6 Signs You Have Unhealed Childhood Trauma

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Today, I'm going to break down the six ways that childhood trauma shows up for a man in his relationship and contaminates his relationship and actually every area of his life without him knowing. Until a man understands this and knows what I'm about to share with you today, he won't realize it. But he will be playing small and he will be operating from a boy in his relationships, in his work, in his career, and in every area of his life. A lot of men think that they don't have childhood trauma. They think that they had a great childhood or there was nothing specific that came up in their childhood that they can point a finger at that explains as to why they feel what they feel today or why they are triggered or reactive or insecure or shut down or defensive in their relationship. This would be the biggest thing that keeps men stuck and keeps them operating from a boy in relationship. And no matter how much a woman brings to a man, how much he could show up better, he won't see the invitations from the feminine into his potential, into the greatest version of himself. And after this video today, it's going to help you have a clear understanding of how our childhood wounds show up in our life. Cuz that's the thing. A lot of men don't know or realize or see how their childhood is actually showing up today and contaminating their life. And that's why I'm creating this video. My name is Ryan Wesby White and I've personally worked with hundreds of men who have shared with me that they don't have any trauma from childhood or there's nothing that they experienced that really affected them. Yet they still find themselves with this limited emotional capacity in a relationship or shut down or constantly attracting emotionally unavailable women into their life or women that are the greatest mirror to their deepest wounds from childhood. Cuz see the the thing is is that I was the same. I was the man who thought that I had a great childhood. I had everything I could have ever wanted. I had a roof over my head. I had whatever I needed taken care of. And you know, I grew up riding dirt bikes, racing dirt bikes, and I had a lot of things provided for me. And and I'm very blessed in that way. My childhood looked amazing. But here's the key thing, and I want you to I want to invite you to be with in this is that childhood trauma is is not what your childhood looked like. It's what it felt like.

[00:02:44]Home is not a place. Home is a feeling.

[00:02:47]And when I was a little boy, I grew up in a family where I felt more alone, more homesick in my own home, in my own family. And that homesickness, that sense of loneliness that I felt in my family, I had carried through every relationship as a grown adult man. So that sense of loneliness that I experienced as a boy was actually the disconnection from myself. And the thing is with childhood trauma, the these these wounds, these are programs and patterns and nervous system conditioning that isn't your fault, but it's the lack of what you didn't have, which is what I'm going to explain today. And that leaves an imprint on our nervous system.

[00:03:33]And it creates a blueprint within our nervous system of what relationship is or what it means to be a man or how it is that you need to show up in the world to feel that you fit in or that you're good enough or that you're lovable or whatever. And it's that imprint on our nervous system based on what we experienced in our family system that we then carry through the world. And this is how the subtle wounding that we experience in our childhood in the most subtle way will bleed into every area of your life. Not just your relationships but every area of your life and slowly sabotage love, push people away or leave you in uh a constant state of feeling empty. Nothing's ever enough. No matter how much success you create, no matter how much you achieve or perform or no matter how much you do in your career or for your partner or for your family, none of it ever feels like it's good enough to fulfill the void of loneliness. So what then happens is men then need to turn to their unhealthy addictions, their habits that don't serve them. They need to create some sort of chaos in their life by maybe uh cheating on their partner or going and watching porn or uh reverting back to an old behavior or habit that just doesn't serve him in any way. in an escape to actually numb this pain that this man doesn't actually know or realize that he's feeling or a way to actually recreate the trauma that he experienced as a boy that he might not consciously remember but his body remembers. And I've worked with hundreds of men who have been exactly that and I have myself. And that's why I'm sharing these six points with you today. And the greatest thing here is that awareness is key. And until you acknowledge the wounding and the hurt and the trauma that you experienced as a little boy in your childhood, until you acknowledge that, nothing will ever change. We can't heal what we can't acknowledge. So the greatest thing you can do is acknowledge that there is some things from your past, from your childhood that you're maybe yet to acknowledge or to really feel that happened in the past that's actually showing up in this present moment today. Because the truth is no one escaped childhood without a few cuts. And anyone anyone who tells me or shares that they don't have any wounding or there's nothing that happened there in their childhood, that is a big red flag to me cuz that tells me that their conscious mind has actually forgotten about certain things for a purpose, for a way to protect this person from that pain, from that hurt that was unbearable for them to be with. And I'm going to share with you three things that we needed in childhood that might help you understand how subtle this trauma and this wounding can actually evolve and develop over time. So until we're aware of what happened, we will never be aware of how it's showing up and contaminating your life today. So the triggers that you experience today in your relationship that leave you shut down, anxious, insecure, reactive, that leave you attracting emotionally unavailable partners into your life, that leave you uh yeah sabotaging your life in ways that you might not truly even understand. You won't have the awareness of that until you go back and becomeware aware of what I'm going to share with you today. What's really important to understand first of all is that there's different kinds of trauma.

