with as basic science and as much analogies as possible, please explain why does childhood trauma carries on into adulthood and even at a later age, even when it’s not happening anymore later on.

Question

Why can’t the brain simply forget about it since it’s from a long time ago and still end up having some form of mental health issues later on in life because of it?

In: 39

Answer 1

You break a bone when you’re little. It’s a small fracture. It heals completely and it doesn’t bother you as an adult. You remember it happening, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.

You break a bone really badly. Maybe something really bad happened and the bone is broken in several places. Maybe you injured the growth plate and didn’t get it treated properly so the bone grows crooked. Now, as an adult, it may hurt only when it rains or it’s cold, or it may hurt all the time. You might have arthritis and you may not be able to participate in certain activities. Doing certain things may cause the pain to flare.

You break the same bone several times throughout your childhood. Maybe the first time it wasn’t a bad break, but you kept breaking it or spraining it over and over. Now as an adult you have chronic pain in that area. Even though many of your other bones developed just fine, the part that was injured will never be fully healed and you will always need to be careful with that limb.