Divorced Parents

Have you experienced trauma as the child of divorced parents? Maybe your parents never divorced, but they fought constantly throughout your childhood? The effects of these experiences are long-lasting and can create negative patterns and behaviours as adults. This ‘emotional baggage’ is often the root cause of difficult mother-daughter relationships.

Typical trauma symptoms include depression, anxiety, emotional eating, anger, frustration, imposter, harsh inner critic, low self-confidence, and low self-worth. If one of your parents was a narcissist, this may have led to narcissistic abuse and significant emotional distress.

How Divorced Parents Affect Children

As an adult child of divorced parents, or parents that had a turbulent relationship, you may have been exposed to traumatic situations. You may have witnessed a parent in crisis or being abused. As a result, you may have formed certain coping strategies as you’ve grown older, which could even be unconscious behaviours.

Known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), adult children of divorced parents often develop trauma symptoms. Just as everyone experiences work and life differently, the same applies to trauma. It’s why our schools and workplaces are ill-equipped to deal with the effects, especially when it comes to understanding absenteeism. It’s important to address issues before you become a parent, so you can stop intergenerational patterns of behaviour.

I can help you reflect on your unhelpful or destructive behaviours in a safe and confidential space. Together we will gently reflect on your experiences and reframe them as understandable responses to what you were experiencing. Using a blend of different techniques, I can help you to soothe the wounds caused by divorced parents.