Understanding why some children develop PTSD and anxiety after trauma. A child’s personal perceptions of how severe the event was had a stronger impact on their mental health than objective, measurable facts about the severity of the event.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/predictive-models-of-posttraumatic-stress-disorder-complex-posttraumatic-stress-disorder-depression-and-anxiety-in-children-and-adolescents-following-a-singleevent-trauma/37561A6A891BF834F17FF46748DA1E5D
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A new study has shed light on why some children and adolescents develop mental health disorders like PTSD, anxiety, or depression after experiencing a traumatic event.
While most children recover well after a traumatic event, some go on to develop mental health disorders that may stay with them for months, years, or even into adulthood.
The University of East Anglia research found that cognitive psychological factors—such as how children remember the event and how they perceive themselves afterward—are the strongest predictors of poor mental health outcomes following a trauma.
The research team worked with 260 children aged between eight and 17 who had attended a hospital emergency department following a one-off traumatic incident. These included events such as car crashes, assaults, dog attacks and other medical emergencies.
[https://www.news-medical.net/news/20241010/Understanding-why-some-children-develop-PTSD-and-anxiety-after-trauma.aspx](https://www.news-medical.net/news/20241010/Understanding-why-some-children-develop-PTSD-and-anxiety-after-trauma.aspx)
Have a colleague that told about an event in his childhood that caused him to develop certain OCD symptoms when his anxiety flares up.
Basically when he was around 8-12, he left the house with his parents, and they forgot to turn of the stove, when they got back the kitchen was filled with smoke, and a pot was on the stove that was still on.
His parents just turned off the stove, and opened the windows, and threw out the pot which was damaged. But from his perspective it really impacted him.
So now when his anxiety flares up, he turns on/off everything several times, and tripple checks the kitchen, locks/unlocks doors etc.
It took him having a breakdown and going to a shrink figuring this out, something that was probably a blip for the parents, is forever seared into his subconscious.
As the saying goes, the axe forgets, the tree remembers.
According to many parents, it either never happen, or they’re allegedly the worst parents there are.
I wonder how much the impact is mediated by emotional processing. Being witnessed in distress and having those feelings validated can play a major role in preventing trauma from developing into PTSD. I grew up with parents who didn’t process stressful or traumatic experiences with me, and I know that would have made a significant difference. Instead, I was left with unresolved emotions that, as a child, I internalized and somehow felt responsible for. That experience became part of the origin story of my OCD—specifically, my need for control. Woot!