice to friends or even receive advice on what’s best for our mental health. While the advice may seem well-intentioned, it can sometimes be destructive.

In my dentist’s case, she ended up overthinking and doubting whether she really had childhood trauma, which kept her in a state of constant worry. She went from being okay to now analysing and overanalysing most things in her life. Today’s article will explore the dangers of drawing conclusions about us based on limited knowledge, and how this can lead to over diagnosing and misinterpreting our behaviours. So, instead of focusing on understanding and addressing the behaviours themselves, we end up constantly looking back for a cause of our current behaviours.

Understanding the Nature of the Mind

The mind will always scan around for evidence to prove what it believes or what someone has suggested to you especially if the info is coming from someone who you trust or you ‘hold in high regard’.

Now, in our example, yes, you may have childhood trauma or rather some of your current patterns in life may be due to some unhealed trauma, but when do you draw the line between viewing your life through the lens of that trauma and looking at it from a logical standpoint?

The problem with telling someone they have childhood trauma is that it will keep them looking for it, and when we look for something, we will find it. For example, you may be having a bad day at work. Instead of just feeling it like you’ve always done, you end up concluding it’s because of childhood trauma. Or maybe you accidentally break a glass while rushing for work, which is a normal occurrence and not even related to childhood trauma, but because you’ve been told you have it, you end up using it as an ‘excuse’ or ‘reason’ for breaking the glass.

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

So, as you keep attributing everyday occurrences to childhood trauma, you may reach a point where you avoid responsibility in the present moment and use the fact that you have childhood trauma as a great ‘escape’ from doing the necessary work in your day-to-day life. This is just a brief example of how you can create problems and make correlations in your life that are sometimes unnecessary, leading to getting stuck.

It all starts with being told you have trauma, and then you end up using that as a basis to run your life, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The mind likes making associations with things instead of seeing something for what it is.

Sometimes, our current problems require logical solutions. For our glass example, maybe you just need to wake up early so that you don’t have to rush in the morning. But because you’ve now convinced yourself over and over that it’s childhood trauma, you won’t look for logical solutions in your life.

The Trap of Overthinking

When we believe so much in what we’re told, we end up shutting down and stop thinking or seeing things for what they are. That’s how overthinking works. You become so accustomed to looking back at where it started or making correlations that you become blinded to what’s really there in front of you. You might get to the point where you view all your present life through the lens of childhood trauma and even stop functioning.

That’s how we get stuck: we make associations with things, even things that have no correlation at all. That’s why, in life, you should be watchful of all the conclusions or associations you’re making. You might be digging a hole where there was no hole. Then, three years down the line, you find yourself avoiding many things simply because it all started with that first conclusion of having ‘childhood trauma.’

Logical Solutions Over Labels

So, is it a good approach to use trauma or the fact that someone, even an expert, told you that you have it as a basis for living your life? Or would a better approach be to look at logical solutions? This is not to disregard that childhood trauma is real—it is—but there is also a side we need to look at. You may have had childhood trauma, but it may not have an effect on your present life. When you undergo a challenging experience in childhood, it doesn’t have to manifest in your present life.

Some people have been in war-torn countries or experienced genocide, but they have made peace with it and have no traumas; they’re fully functional adults. I know you’ve met some of them. They haven’t meddled so much or concluded or diagnosed themselves with war trauma. They just live life.

But when you become slightly knowledgeable, you end up connecting this to that. And that’s the cunning nature of the mind: it will follow along and take you on a spiral instead of looking for things as they are.

Practical Steps Forward

When you’re solving your problems in the present life, don’t jump to the conclusion that you can’t do it because of childhood trauma. Just be watchful of it. In that watchfulness, you will see the defence mechanisms the mind employs to keep you stuck where you are. You will be able to develop some routine or change from using a glass to a plastic mug or use whatever logical solution you have.

If you get to the point where you can’t use logic, then maybe you can ask yourself why you keep hurting yourself. Or you can seek help, because the help you’re seeking is just to nudge you to see things more clearly or as logically as possible.

Conclusion

I hope this makes sense: not everything has to be trauma related. Some of your problems in life may require simple logical solutions, but if you’ve been living by that childhood-trauma script, you might end up attributing more and more issues to trauma or not acknowledging your present emotions for what they are.

When you’re stuck, you’re stuck you will not look outside those conclusions, and you will end up calculating and calculating to the point where you live in your head. You may even live a life where you’re always seeking healing and not really moving forward.

Trauma is very real, but when you’re watchful and see things more logically, you’re slowly but surely taking more responsibility and control of your present life situations. By focusing on logical solutions and being mindful of the conclusions we draw, we can avoid getting trapped in a cycle of overthinking and empower ourselves to address our challenges more effectively.

Note from the Author

If you’re ready and you’d like my help with healing, finding peace in life and breaking free from these toxic patterns, then you can book a FREE BREAKTHROUGH CALL with me HERE. Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts & bias, experiences and research😊.