#childhood-trauma — Public Fediverse posts

DATE: October 21, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

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TITLE: Neuroscientists uncover brain clues to why some people with childhood trauma struggle to look forward to things

URL: https://www.psypost.org/neuroscientists-uncover-brain-clues-to-why-some-people-with-childhood-trauma-struggle-to-look-forward-to-things/

A new brain imaging study published in The Journal of Neuroscience indicates that the way a memory-related brain region communicates with the brain’s reward centers is linked to motivational difficulties in young adults with a history of childhood trauma. Among individuals who experienced higher levels of early life adversity, weaker activity and connectivity in the hippocampus were associated with a reduced ability to look forward to pleasurable experiences. These findings suggest that targeting memory and novelty-processing circuits could offer a new avenue for addressing motivational symptoms in trauma-exposed populations.

Anhedonia is a psychological condition defined by a reduced ability to experience pleasure or a lack of motivation to pursue rewarding activities. It is a common symptom across several mental health conditions, including major depression and schizophrenia. Psychologists typically divide anhedonia into two categories: consummatory anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure in the moment while engaging in an enjoyable activity, and anticipatory anhedonia, a diminished capacity to feel excited about or motivated to pursue future rewards.

To understand the biological roots of anhedonia, neuroscientists often examine the mesolimbic dopamine system, a network of brain structures that release and respond to the chemical messenger dopamine to drive reward-seeking behavior. Two central hubs in this network are the ventral tegmental area, a cluster of dopamine-producing neurons in the midbrain near the top of the brainstem, and the nucleus accumbens, a deep forebrain structure within the ventral striatum that processes reward and motivation. For instance, a longitudinal study covered by PsyPost in 2015 found that adolescents who experienced emotional neglect in childhood showed a drop in ventral striatum activity when receiving rewards over a two-year period, which predicted an increase in depressive symptoms.

While human brain imaging studies of anhedonia have largely concentrated on the striatum, animal research points to the hippocampus as an upstream regulator of this reward network. The hippocampus is a seahorse-shaped structure tucked deep within the temporal lobe on each side of the brain. Although best known for forming and retrieving memories, it also acts as a novelty detector. When an organism encounters something unfamiliar, the hippocampus sends signals through a multi-step neural circuit to the ventral tegmental area and the nucleus accumbens, triggering dopamine release that encourages exploration and goal-directed action.

Because the hippocampus contains a dense concentration of receptors that bind to stress hormones like cortisol, exposure to childhood abuse or neglect can alter how this structure develops and functions. In humans, a 2026 brain-mapping preprint from members of the same research group, which has not yet been peer reviewed, reconstructed the physical nerve tracts connecting the hippocampus, ventral tegmental area, and nucleus accumbens, providing structural evidence that these regions form an integrated loop supporting adaptive behavior. A study covered by PsyPost in 2022 found that people with moderate to severe childhood trauma reported more social anhedonia, a reduced interest in social connection, alongside differences in brain structure.

The research team behind the new study, led by first author Kathleen J. O’Brien of Temple University and senior author Vishnu “Deepu” Murty of the University of Oregon’s Adaptive Memory Lab, wanted to test whether disruptions in hippocampal-reward communication interact with childhood trauma to explain why some people struggle with anhedonia.

“This study was motivated by a large animal literature that suggests that regions implicated in novelty processing, like the hippocampus, are critical for anhedonia, but characterization of this circuit had not been translated into the human literature,” Murty told PsyPost.

To investigate this question, the researchers recruited participants from the Philadelphia site of a broader project examining psychosis risk in young adults, ensuring the sample included a wide range of anhedonia severity. Out of 102 individuals who completed functional magnetic resonance imaging scans, the final sample included 92 participants with usable resting-state brain scans (37 males and 55 females) and 80 participants with usable task-based scans (34 males and 46 females). The participants ranged in age from 18 to 30 years old, with an average age of about 21.

Participants completed a modified version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire Short-Form, a self-report survey assessing experiences of emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect before age 16. They also filled out the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale, which uses separate subscales to measure anticipatory pleasure and consummatory pleasure. Lower scores on these scales indicate higher levels of anhedonia.

Inside the magnetic resonance imaging scanner, which measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow, the researchers focused on the anterior hippocampus, the front third of the structure that connects most densely with reward circuits. First, participants underwent a 5.8-minute resting-state scan while looking at a cross on a screen. This allowed the scientists to measure baseline functional connectivity, meaning how closely activity in the anterior hippocampus synchronized with activity in the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area while at rest.

Next, participants completed a target-detection task designed to measure how the brain responds to novelty and pursues goals. An hour before entering the scanner, participants had been familiarized with 80 outdoor scene photographs, viewing each one six times. Immediately prior to scanning and again inside the scanner, participants were shown a single specific target landscape. During the brain scan, participants watched a sequence of images flash on the screen for two seconds each and had to press a button every time the target landscape appeared.

Mixed in with the 40 target trials were the 80 familiar scenes and 80 completely new outdoor scenes the participants had never seen before. Using this setup, the researchers measured how strongly the anterior hippocampus activated in response to the novel images compared to the familiar ones. They also used a forward-prediction model to test whether heightened hippocampal activity during novel scenes predicted stronger activation in the ventral tegmental area when the target image appeared shortly afterward.

