Can growing up in a dysfunctional family affect you long after you leave home?
A child does not need to experience direct abuse every day for their environment to become traumatic. Parental mental illness, domestic violence, addiction, constant conflict, emotional unavailability, parentification and unpredictable behaviour can teach a child’s nervous system that danger may appear at any moment.
Over time, this can leave a “trauma footprint” that may show up in adulthood as anxiety, hypervigilance, depression, low self-worth, people-pleasing, anger, distrust, relationship difficulties or difficulty feeling emotionally safe.
In this video, I explain how dysfunctional family environments shape the nervous system and adult behaviour, including the case of Pallavi, a young woman whose childhood experiences continued to affect her mental health years later.
I also discuss:
• How parental mental health problems affect children
• Parentification and taking on adult responsibilities too early
• The impact of witnessing domestic violence
• How constant parental conflict affects children
• Addiction and unpredictability within families
• Why childhood coping patterns can continue into adulthood
• How understanding “What happened to me?” can become part of recovery
These themes are explored further in our book, What Happened to Me?: Indian Perspectives on Childhood Trauma and Recovery, co-authored by Dr Gunjan Y. Trivedi, Dr Riri G. Trivedi and Hemalatha Ramani.
The book explores childhood trauma, mental health, relationships, self-worth, the nervous system and recovery through an Indian lens.