[00:07:21]And the trauma that we're speaking about today is developmental trauma or trauma that happened in a very subtle way from nervous system to nervous system as a child that really creates this imprint within your nervous system of this core wounding. So there's two kinds of trauma. First one is capital T trauma which is uh like a big event that happens maybe you experience a natural disaster uh a a death like a sudden death or a loss of a sibling or something like that like there can be a real bigger event that creates a large traumatic experience where it's too much for your nervous system to be able to process the experience and then you didn't have safe parents or safe people around you to actually witness and and be the safety for you to process the experience in the way that you needed to. So what happens is we become frozen in that trauma.

[00:08:27]Okay? So that's big T trauma. Then there's little T trauma which is the developmental trauma, the subtle trauma that happens over a period of time. Now this happens from the emotional neglect and also it happens from the lack of the lack of what you didn't experience.

[00:08:46]That's a really important one. A lot of men are wounded today because they didn't experience the father that they needed in childhood to be the role model and representation of what it means to be a man. So now they're left as grown adult children in the world. And because of that, they experience a lot of pain and suffering.

[00:09:10]There's a lot of weak men because they haven't well they they didn't have what they needed as boys and that was a right of passage from boy to men from a father who was also initiated from boy to man.

[00:09:24]Okay. So there's also a lack of what we didn't have which is really important to understand. So before we get into the six points I'm going to explain with you the three core needs that we needed to have met in childhood. And this might give you a deeper understanding as to how we become wounded in a real subtle way that then leads to these six points that I'm going to share with you. Then at the end of the video, I'm actually going to give you a practice that you can do and you can take away to actually implement some of this stuff and really deepen in your awareness and your knowledge around what happened in your childhood and how it might be showing up for you today. So, we'll definitely want to write these down. The first one is to know that you're loved. Now, what I mean by this is as children, we are communicating to our parents nervous system to nervous system. It doesn't matter what they say, right? A child's nervous system is looking into the nervous system of their parent to reflect back to them. This is all happening unconsciously to reflect back to this child that they're safe, they're loved, and all of them in this moment is welcome. So, your parent could say all of the right things, but it's not about what they said. It's about how present their nervous system was to your nervous system and how much their nervous system reflected to you that they love you in this moment and that all of you is loved and welcome. So, the first one is to know that you're loved. And it's to know that love isn't used as a tool of manipulation to get you to be a certain way. So what I mean is you don't feel from your parent nervous system to nervous system that let's say you do a little bit better at school or you get better grades or you perform in your sport that you can feel in their nervous system that they love you more when you perform. Right? This is all happening unconsciously. They might say they're proud of you, but you can feel in their nervous system that when you don't perform, love's taken away just that little bit or they treat you just that little bit differently. This happens in such a subtle way. Now, that accumulating over a period of time, a child's brain can't comprehend that or understand that. So within a child's nervous system, it becomes imprinted in their nervous system that there must be something wrong with who I am because the person who's supposed to love me more than anything in the entire world pulls their love away from me. And that that's the scariest thing to experience as a child. That pulling away of love is the subtle emotional abandonment that happens. Now this is how the deep abandonment trauma happens.

[00:12:09]So, think about today when you're in a in a relationship and your partner pulls away their love or your partner's not available to meet you in the way that you need to feel connected to them. And it triggers this survival response of I've got to do whatever I can to get their attention or uh be whoever I need to be so they don't pull their love away from me.