In their statistical analyses, the researchers controlled for participant age, as age was correlated with baseline connectivity between the hippocampus and the ventral tegmental area, and they verified in follow-up tests that accounting for psychosis-risk status did not change the outcomes. Across all four brain measures, the authors found no statistically significant links or trauma interactions related to consummatory anhedonia. In other words, hippocampal circuit function did not explain differences in the ability to enjoy pleasurable activities in the moment.

For anticipatory anhedonia, however, interactions emerged between childhood trauma and three of the four hippocampal circuit measures. Resting connectivity between the anterior hippocampus and the ventral tegmental area showed no such interaction. Among individuals with higher levels of childhood trauma (defined as one standard deviation above the sample average), weaker resting-state connectivity between the anterior hippocampus and the nucleus accumbens was associated with greater anticipatory anhedonia.

Similarly, in this high-trauma group, a blunted response in the anterior hippocampus when viewing novel scenes, as well as a weaker link between hippocampal responses to novel scenes and later activity in the ventral tegmental area during subsequent target detection, were both linked to worse anticipatory anhedonia. Among participants with lower levels of childhood trauma (one standard deviation below the average), these brain measures showed no statistically significant relationship with anticipatory pleasure.

To determine whether each of these neural measures contributed independently rather than reflecting the exact same underlying brain process, the scientists ran a machine-learning variable selection technique that removes redundant predictors and retains only the strongest ones. The resulting combined model accounted for 24 percent of the total variance in anticipatory anhedonia scores, or 20 percent after adjusting for the number of predictors in the model.

Even when evaluated simultaneously alongside overall trauma severity, both the interaction between trauma and resting hippocampus-accumbens connectivity and the interaction between trauma and task-based hippocampus-to-ventral-tegmental-area signaling remained independent predictors of anticipatory anhedonia. The interaction involving the hippocampus’s response to novel scenes was retained by the selection procedure but fell short of statistical significance in the final model, while higher trauma levels were themselves associated with greater anticipatory anhedonia.

The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which found that chronic stress in mice weakened connections from the hippocampus to the nucleus accumbens and reduced reward-seeking, and that a single dose of ketamine restored both. That work examined stressed animals directly rather than brain scans and self-reported trauma in people. The authors suggest that when early life adversity coincides with weakened communication between the hippocampus and dopamine centers, the brain may struggle to use novel environmental cues to spark motivation and update expectations about future rewards.

“The average person should take away that early life stress may make you vulnerable to anhedonia, a lack of pleasure, but that engagement of circuits centered on novelty and exploration can minimize that risk,” Murty explained. “Sometimes there is a misinterpretation that these mesolimbic systems are just there for reward processing, but rather they are sensitive to motivation and behaviors like novelty, information seeking, and perhaps even curiosity.”

There are a few things to keep in mind when interpreting these results. Because the study is cross-sectional, meaning all data were collected at a single point in time, it cannot establish that childhood trauma or hippocampal alterations directly cause anhedonia. It is possible that preexisting differences in brain circuitry make certain individuals more sensitive to the emotional fallout of early stress, or that prolonged exposure to childhood stress gradually wears down hippocampal pathways over time. Longitudinal studies that track children and adolescents across development will be necessary to determine the exact sequence of events.

The study does have some other limitations. The researchers also did not test whether engaging these circuits, for instance through novel experiences, would actually lower anhedonia in people with a history of trauma. The trauma measure relied on young adults recalling their childhoods, and due to the online nature of the initial screening survey and ethical constraints regarding mandatory reporting without direct participant contact, the researchers excluded questions about physical and sexual abuse, meaning the findings specifically reflect emotional abuse and emotional or physical neglect.

In addition, the sample was drawn from a psychosis-risk study in which 22 participants met criteria for clinical high risk, so the results may differ in a general population of young adults, and replication in larger samples will be helpful given the modest statistical strength of the interaction findings.

The resting-state brain scans lasted just under six minutes, whereas recent neuroimaging standards suggest that longer scan times can yield more stable estimates of baseline brain connectivity. Future research could also expand beyond the hippocampus and midbrain to examine how other brain regions involved in emotion and decision-making, such as the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, work together to influence motivation after early life stress.

Looking ahead, the research team plans to examine how these brain mechanisms connect to personal recall and everyday emotional life. “Our long-term goal is to try to understand how these findings relate to subjective experience of anhedonia, and how those might relate to memories of the past,” Murty noted.

The study, “Functional Integrity of Mesolimbic-Hippocampal Circuits Is Associated with Anhedonia in Individuals with Early Life Stress,” was authored by Kathleen J. O’Brien, Blake L. Elliott, Ian O’Shea, Jason Schiffman, Vijay A. Mittal, Lauren M. Ellman, and Vishnu P. Murty.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/neuroscientists-uncover-brain-clues-to-why-some-people-with-childhood-trauma-struggle-to-look-forward-to-things/

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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Neuroscience #Anhedonia #ChildhoodTrauma #Hippocampus #VTA #NucleusAccumbens #RewardCircuit #NoveltyProcessing #Motivation #MentalHealthResearch

Thanks for listening to my scar-born scifi family estrangement expertise. It comes from painful experience - I can take comfort in knowing that I did what I could to mend my fences. Perhaps these tips and tricks will be helpful to you.

