These days, it seems like more and more people are talking about “unresolved childhood trauma,” and what that can look like in adulthood. For Dr. Robyn Koslowitz, licensed school psychologist, licensed clinical psychologist and educational director of the Targeted Parenting Institute, the topic is personal.
Author of Post-Traumatic Parenting: Break the Cycle and Become the Parent You Always Wanted To Be (out July 1), Dr. Koslowitz’s inspiration for researching and focusing on post-traumatic parenting actually came from her own story.
“I had PTSD at a time when no one was talking about PTSD. This was before 9/11—when trauma wasn’t in the cultural lexicon, when we didn’t yet have language like ‘trauma-informed’ or ‘triggered,’” she tells Parade. “I had panic attacks and flashbacks, but I didn’t have a name for them. I just knew: ‘Something’s wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it.'”
Then, she got pregnant.
“I started asking myself: ‘If it’s this hard for me to be in my body, what is it like for the baby inside me? What’s my stress doing to my child?’ And as my children grew, those questions deepened: ‘Will my damage damage them?'” she explains.
“I devoured parenting books—but they all felt like they were written for someone who was already on the third floor of the building, just trying to get to the roof (and there’s an elevator!),” Dr. Koslowitz continues. “I was in the sub-basement. No lights. No stairs. No map. I didn’t need a gentle parenting script—I needed a way out.”
She didn’t have the resources she needed at the time, so she created one for other adults going through similar experiences.
“I wrote the book I needed back then,” she says. “Not a book that tells you how to parent from the third floor—but the one that helps you build the staircase when you’re still in the dark. A book that says: you can break the cycle. You can stop your damage from damaging your child. And you can heal yourself while you raise your child.”
Now, Dr. Koslowitz is sharing 15 common traits of adults with unresolved childhood trauma and how that experience can not only impact you long-term as a parent—but also as a friend, family member, partner, employee and person in general. Plus, she provides tips to begin healing.
Related: People Who Were Constantly Criticized as Children Often Experience These 8 Relationship Problems, Psychologists Say
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz
What Is ‘Unresolved Trauma,’ Exactly?
“Unresolved trauma is anything that was too big, too painful or too overwhelming for your nervous system to process at the time—and it’s still stuck inside you now,” Dr. Koslowitz tells Parade. “It’s not just about what happened to you; it’s about what happens inside you when you’re reminded of it.”
It can be difficult to wrap your mind around it.
“The best way to think about this is that we all have a trauma app installed in our bodies that is trained to do X when we experience Y,” she explains. “This app is designed to protect us, but sometimes it overrides its permissions. You’re not choosing to overreact or shut down—your trauma app is making that choice for you. It’s like an emergency system that gets activated, even when the emergency is long over.”
Related: Could You Be a Victim of ‘Self-Gaslighting’? 5 Signs of the Subtle Form of Self-Sabotage and How To Stop, According to Experts
Examples of Unresolved Trauma Experienced in Childhood
“Unresolved trauma isn’t always about what people traditionally think of as trauma,” Dr. Koslowitz explains. “Yes, it includes physical, emotional or sexual abuse. But it also includes growing up in chaos, in emotional neglect or in homes where love was conditional. It includes being the child of a parent with addiction or mental illness. It includes being shamed for having needs. And it includes never feeling safe—physically or emotionally.”
“What makes it traumatic is the impact, not just the event,” she continues. “It’s the messages that you’re too much, you’re not enough or you’re on your own.“
Related: 9 Subtle Ways You Could Be Self-Sabotaging Your Happiness, According to a Psychologist
15 Common Traits of Adults With Unresolved Childhood Trauma, According to a Psychologist
1. Hypervigilance
“You’re always scanning for what might go wrong,” Dr. Koslowitz explains. “In parenting or relationships, this often shows up as criticism—it feels safer to spot problems before they spot you.”
Related: 7 Common Parenting Tactics That Can Actually Hurt Your Kid’s Confidence, a Child Psychologist Warns
2. People-pleasing
“You become a human mood ring, constantly attuned to everyone else’s emotions,” she says. “When others were unhappy in your childhood, it was dangerous—so now, you try to prevent that at all costs.”
Related: 6 Ways Being a People-Pleaser Can Ruin Your Relationships, According to Therapists
3. Emotional Numbing
“You shut down emotionally, especially in high-stress moments,” she shares. “This isn’t coldness—it’s protection. Feeling too much once overwhelmed your system, so now, you stay disconnected. Another term for this is alexythymia.”
4. Fear of conflict
“Conflict once meant danger—or guaranteed loss,” Dr. Koslowitz explains. “Even when you ‘won,’ you lost something: peace, safety, a relationship. So now, you avoid conflict entirely, even when it matters.”