[00:12:32]uh or I need to prove and earn love because that's what you know love has been patterned into my nervous system.

[00:12:42]Okay. So you can very see very much see this is where like the nice guy comes from. He'll do everything to avoid that love being pulled away and that's what's normal and familiar for his nervous system. So I could keep going on about this but the first point is to know that you're loved and that's how it shows up today. The second point is to know that you matter. That you are the highest priority in your parents' life. That the world revolves around you as a child.

[00:13:11]Cuz the truth is we're all very egocentric, narcissistic as children. We have to be we have to get our survival needs met. If our parents aren't emotionally available for us, then we will die. We'll be left on our own and die. That is what that is what is wired into our nervous system. So, think of that level of uh communication you're having on an unconscious level that if you don't feel like you matter or if you don't feel like you fit in because maybe your parents have got more important things like their work or their career or maybe whatever's going on in their life is more important than you and you feel that unconsciously.

[00:13:51]That leaves this child in a survival-based state that I don't I don't matter. So, I have to try and be seen. I have to be whoever I need to be, right, to make sure that I'm seen and that I'm the most important one. So, what happens is that man then grows up and gets into a relationship. And the relationship unconsciously revolves around him and having his needs met because beneath that is a little boy who still trying to feel like he mattered to his primary caregivers. Okay. Beneath all of this I must touch on is that your nervous system is solely dependent on your parents being so emotionally attuned and connected to themselves so they can be a clear mirror and reflection for you of safety. And the truth is a lot of people haven't experienced parents who are deeply connected to themselves emotionally and can be the safe loving presence that you needed mirrored back to you as a child.

[00:14:54]not by what they said, but how you felt with them. And that's the undercurrent beneath all of these these core needs.

[00:15:01]Okay? So, within the second core need, what's really important is we know that our emotional experience matters and it's valid. So, if you're angry, if you're upset, if you're not okay, if there's something going on in your world, right? Let's just say you come home from from school and your friend said this and it made you feel this type of way. Like, that's valid. That's your real experience, right? Maybe a sibling said something or did something to you and it made you feel really shameful or embarrassed and like that's your experience. Now, when a parent dismisses or minimizes what a child is experiencing, they begin to feel and believe that what I'm experiencing, how I feel, doesn't matter. Third and final point for the core needs that we need to have met is we need to know that our parents are okay because one or two things will happen. If they're not okay, we make it mean. Firstly, it's either our fault. It's my fault that mom or dad are not okay. The second thing is it's my problem to solve or fix. Now, when I mean your parents not being okay, remember I shared all of this for the most part is happening on a deep unconscious level. When you can feel in your nervous system that your parent isn't home emotionally, right, or they're not okay or they're overwhelmed or they're stressed or they got their stuff going on as a child, we then feel, right, what I said that the the two two ways it happens, we then feel that this is my fault cuz we can't comprehend this as a child. So, how this played out for me when my dad was stressed or overwhelmed as a boy, I felt that my needs would overwhelm my dad too much. So, I'm not going to bring my needs to him. And instead, I'm going to to tend to whatever he needs to make sure he's happy because when he's then happy, he can then tend to my needs and be there for me. Right? So, as a child, I took it on as it's my fault. Dad's not happy because my needs are overwhelming for him. And secondly, it's my problem to solve or fix. So I would do and be and become whoever I needed to be to make sure dad's happy. This happens in so many different ways. And this was huge for me. Um, basically when a parent is not okay, a child is then sent into a state of survival where they then do everything they can to become the parent to their parent and the emotional support for their parent so their parent can be happy and get their needs met.

[00:17:42]Now, how that shows up in relationships today, and this is just one tiny example, is that when your partner is not okay emotionally, you take it on as your sole responsibility to solve and fix because you believe that it's your fault. So, you can't just witness and acknowledge their emotional experience and let them be in it and be this safe, grounded, loving presence.