#estrangement #adultchildren #childhoodtrauma

DATE: October 20, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

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TITLE: How chronic drinking masks the brain’s hidden scars from childhood trauma

URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-chronic-drinking-masks-the-brain-s-hidden-scars-from-childhood-trauma/

Early childhood maltreatment leaves a distinct structural footprint on the human brain, but chronic alcohol use might obscure or reshape these neurodevelopmental marks over time. A new study published in Addiction Neuroscience reports that while childhood trauma is linked to altered gray matter and brain folding in healthy adults, those specific patterns are largely absent in people with alcohol use disorder. The findings suggest that the heavy physical toll of chronic alcohol consumption may overwrite early structural changes, requiring researchers to account for active addiction severity when searching for the neural signs of childhood adversity.

To understand how experiences alter the physical brain, researchers look at different measurements of its tissue. Gray matter is the brain tissue packed with nerve cell bodies, responsible for processing information. Researchers measure gray matter volume to gauge the overall size of specific brain structures. They also examine the outermost surface layer of this tissue, known as the cerebral cortex, by measuring its physical thickness.

Another important metric is gyrification, or the degree of folding across the brain’s surface. Gyrification begins before birth and helps pack a larger surface area of brain tissue into the limited space of the skull. Folds form primarily during fetal development and early childhood, making them a relatively stable marker of early life events. Cortical thickness, on the other hand, can change more readily throughout adulthood due to aging or environmental toxins like alcohol.

Adverse experiences during childhood, such as emotional neglect or physical abuse, can disrupt early neurodevelopment. These experiences often lead to lasting structural changes in brain areas that manage emotion, stress, and self-control. These same brain regions are heavily implicated in addictive behaviors later in life.

Lead author Franca Schmid, a researcher at the Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne in France, and corresponding author Sarah Gerhardt, a researcher at Heidelberg University in Germany, wanted to explore how trauma and alcohol interact physically in the brain. The research team set out to map how childhood maltreatment relates to brain structure in adults with and without an active addiction to alcohol.

They focused their investigation on four specific brain regions known to be sensitive to both stress and addiction. The amygdala and hippocampus process emotions, handle stress responses, and manage memories. The orbitofrontal cortex helps the brain value rewards and make decisions. Finally, the inferior frontal gyrus acts as the brain’s braking system, managing impulse control and the regulation of emotions.

The research team analyzed data from 84 individuals with varying severity of alcohol use disorder, many of whom were recruited from inpatient or outpatient treatment programs, and 83 adults with no history of substance use issues. Participants completed extensive surveys detailing their alcohol consumption habits. They also completed questionnaires asking if they had experienced emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, or emotional and physical neglect during childhood.

Following the surveys, the researchers used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, to capture high-resolution, three-dimensional scans of each participant’s brain. Specialized computer software then mapped the volume, thickness, and folding patterns of the four targeted brain regions.

Looking at overall brain volume, the researchers found that adults with alcohol use disorder had reduced gray matter across all the examined regions when compared to the healthy adults. This overall reduction aligns with extensive previous research detailing the neurotoxic effects of chronic, heavy alcohol exposure, which physically shrinks brain tissue over time.

The researchers then looked for structural changes linked specifically to childhood trauma rather than alcohol. In the healthy group, individuals who reported higher levels of early life maltreatment exhibited reduced gray matter volume in the right side of the inferior frontal gyrus. At the same time, these healthy adults showed an increase in cortical folding on the left side of the exact same brain region.

This increase in folding might represent a biological compensatory response. Because these individuals did not develop a substance use disorder, their brains might have adapted to early stress by altering their folding patterns to maintain cognitive functions. Structural changes in the inferior frontal gyrus might help resilient individuals process emotions and maintain self-control despite a history of trauma.

These trauma-related patterns did not appear in the adults with alcohol use disorder. The addiction group showed no link between childhood trauma scores and gray matter volume or brain folding. The absence of these specific differences suggests that chronic alcohol exposure might mask the structural signatures of early childhood adversity. The severe tissue loss caused by years of heavy drinking might physically erase or overshadow the earlier, more subtle changes caused by childhood trauma.

To test this idea, the researchers conducted an additional analysis restricted entirely to the alcohol use disorder group. When they statistically adjusted the data to account for the exact severity of each patient’s current alcohol consumption, a different pattern emerged.

By factoring in the intensity of the addiction, the researchers peeled back a layer of alcohol-related damage. In this adjusted analysis, higher rates of childhood trauma were associated with a thinner cerebral cortex in the left inferior frontal gyrus of the patients. This suggests that the structural traces of childhood trauma are still present in these individuals, but they are hiding beneath the more prominent damage caused by active, heavy drinking.

Because the study measured brain structure at a single point in time, the results cannot establish a direct chain of events from childhood trauma to brain changes to alcohol addiction. Researchers cannot prove causality from a cross-sectional design. They can only establish that a mathematical relationship exists between the reported trauma and the physical brain measurements.

