Childhood Abuse, Trauma

Overcoming Childhood Abuse & Trauma

by Kalpana Murthy, LPC

When overcoming childhood trauma and abuse, a common misperception is that trauma is only experiences involving life threatening events. This is not the case.Trauma is any experience that has a lasting negative influence on how you think, feel and behave. Trauma isn’t just having bad experiences, it’s also not receiving enough positive emotional experiences.

Trauma Definition

Trauma can be a series of chronic distressing experiences or a single event that has a lasting negative influence on how you think and feel, your beliefs about yourself, how you relate to others and your view of the world.

Trauma is not just witnessing or experiencing bad things. Trauma is also not receiving enough good things, like attention, affection, nurturing, praise, encouragement, validation or acceptance of who you are.

Two Categories of Trauma

sad-child-girl Traumatic experiences can be categorized two ways:

upsetting life experiences, without a physical component, that are emotionally disturbing
experiences involving potential or actual physical harm or death

Types of Trauma & Childhood Abuse

Here is a list of common types of experiences that are considered trauma.

Witnessing Conflict – parents or family members arguing or fighting verbally or physically.
Witnessing Harm – someone being harmed physically, sexually or emotionally.
Unhealthy Parent – growing up with an alcoholic or self-absorbed or narcissistic parent.
Verbal Abuse – being ridiculed, criticized, blamed, shamed, put down, called names.
Emotional Abuse – being ignored, isolated, terrorized, threatened, pressured to do or say things you don’t want to do.
Physical Abandonment – Caregivers threatening to leave you or give you away. Caregiver leaving and not returning. Being left alone at a young age to care for yourself or siblings.
Emotional Abandonment – Insufficient attention, lack of physical affection, and not enough verbal expressions of love, praise, encouragement, and acceptance that you are good and just for who you are and the way you are.
Spanking, Beating, Physical abuse/assault– Someone threatening to hurt you physically or actually hitting you or harming you physically.
Bullying – by parents, teachers, sports coaches, siblings, peers.
Sexual Abuse, Molestation – Inappropriate touching, sexual contact, sexual abuse, rape. This includes exposing you to sexual material at too young an age. Someone touching you or having sex with you in a way that you see as wrong. Someone attempting or succeeding in forcing you to engage in unwanted touching or sex acts.
Death of someone close to you (person or pet) by natural causes or by accident, homicide, suicide, war, or other unnatural causes.
Traumatic Loss, Ambiguous Loss – This includes moving, loss of friends, end of a friendship, relationship break up, divorce, betrayal, affair, traumatic relocation, loss of job, business, dream, goal, money or physical health.
Accident or Natural Disaster – car, bike, boat, plane accident or other experience where you were scared, terrified or seriously hurt; fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, bombing, etc.
Prejudice/Racism – Any incident when you were treated in a negative manner based on racial, gender, ethnic, sexual orientation. Other prejudicial decision or treatment.
Medical or Dental treatment – Exams, operations or procedures that were frightening or traumatic.
Other lasting painful experience, including something others may not consider upsetting or traumatic.
Blame – Any upsetting experience or activity for which you blame yourself or others blame you for.

Effects of Childhood Abuse and More Recent Trauma

Often we think these types of experiences or past events are no big deal, but in reality this experiences and the associated sensations are stuck or frozen in our brain. When associated present day experiences link up with these stuck memories, our past becomes present and is having a big influence on our present day experiences and our ability to feel good, achieve our goals, and enjoy life more fully.

These types of upsetting or traumatic experiences are often the underlying cause of diminished self-esteem, shame, guilt, trust issues, anxiety, depression, codependency, feeling numb, sleep problems, explosive anger, perfectionism, relationship problems, career problems, addictions, self-sabotaging behaviors or feeling stuck.

Trauma Counseling for Childhood or Recent Events

How I Can Help You – I understand that time, talk, hard work, willpower, and positive attitude alone often do not put the pain and effects of upsetting experiences behind us. The good news is that I’ve worked with hundreds of clients in overcoming childhood abuse and trauma and have seen first hand how our work together has given them lasting relief and resolution from the impact of a dysfunctional family life in childhood as well as more recent traumas and upsetting experiences.

Here’s What Clients Say…

Testimonial 18

My therapy with Kalpana was outstanding. I have been in therapy much of my adult life due to childhood traumas. I have worked with several different therapists across the country, and I can tell you the Kalpana is a very special therapist. Her background in EMDR is stellar and makes a huge difference in recovering from traumas. I learned a lot from her and enjoyed working with her. She is very compassionate and yet holds clients accountable. She has a very warm style and is always willing to help and listen. I am a former executive that needed flexibility in my appointments, and she always found the time that worked mutually for us. I highly recommend her as a therapist – it will make a huge difference in your life.

Testimonial 3

I can honestly say that the therapy I experienced with Kalpana was life changing. Physical and emotional abuse during childhood led to a life that was shadowed with sadness and despair that kept me from being happy and enjoying my life. Kalpana’s skill as a therapist coupled with the EMDR has allowed me to move beyond the traumas of the past. I literally feel lighter! Thank you Kalpana, you have truly found your calling!

Testimonial 10

Kalpana, you were such a wonderful help to me during a very difficult time. I have pushed through the pain of my past, and I have finally learned to live in the present. My time with you was a piece of the puzzle in my healing process.

Testimonial 100

After my therapy with Kalpana my anxiety around men is greatly reduced. Now, I do not shut down and I feel more comfortable and able to focus. My relationship with my husband feels as if a straight jacket has been removed and I’m dancing around a clover field. Very strange, but nice!

I am also enjoying being able to converse with him without implosions which use to incapacitate me and cause me to retreat and completely give up, each time the pain being compounded. Now, he shows a willingness to do whatever it takes for me to feel comfortable in our relationship.

Before this therapy, I carried an inner tension, pain, heaviness that gripped me making everything harder than it had to be. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was very deep. I didn’t have the energy and freedom I needed to live. The anxiety from being rejected by my Dad at such a young age had been trying to surface for years.

The EMDR therapy with Kalpana has also made more room in my brain for healing. It feels like space has opened up for progressive healing to take place, and that is happening automatically in other areas, because the anxiety affected more places than just the one concerning my relationship with men. Kalpana, thank you for being such a huge part of my recovery!

Testimonial 101

When I came to Kalpana I was in a place of darkness. I’d been attending cognitive behavioral therapy for almost 2 years, but was making little headway in overcoming a traumatic event from my childhood that had bled into my adulthood.
The memories of these events were the first thing I woke up and the last thing I went to bed with for. They haunted me everywhere I went, and I found myself beginning to slip into a deep depression.
EMDR was my last option before taking anti-depressants, which is something I wanted to avoid if it at all possible.
In only 8 sessions with Kalpana, I found a freedom I was worried I would never have again without medication.
I no longer suffer with symptoms of PTSD like I had before I started EMDR. I am able to walk through life now so much lighter thanks to the relief EMDR brought me.
I am so grateful to Kalpana for guiding me through to healing.

Testimonial 102

Kalpana, our recent phone conversation was so helpful. What I’ve gone through has been a lot to process. I’m very thankful for having met you as a therapist that helps speak into what so few understand.

Kalpana Murthy, MBA, MS