[00:18:03]when she brings to you her emotions, you see it as an attack or an opportunity to try and solve and fix because you think that it's your fault or it's your problem and that it's not okay that they're not okay. So, it disrupts how you feel within yourself. That's just one tiny example of how it shows up. So those are the three core needs that we need to have met in childhood to gain the strengths of having a robust nervous system to be able to show up in relationship in the most grounded, secure, healthy way. And the truth is most people were wounded in all three of those because I can tell you right now your parents were not perfect. And what is so important to acknowledge in this work and this is not just from me by the way. This comes from the lineage of incredible teachers of this deep work that I'm sharing with you. And it's that it's so important that you don't protect your parents. You have to acknowledge the hurt and the pain that you experienced because of their unavailability or the ways that they showed up or the ways that you were actually treated. Like we need to acknowledge that because the more you don't acknowledge that, the more you're actually perpetuating that wounding. Cuz imagine that there's a child within you. And if you keep dismissing the experience that that child actually had, you're going to continue to perpetuate what that child experienced. Right? So to change, we must first acknowledge and really honor that our parents weren't perfect. Okay, so let's get into it. The six points of how childhood trauma shows up for a man without him really realizing it. Uh or without knowing that it's childhood trauma. The first one is he seeks this constant need for validation, for reassurance, or having this reflection from a woman to reflect to him that he's chosen, that he's lovable, that he's worthy, that he's enough to fill the void of emptiness of the lack of emotional connection that he didn't receive as a child from those core emotional needs that I shared with you.

[00:20:21]So how this looks is maybe if a man's not in relationship, he is constantly in situationships or he has many many uh potential options on the go and when he's not getting validation or attention from them, it it triggers his nervous system into a state of activation where he needs a woman's attention and love like it's like a hit of oxygen and when he gets it, he feels like he can finally breathe again. Or let's say he's in relationship and partnership and he is constantly needing his partner to validate his worth to validate that he's good enough that he's uh doing a good enough job that he's lovable that he is uh the most incredible man that she's ever experienced or or whatever. He finds himself very easily insecure or anxious in relationship where separation or distance feels like abandonment. He his nervous system learned that that distance and this separation or her not being available to meet his needs feels like abandonment. And he will then struggle with her having her own sense of self or her needing time and space on her own to be on her own where separation feels like abandonment. And he will struggle to to get on with his day cuz he's constantly in this state of rumination about what's happening or where his partner is or what she's doing or a conversation that they had. And then he's left in this anxious mess, constantly checking his phone or revisiting messages, past messages, or overanalyzing text messages and in this state of uh hypervigilance. All because he feels that his sense of selfworth comes from the validation and the reflection of a woman. Hey, real quick.

[00:22:16]If you're looking to do this deep inner work and you want to be part of a supportive brotherhood and a space of men who are just like you, good men, healthy men who are leaders of their own life and wanting to truly lead their life, then I want to personally invite you into working with me and being part of this brotherhood community. If that's something that you want support with, you want guidance and direction and direct support in doing this inner work, just click the link below and you can find out more details about how we can work together. The second way this shows up is he's constantly tired and feeling overwhelmed even when he's actually getting rest and it leaves him struggling to have difficult conversations. So challenging conversations or his partner wanting to connect with him deeper or have conversations about maybe the relationship. He all of a sudden is busy and got heaps going on and he's stressed and he's overwhelmed and there's too much happening for him to have that conversation right now. So he says things like, "Ah, why is there always a problem?" Or, "Not right now. I don't want to speak about this right now."

[00:23:30]because his nervous system is actually going into a state of shutdown and overwhelm. Challenging conversations are a confrontation or or the need or opportunity for him to have to speak his truth. That's so overwhelming for a man's nervous system who's afraid of abandonment, rejection, or being dismissed or minimized when he speaks his truth and brings it forward. So instead, his nervous system just shuts down. And this tiredness, this overwhelm is actually his nervous system shutting down. And it's not because he's actually tired. So the result of all of this is that a man lacks the emotional capacity to meet a partner in the emotional depth and the connection that she's actually seeking from him because of the overwhelm, the shutdown that that then puts his nervous system into. Number three, he gets easily reactive at the smallest things, the tiniest of triggers, leaves him in a state of frustration, moodiness, irritability, and one little poke or one little rub in the wrong way leaves him reacting or, you know, saying things that he instantly regrets or slamming the door or driving that little bit faster to show that he's not happy.