The study also relied on retrospective self-reports of childhood trauma. Human memory is fallible, and asking individuals to recall events from decades past can result in memory biases. Prospective studies, which follow children in real-time as they grow, often yield different rates of reported trauma than retrospective surveys.

The analysis of cortical thickness in the alcohol use disorder group was an exploratory step conducted on a slightly smaller subset of the participants. Some patients did not have complete survey data for their recent alcohol severity, reducing the number of people included in that specific test.

Future research requires tracking individuals over long periods of time, from childhood straight into adulthood. Researchers need to measure brain structure before alcohol use begins and monitor how the tissue changes as drinking escalates. Only by watching the brain change over time can researchers fully map the overlapping impacts of early adversity and later addiction.

The study, “Childhood Maltreatment Related Effects on Brain Structure in Alcohol Use Disorder,” was authored by Franca Schmid, Fabien Gierski, Falk Kiefer, Cagdas Türkmen, Audrey Henry, Bernd Lenz, Farid Benzerouk, Arthur Kaladjian, Sabine Vollstädt-Klein, and Sarah Gerhardt.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-chronic-drinking-masks-the-brain-s-hidden-scars-from-childhood-trauma/

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DATE: October 7, 2026 at 09:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

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TITLE: Researchers probe the oxytocin system for clues to functional neurological disorder

URL: https://www.psypost.org/epigenetics-and-oxytocin-levels-show-links-to-childhood-trauma-in-functional-neu/

A recent study investigated whether the body’s oxytocin system acts as a biological risk factor for Functional Neurological Disorder. The findings indicate that while genetic variations do not appear to directly cause the condition, interactions between genetics, epigenetics, and circulating hormones might explain how patients process physical sensations and childhood trauma. The research was published in Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology.

Natascha Stoffel, a researcher at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, led the investigation. She and her colleagues wanted to understand the biological mechanisms behind Functional Neurological Disorder. This condition sits at the boundary between psychiatry and neurology.

Patients with the disorder experience physical symptoms like tremors, weakness, or non-epileptic seizures. These symptoms are genuine and debilitating, but they are not caused by traditional structural brain diseases. People with the condition frequently report a history of adverse life events, such as childhood trauma or emotional neglect.

Patients also often struggle with interoception, which is the brain’s ability to sense and process internal bodily signals. Interoception allows a person to feel when they are hungry, when their heart is racing, or when their breathing changes. In many stress-related conditions, this internal sensory system becomes disrupted.

To explore potential biological mechanisms, Stoffel and her team focused on the oxytocin system. Oxytocin is a hormone and chemical messenger that regulates stress, emotional responses, and social behavior. The researchers suspected that changes in how the body processes oxytocin might alter a person’s stress response and their internal bodily awareness.

The team looked at three distinct components of the oxytocin system. First, they looked at genetics, specifically examining variations in the oxytocin receptor gene. Second, they examined epigenetics, which are chemical tags added to DNA that change how a gene functions without altering the genetic code itself. Epigenetic changes are influenced by a person’s environment and life experiences.

For the epigenetic component, the team specifically measured methylation, a type of chemical tag that typically reduces a gene’s activity. Finally, the researchers measured the actual levels of oxytocin circulating in the participants’ bodies.

To conduct the first part of their research, the scientists analyzed data from 89 adults, after three of the 92 originally enrolled participants were excluded because of missing genetic data. The group included 41 patients diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder and 48 healthy control participants. The research team collected blood samples to extract and analyze the participants’ DNA.

From the blood samples, the team identified each participant’s genetic variants for the oxytocin receptor gene. They also measured the degree of epigenetic methylation at two specific regions of this gene. To measure circulating hormones, the researchers collected saliva samples at four different times during the day.

The scientists compared the genetic and epigenetic data between the two groups. When looking at the genetic variants alone, the models showed no difference in how the gene variations were distributed between the patients and the healthy controls. They also found no statistically significant differences in the average epigenetic methylation rates between the two groups.

While the baseline genetic and epigenetic markers did not differ, the researchers found an interaction when they included the salivary oxytocin levels. Patients with the disorder who carried a specific variant of the oxytocin receptor gene (the GG genotype) had elevated levels of oxytocin in their saliva compared to healthy controls with the same genetic variant.

In healthy individuals, oxytocin levels typically rise in response to specific contexts, like social bonding, parenting, or physical exercise. For the patients in this study, the elevated oxytocin levels appeared independently of these specific triggers. The researchers suggest that a specific genetic variant might act as a vulnerability factor, causing an abnormal release of oxytocin in response to daily stress.

In the second part of the investigation, the researchers tested whether combining the genetic and epigenetic data could help explain the participants’ interoceptive abilities. Participants completed a breathing task that measured their physical sensitivity to respiratory resistance. They also filled out a questionnaire that assessed how accurately they felt they could detect their own bodily sensations.

The researchers used statistical models to see if combining the oxytocin receptor genetics, methylation data, and salivary oxytocin levels would predict the interoceptive test scores. The addition of these biological markers did not improve the models. The genetic and epigenetic variables did not explain the interoceptive dysfunction observed in the patient group.