5. Over-apologizing
“You say sorry for existing,” she reveals. “You may have had trauma that others didn’t and internalized the idea that your needs were ‘too much.’ But having needs doesn’t mean you’re needy. It means you’re human.”
Related: People Who Were Told They Were ‘Too Sensitive’ as Children Usually Develop These 14 Traits as Adults, Psychologists Say
6. Perfectionism
“You believe that if you just get everything exactly right, no one will get hurt—especially not your child,” Dr. Koslowitz says about parenting with unresolved childhood trauma. “Mistakes feel emotionally dangerous, not just inconvenient.”
Related: People Who Were ‘Overly Competitive’ in Childhood Often Develop These 16 Traits as Adults, Psychologists Say
7. Shame Spirals
“You don’t just think I did something wrong, you feel I am wrong,” she explains. “Trauma teaches you that your worth is conditional—and mistakes seem to confirm your deepest fears.”
8. Difficulty Trusting Others
“You learned the hard way not to rely on anyone,” Dr. Koslowitz says. “In parenting, this can morph into helicoptering—because you don’t trust teachers, relatives or even your own child to navigate life safely. In romantic relationships, it looks like emotional distance or constant testing.”
9. Control Issues
“Trauma trains you to believe that control = safety,” she stresses. “So when something’s uncertain, you panic. You overprepare, overanalyze or freeze entirely—because once, lack of control meant real harm or the sensation of life being out of control felt overwhelming.”
Related: 7 Signs of ‘High-Functioning Depression,’ According to a Columbia-Trained Psychiatrist
10. Emotional Reactivity
“You go from 0 to 100 in seconds,” Dr. Koslowitz explains. “There’s no pause between trigger and reaction because your nervous system still thinks it’s protecting you from danger. Imagine a fire alarm that starts beeping wildly the instant you turn on the oven to cook a meal.”
11. Avoidance of Vulnerability
“Vulnerability once led to exploitation, so now it feels like weakness,” she shares. “You stay ‘strong,’ stoic or busy—anything to avoid being seen as soft or exposed.”
Related: 8 Phrases To Replace Saying ‘It’s OK’ When It’s Really Not OK, According to Psychologists
12. Disconnection from Your Body
“You might miss hunger cues, ignore fatigue or not notice tension until you’re in pain,” Dr. Koslowitz reveals. “Trauma taught you to live in your head, not your body. This can also happen during dissociation.“
Related: 9 Phrases To Use Instead of Automatically Saying Yes, According to Psychologists
13. Parental Over-identification
“Your child’s distress feels unbearable—because it echoes your own,” she says about how this can impact you as a parent. “You forget that supported distress can build resilience. You never had that support, so it’s hard to trust that they will.”
14. Panic in Uncertainty
“Life comes with no guarantees,” Dr. Koslowitz says. “But if trauma taught you that uncertainty leads to pain, then not knowing feels like free-falling. You’re constantly trying to control the uncontrollable. You try to predict, perfect and prevent—at the cost of peace.”
15. Difficulty Receiving Care
“You’re the caretaker—but struggle to let others care for you,” she says. “Somewhere along the line, you learned your needs would be dismissed, mocked or unmet. So now, you give and give… and silently feel empty.”
Related: Psychologists Are Begging Women To Remove These 15 Phrases from Their Vocabulary
How To Begin Healing
“Start by recognizing: It’s not you—it’s your trauma,” Dr. Koslowitz stresses. “You’re reacting the way your nervous system was wired to protect you. But protection isn’t the same as parenting. And healing begins when we stop shaming ourselves for our survival strategies.”
And that’s not all.
“Start with curiosity,” she continues. “Notice your triggers. When do you feel flooded, shut down, or out of proportion? That’s your trauma app running—trying to solve a danger that’s not actually present.”
It’s also a good idea to speak with a licensed professional.
“Therapy can be life-changing—especially trauma-informed models like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Internal Family Systems (IFS) or somatic therapies,” Dr. Koslowitz explains. “But healing doesn’t only happen in therapy. It happens in the moments when you pause, choose a different response, repair after rupture, or extend compassion to your inner child.”
And if you’re now a parent who still needs to heal from your childhood wounds while raising your own children, she wants to emphasize: “Your inner child can’t raise a child—but parenting your child can heal your inner child. Parenting should be healing, not triggering. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be present. Over and over again.”
Up Next:
Related: 7 Habits of a ‘Deeply Feeling’ Child or Grandchild, According to Dr. Becky Kennedy
Source:
- Dr. Robyn Koslowitz, licensed school psychologist, licensed clinical psychologist, educational director of the Targeted Parenting Institute and author of Post-Traumatic Parenting: Break the Cycle and Become the Parent You Always Wanted To Be
