Connecting with others has become much more difficult in 2024, especially in healthy and productive ways. The age of the internet has shifted many communication practices towards digital and technological formats.
When someone has suffered a traumatic experience, this can make connecting and establishing relationships that much harder. After trauma, there can be significant lifelong impacts on social habits and the ability to engage.
On a similar note, loneliness can take a toll on a person and influence how they interact with the world around them. The link between loneliness and trauma can be strong in many instances. Here’s a deeper look at how they interact.
How Trauma & Loneliness are Linked
Childhood Trauma and Loneliness
Who you become as an adult is largely shaped during childhood. Your personality, behaviors, values, and beliefs can all be influenced early on.
Surviving any type of childhood trauma can impact each of these things and disrupt how they develop. Struggling to get close to others, forming lasting relationships, and being able to feel safe around others can all be symptoms of trauma. When you can’t develop healthy relationships, it can cause frequent and chronic loneliness.
Trauma Can Lead to Loneliness
After experiencing trauma at any age, having trust in others can be difficult. You may pull away in relationships or find reasons to push others away. There may be a tendency to pick fights or find conflict in little, unimportant matters.
Depending on the circumstances of your trauma, intimacy can be hard to initiate due to fear and unprocessed emotions. When you avoid or can’t bring yourself to form these important relationships, you may find yourself feeling lonely.
Trauma Can Be a Trigger
In the aftermath of certain traumas, you may feel a decreased sense of safety. Having been a victim of violence or abuse can rob you of your feelings of security.
Not feeling safe and secure can lead to disruption of social activity and acting within social norms, even with those you have previously been acquainted with. These types of trauma can trigger feelings of loneliness.
Trauma Can Alter Social Abilities
Traumas will typically change you in some fashion. It can impact your ability to navigate some social situations and your willingness to participate in them. Additionally, you may find yourself having a hard time forming lasting relationships.
The impact on your social participation can further contribute to feeling isolated and alone.
Loneliness Can Make Trauma Feel Worse
When you experience a trauma, it’s common to feel like you are alone. As a result of the way you may be trying to process things, a tendency to push others away can develop.
Feeling disconnected and isolated can, in turn, make your trauma feel more intense and difficult to navigate through. The two can loop together and start to fuel each other. Loneliness makes trauma feel worse. The worse you feel, the more your symptoms grow and force you to isolate. It’s a rough cycle.
Loneliness Increases Trauma Risks
Most people experience loneliness at one point or another. There are different chapters in life, relationship shifts, and alone periods between romantic relationships. If you’re feeling constant loneliness, it can place you at a higher risk for experiencing some types of trauma.
When you chronically feel lonely, the smallest sign of affection can grab your attention and make you more susceptible to mistreatment. You crave that connection with another person, so even unhealthy or toxic behaviors are more likely to be excused or overlooked. Being in this vulnerable of a state can increase your risk for abuse and neglect.
There is Hope
Are you suffering from frequent loneliness? Have you experienced trauma in your past? You are not alone. You can recover and have meaningful relationships. Contact us for a free consultation to help you work through and process what’s going on.
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