The team then applied the same statistical approach to look at childhood trauma. Participants completed a standard questionnaire to self-report their history of childhood trauma and emotional neglect. The researchers built a model to see if the biological markers aligned with the variation in these trauma scores.

In this case, the addition of the biological markers improved the statistical model. Including the epigenetic methylation data and the salivary oxytocin levels helped explain the variance in the self-reported childhood trauma scores. Higher levels of methylation at a specific region of the oxytocin receptor gene were associated with lower reported trauma scores.

The researchers noted a few caveats regarding their findings. Because the investigation relied on a modest sample size of 89 adults, it lacked the statistical power needed to make definitive claims about genetic associations. A simulation conducted by the researchers indicated that a study would need about 400 participants to confidently detect the genetic effects they observed.

The study measured epigenetic markers using blood samples, which might not accurately reflect the methylation levels present in brain tissue. The levels of oxytocin measured in saliva also might not perfectly mirror the concentrations of the hormone functioning directly within the central nervous system.

The statistical models linking the oxytocin system to childhood trauma do not establish a directional mechanism. The researchers cannot say whether experiencing trauma causes changes to the oxytocin system, or if an altered oxytocin system changes how a person processes and reports traumatic memories. Future research will need to track larger groups of people over time to understand how stress, genetics, and hormones interact to trigger the condition.

The study, “The Oxytocinergic System in Functional Neurological Disorder: Preliminary Testing of Associations with Interoception and Childhood Trauma,” was authored by Natascha Stoffel, Juan Ansede-Bermejo, Cristina Concetti, Ángel Carracedo, and Selma Aybek.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/epigenetics-and-oxytocin-levels-show-links-to-childhood-trauma-in-functional-neu/

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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #OxytocinSystem #FunctionalNeurologicalDisorder #Interoception #OxytocinReceptorGene #Epigenetics #Methylation #ChildhoodTrauma #Neuropsychiatry #SalivaryOxytocin #Biomarkers

New research explores how emotional and physical neglect may be linked to mental health difficulties and repeated suicide attempts later in life https://english.mathrubhumi.com/lifestyle/parenting/childhood-neglect-mental-health-suicide-risk--jpcrnmoc?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #ChildhoodTrauma #MentalHealth #ChildSafety #EmotionalWellbeing

DATE: October 1, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
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TITLE: Childhood trauma is linked to suicidal thoughts and attempts in adults with depression and anxiety

URL: https://www.psypost.org/childhood-trauma-is-linked-to-suicidal-thoughts-and-attempts-in-adults-with-depression-and-anxiety/

An analysis of data from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety found that among adults with depressive or anxiety disorders, those who experienced more childhood trauma were more likely to report recent suicidal thoughts and past suicide attempts. Personality traits, insomnia, and low social support statistically accounted for part of this link. The paper was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Suicide is a major global health problem, and people living with depression or anxiety are among those at the greatest risk. Experiencing abuse or other serious trauma during childhood can increase this risk further, sometimes many years after the original events. One explanation (called the diathesis-stress model) is that childhood trauma creates a lasting vulnerability that can interact with later stresses, such as mental illness, difficult life events, or lack of social support.

Childhood trauma may shape personality in ways that increase vulnerability, for example by contributing to hopelessness, aggression, neuroticism, or a reduced sense of control over one’s life. It may also affect a person’s social world, increasing the likelihood of loneliness, poor support, and repeated negative life experiences. Additionally, childhood trauma is associated with problems such as disturbed sleep, alcohol use, smoking, physical inactivity, and higher body weight. It may also alter biological stress systems, including inflammatory processes and the hormonal system, further affecting how the body responds to stress.

Study author Jasper X.M. Wiebenga and his colleagues set out to examine the association between childhood trauma and suicidal outcomes (suicidal ideation and suicide attempts), as well as various factors that might mediate this association. In other words, they were interested in identifying factors that may be affected by childhood trauma and that may, in turn, affect the risk that a person will start thinking about suicide or attempt suicide.

The researchers analyzed data from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA), a large, ongoing study designed to investigate depressive and anxiety disorders. They hypothesized that more severe childhood trauma would be associated both with a higher likelihood of having suicidal thoughts without having attempted suicide and with a higher likelihood of having attempted suicide.

The analysis used data collected between 2004 and 2007 from 1,572 individuals between 18 and 65 years of age who had been diagnosed with a depressive or anxiety disorder in the 12 months before enrolling in the study. Participants were recruited from across the Netherlands. Of these individuals, 24% had a depressive disorder without an anxiety disorder, 30% had an anxiety disorder without a depressive disorder, and 46% had both. Just over half (55%) reported experiencing childhood trauma. Participants’ average age was 41 years, and 67% were women.

To assess childhood trauma, the researchers used the Childhood Trauma Index, a structured interview about emotional neglect, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse before age 16, scored from 0 to 8 based on the number of trauma types and how often they occurred. Suicidal ideation in the past week was assessed with a shortened version of the Scale for Suicide Ideation, and lifetime suicide attempts were assessed with the question “Have you ever made a serious attempt to end your life, for instance by harming or poisoning yourself or by getting into an accident?”

Based on their answers, participants were divided into three groups: those with neither recent suicidal thoughts nor a past attempt (1,248 people), those with recent suicidal thoughts but no past attempt (231 people), and those with recent suicidal thoughts and a past attempt (93 people). People who had attempted suicide in the past but had no recent suicidal thoughts were left out of the analysis.

The researchers also used data on participants’ personality traits (the Leiden Index of Depression Sensitivity-Revised, the NEO Five-Factor Inventory, and the Pearlin Mastery Scale), negative life events (the Recent Life Events Questionnaire), social support, loneliness, lifestyle (alcohol consumption, smoking, sleep quality, physical activity, and body mass index), markers of systemic inflammation (C-reactive protein and interleukin-6, measured from blood samples), and levels of the stress hormone cortisol (from saliva samples).

After controlling for age and sex, each one-point increase in childhood trauma score was associated with 51% higher odds of having recent suicidal thoughts without a past attempt, and 2.68 times higher odds of having recent suicidal thoughts along with a past suicide attempt. When the researchers compared participants with severe childhood trauma (a score of 4 or more) to those with no childhood trauma, the odds of recent suicidal thoughts without an attempt were 2.63 times higher. The odds of having recent suicidal thoughts and a past attempt were almost 10 times higher.

Further analyses tested each potential mediator separately. For both suicide outcomes, a number of factors showed significant indirect associations consistent with mediation: aggression, insomnia, lower social support, loneliness, neuroticism, lower extraversion, hopelessness, and a weaker sense of control over one’s life (people who feel that events in their life are outside their control were more likely to report suicidal thoughts).

Interestingly, higher levels of interleukin-6, a marker of systemic inflammation, also emerged as a potential mediator of the link between childhood trauma and suicide attempts, although it accounted for only about 3% of the association and was no longer significant once other factors were considered together. Other biological markers, including C-reactive protein and cortisol, were not significant mediators. Among lifestyle factors, only insomnia played a role; alcohol use, smoking, physical activity, and body weight were not significant mediators.

The researchers then entered the significant mediators into combined models, which test how much each factor contributes after accounting for the overlap among them. For recent suicidal thoughts without an attempt, neuroticism, lower extraversion, aggression, hopelessness, insomnia, and social support together accounted for about 66% of the association with childhood trauma. For suicidal thoughts with a past attempt, a weaker sense of control, aggression, insomnia, and social support accounted for about 39% of the association. In both cases, childhood trauma remained significantly linked to the suicide outcomes even after accounting for these factors.

“Altogether, CT [childhood trauma] was associated with both suicide outcomes, but SI+SA+ in particular. These associations were substantially attenuated in multiple-mediator models in which multiple personality traits, insomnia, and perceived social support showed significant indirect associations consistent with mediation after accounting for shared variance among variables,” the study authors concluded.

“Aggression, insomnia and social support statistically accounted for the link between CT and the outcomes SI+SA- and SI+SA+. Neuroticism, introversion, and hopelessness linked CT to SI+SA- in particular, whilst locus of control showed a significant indirect association consistent with mediation of the association between CT and SI+SA+. The findings point to potentially modifiable factors relevant for suicide prevention, especially aggression, insomnia and social support, that require further investigation in longitudinal studies.” (In the authors’ shorthand, SI+SA- refers to suicidal ideation without a suicide attempt, and SI+SA+ refers to suicidal ideation with a suicide attempt.)

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of factors associated with suicide attempts and suicidal ideation. However, it should be noted that the design of this study does not allow any causal inferences to be drawn from the results. The potential mediators were measured at the same time as suicidal thoughts, so the study cannot show whether they came before or after them. Additionally, childhood trauma was reported by participants as adults, leaving room for recall bias, although the authors note that research suggests such retrospective reports are generally reliable.

Many of the potential mediators were also correlated with one another, so the combined models capture each factor’s unique contribution rather than its full role. Finally, all participants had depressive or anxiety disorders, and the sample was predominantly Dutch and female, so the findings may not apply to the general population, to men, or to other cultures.

The paper, “Childhood trauma and suicide ideation and attempts: Examining the mediating role of psychosocial, personality, lifestyle and biological factors,” was authored by Jasper X.M. Wiebenga, Lili Lokhorst, Adriaan W. Hoogendoorn, Henriette D. Heering, Merijn Eikelenboom, Erik J. Giltay, Patricia van Oppen, and Brenda W.J.H. Penninx.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/childhood-trauma-is-linked-to-suicidal-thoughts-and-attempts-in-adults-with-depression-and-anxiety/

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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ChildhoodTrauma #SuicidalIdeation #SuicideAttempts #DepressionAnxiety #MentalHealthAwareness #Prevention #Insomnia #SocialSupport #Neuroticism #Inflammation

My birthday is coming in 2 days (31st of August). On this day I do not interact, talk or engage at all. People ask me why, and I can tell you that that there is a way to express it. I just dont.

https://thistleandmoss.com/p/co-l-breith-the-corner-that-all-of-us-find

#ChosenFamily #QueerSpace #LGBTQIA #TransRights #Memoir #AmWriting #CPTSD #ChildhoodTrauma #SurvivorStories #Grief #Gaidhlig #Druid

She Saw Her Racist Father Beat A Black Man And Chose Anti-Racist Solidarity Over Inherited Hate

Brittani Mazzone recalls her racist father beating a Black man and explains how that trauma pushed her to reject hate, choose allyship, and stand for justice.

RIP Tim Curry 😿 I had nightmares because of #Pennywise, the clown in #It 😨 And I don’t think I was the only one 😼

#TV #Horror #ChildhoodTrauma #Classics #90s #StephenKing

Pennywise from Stephen King's ...

From FB, and so relatable. ⁨The Self⁩ There is a particular kind of shame that comes from looking around one day and feeling like everybody else got a head start on being a person.

They built careers while you were learning how not to panic. They formed healthy relationships while you were still mistaking familiar pain for love. They saved money, took risks, travelled, studied, made plans and developed confidence while enormous parts of your energy were being spent simply trying to feel safe inside your own life.

But nobody sees time that way.

They see the age.

By thirty you should have this. By forty you should know that. By fifty surely you should be further along. There are invisible milestones everywhere, and when your life doesn’t match them it can feel like evidence that you’ve somehow failed at adulthood.

So you compare your chapter to somebody else’s without accounting for what it cost you just to reach the page you’re on.

You forget the years spent recovering from things you didn’t cause. The relationships you had to unlearn. The beliefs about yourself you had to dismantle. The energy lost to anxiety, hypervigilance, grief, dissociation, people-pleasing or simply getting through days that looked completely ordinary to everybody else.

That time wasn’t empty.

You were doing work.

It just wasn’t the kind of work society knows how to put on a résumé.

You were learning that love shouldn’t frighten you. You were learning that saying no doesn’t make you cruel. You were discovering which parts of your personality were actually yours and which were adaptations. You were learning how to make decisions without asking what would upset everyone else first.

Some people got to spend their early years building a life.

Others had to spend part of adulthood rebuilding the person who was supposed to live it.

Of course those timelines look different.

This doesn’t mean trauma should become the explanation for everything that hasn’t happened yet, or that we have no agency over where we go from here. But shame is a terrible starting line.

Maybe you aren’t lazy. Maybe you aren’t immature. Maybe you haven’t “wasted your potential.”

Maybe you’ve been measuring yourself against people whose energy wasn’t being spent fighting battles you couldn’t see.

There is no prize for arriving at somebody else’s version of life on time.

And perhaps I’m not behind at all.

Perhaps this is simply what my life looks like after taking the long way back to myself.

#theself #knowthyself #feelingbehind #complextrauma #cptsd #childhoodtrauma #traumarecovery #healingjourney #selfworth #selfcomparison #selfawareness #psychology #mentalhealth #survivalmode #latebloomer

New episode just dropped

Sharissa Bradley goes deep on parentification, childhood trauma, and the long road back to health—self-forgiveness, grace, and the middle of healing that rarely gets shared.

Watch → https://youtu.be/QcjdxTYPa2o

#ChildhoodTrauma #CPTSD #healingjourney

What part of your story still needs grace? 👇

Growing up with controlling and critical parents can leave deep emotional scars that last long into adulthood. #wellness #HealingFromParents #ToxicParenting #ChildhoodTrauma #EmotionalHealing #InnerChildWork

https://econopass.com/strategies-to-overcome-impact-highly-critical-controlling-parent/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Meditation & Mindfulness 🧘‍♀️ @meditation-mindfulness-Econopass

If you are a survivor of childhood trauma working to restore your mental health, please know you are not alone.💜I wrote "The Unbroken Heart" as an honest account of my own journey with PTSD toward lasting inner peace and healing. It features soft, gentle practices that feel like a warm blanket for the soul on difficult days.
Discover the book
https://www.janehealingangels.com/book.html

#Bookstodon #MentalHealth #TraumaRecovery #PTSD #CPTSD #ChildhoodTrauma #InnerPeace #HealingJourney #SelfHelpBooks #IndieAuthor

Big Fish

https://thewitch.blog/2026/07/29/big-fish/

In fact, I'm a big fucking hypocrite because it bothers me to the point of monomania when people REPETITIVELY FIDGET.

Like girls with long hair who cannot stop "brushing" it with their fingers. I want to just SLAP their hands.

… And I'm sure that has NOTHING to do with the fact that I was regularly hauled out of church on Sunday mornings to be SPANKED for not "sitting still like a young lady." Nothing whatsoever. 🙄

Seeking Justice for Stolen Childhood Journals After Decades

📰 Original title: Asking Eric: Sister read and mocked stolen childhood journals

🤖 IA: It's clickbait ⚠️
👥 Users: It's clickbait ⚠️

View full AI summary https://en.killbait.com/seeking-justice-for-stolen-childhood-journals-after-decades.html?utm_source=mastodon_world&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=killbait.mastodon_world

#justice #stolenjournals #familyconflict #childhoodtrauma

Seeking Justice for Stolen Childhood Journals After Decades

📰 Original title: Asking Eric: Sister read and mocked stolen childhood journals

🤖 IA: It's clickbait ⚠️
👥 Users: It's clickbait ⚠️

View full AI summary https://en.killbait.com/seeking-justice-for-stolen-childhood-journals-after-decades.html?utm_source=mastodon_social&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=killbait.mastodon_social

#justice #stolenjournals #familyconflict #childhoodtrauma

The Doors Changed. The Lesson Remained: How Trauma Becomes an Education.

A child may leave the dangerous house and still carry its rules into every room that follows. An exploration of trauma, belonging, institutions, inheritance—and how another world can become learnable.
#IntergenerationalTrauma, #ChildhoodTrauma, #DevelopmentalTrauma, #TraumaRecovery

https://beinghumans.blog/2026/07/intergenerational-trauma-lessons/

✮ Accidental Teachers ✮

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Making Mistakes

This weeks blog post deals with trauma that came up when I wanted to learn Finnish and realised I couldn't. The abuse-induced fear of making mistakes was holding me back. There's some pretty ugly stuff under this rock, but I turned it over anyway.

TW for child abuse, CSA, incest, sibling abuse.

https://aurin.mataroa.blog/blog/making-mistakes/

#AurinBlogs #ChildhoodTrauma #AbuseSurvivor

Back To Regular Programming

https://escapethechaos.blog/2026/07/04/back-to-regular-programming/

Court hears of tragic childhood of motorist who killed young Calgary girl while driving stolen van

The motorist who drove a stolen van recklessly through Calgary before running a red light and killing a…
#Canada #Calgary #braintrauma #childhoodtrauma #DuaneNepoose #KateWebb-Harris #runningaredlight #SamTaylor #VictoriaDesjardin #Webb-Harris
https://www.europesays.com/canada/105467/

Have you ever watched the 100-minute long music video nightmare fever dream that is "Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme"?

#Movies #Music #ChildhoodTrauma

Atack Shares Personal Trauma, Pregnancy at Sixteen

Emily Atack shares she got pregnant at 16 due to childhood sexual assault, affecting her adult relationships. Learn about the impact.

#EmilyAtack, #ChildhoodTrauma, #PregnancyAt16, #AdultRelationships, #PersonalStory

https://newsletter.tf/emily-atack-pregnancy-childhood-assault-relationships/

Emily Atack revealed she had a pregnancy at 16 after a childhood assault. This experience has deeply affected her adult relationships.

#EmilyAtack, #ChildhoodTrauma, #PregnancyAt16, #AdultRelationships, #PersonalStory
https://newsletter.tf/emily-atack-pregnancy-childhood-assault-relationships/

CHILDHOOD BRUISES SCULPT ADULT CHOICES

How severe childhood bullying, including a school bus assault at age 5, deeply affected life choices, leading to a decision not to have children.

#ChildhoodTrauma, #BullyingImpact, #AdultChoices, #SchoolViolence, #MentalHealthAwareness

https://newsletter.tf/childhood-bullying-adult-decision-no-children/

A 5-year-old's bullying experience on a school bus has led to a lifelong decision about parenthood. This story highlights how early trauma shapes adult choices.

#ChildhoodTrauma, #BullyingImpact, #AdultChoices, #SchoolViolence, #MentalHealthAwareness
https://newsletter.tf/childhood-bullying-adult-decision-no-children/

Sanjay Dutt: People celebrated when Sanjay Dutt was struggling with addiction and then downfall during 1993 Mumbai blasts, says Trishala Dutt | Hindi Movie News

Trishala Dutt is Sanjay Dutt‘s daughter with his first wife Richa Sharma…
#NewsBeep #News #Movies #1993Mumbaiblasts #CA #Canada #celebritiesandlegalissues #childhoodtrauma #Entertainment #publicreactionSanjayDutt #RichaSharma #sanjaydutt #SanjayDuttfamilystruggles #SanjayDuttjailsentence #TrishalaDutt
https://www.newsbeep.com/ca/686837/

The Journey of a Glass Child: Embracing Uniqueness

https://dreamspacestudio.net/the-journey-of-a-glass-child-embracing-uniqueness/

#FamilyDynamics #CPTSD #ChildhoodTrauma #TraumaMemes #Relatable #MichaelJordan #AndITookThatPersonally #MentalHealth #Healing #Growth

✮ Everything Given ✮

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4 Things EVERY KID NEEDS | #childhoodtrauma #healing #mentalhealth #trauma #innerchild https://youtube.com/shorts/O3I8tT9y0QE

I just donated to War Amps…. anyone else suffering from their robot commercial back in the day?

https://youtu.be/ZK-nMwqyqQY?si=SyIcy4mM4lqIGKAs

The remake was certainly a step down.

#childhoodtrauma #warampscanada

A heart connection for those children 💔❤️

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WDiw1JeffNM

#PatrickTeahan #ChildhoodTrauma #TraumaHealing #trauma #EpsteinFiles

"Anger is not a bad emotion. It's a compass. It's an empowering emotion if it's used right."

Tangible ways to get out or at least relieve survival mode - Rage Work with Patrick Teahan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UqxRDRMDds

#ChildhoodTrauma #trauma #anger #rage #SurvivalMode #PatrickTeahan #PTSD #ToxicParents #ToxicSiblings #NarcissisticAbuse #TraumaSurvivor

The scapegoat child is the only honest one - and they will make them suffer for it

#ClusterB #ToxicFamilies #scapegoat #scapegoatSurvivor #InvisibleChild #trauma #NPD #ChildhoodTrauma #ClusterBFamily