[00:24:51]these small outbursts of anger and reactivity that come out through his physical body in uncontrollable ways. So this is this this suppressed anger that comes out and overflows in these outbursts. Imagine you have a full cup of emotion, suppressed emotion from childhood that you've carried through your entire life. And someone pokes you or triggers you or pushes you in the in the in the wrong way. One tiny little bump will spill over. And that's basically what's happening here. A lot of men think this is normal or they think it's just who they are or they think that they're just moody or they're irritable sometimes. But a lot of the times it's actually because there's a core wound that's being poked at and it's actually causing him to uh overreact. The suppressed emotion that's actually in his nervous system uh comes out in these leaky ways of passive aggressiveness and reactivity and uh yeah like outbursts of anger. And the sad truth about this is it leaves a woman feeling like she has to walk on eggshells around this man. And as I've shared with you, how much our nervous systems are communicating nervous system to nervous system. When a man has a full cup of unresolved anger and emotion that leaks out in this passive aggressiveness or reactivity and this this uh this energy, she can feel that on a deep unconscious level and it will leave her feeling so emotionally unsafe with this man. The fourth way this shows up is a man who constantly distracts himself with work, with taking on more projects, saying yes to more things, doing more things to actually avoid how he's truly feeling if he was to slow right down or if he was to not have anything going on in his life. How he also distracts or avoids what's actually going on beneath the surface is he scrolls social media. He binge watches TV, binge watches movies, plays video games, watches porn, uh turns to his habits that don't serve him. Another way this shows up is, you know, maybe he spends a lot of time with his friends, but all of this is from the place of distracting himself from actually being with what's actually happening in his nervous system. And a lot of men don't recognize or notice how much that they're actually distracting themselves to avoid the backpack of unresolved shame, grief, guilt, fear that they've carried since childhood.

[00:27:46]And why this matters so much is because a man is avoiding his depth. He is avoiding his potential. He is avoiding the man that's actually going to be able to create emotional safety for a partner because what will happen is when he's overwhelmed, right? When his wounds and triggers are coming up, because they will, which they will, he then results to or resorts back to these forms of distraction to actually avoid what's happening. So at some point a man will have to face these wounds and it will just be a matter of time and typically it's when it's painful enough. Number five is a man who struggles with having boundaries and setting boundaries because he can't actually speak his truth. And the truth is he doesn't even know what his truth is. So therefore, he he can't even speak it a lot of the times because of how much of his entire life he's actually abandoned and neglected being able to use his voice and speak his truth and and set boundaries. Now, what this looks like is a man who has no spine. This is the nice guy. This is the man who just says yes to everyone on everything. And what happens is he has an invisible boundary that's constantly being crossed and walked over. He doesn't realize it or know it. And this invisible boundary that's actually being crossed that he doesn't know that he has leaves him reactive and passive aggressive and easily shut down. Because what happens is when this invisible boundary is constantly being crossed, his anger, his natural protector emotion will come online and create space and to push these people away. Okay. So, the nice guy is actually one of the the most aggressive men that I know because of how much they've actually suppress their aggression. The another way I like to describe the man who doesn't have boundaries and can't own and honor his space which will then lead him to abandon himself in relationship and neglect his needs in relationship with then which then leads him to to lose himself in a relationship cuz he doesn't stay anchored in who he is. Uh a friend of mine explains it like this. It's he's like a plastic bag floating down a river, right? He just goes with the flow and he's got no spine and he just floats around. That's the nice guy who doesn't have the ability to honor himself to have a backbone to stand for himself to communicate his truth and uh set healthy boundaries. And a man who can't honor his own boundaries or doesn't even have any or can't even communicate what he needs, he won't respect other people's boundaries. So he won't honor and respect that his partner needs time and space or that she also has a sense of self and he will disrespect that and not honor that and walk over everyone else's boundaries too because he doesn't have any of his own. The most painful part about a man who can't honor his space, honor what he needs, and honor his boundaries is that over time, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. He loses himself in a relationship. This was me massively. And it took for me to lose a relationship that I loved more than anything for me to realize and acknowledge how much I actually abandoned and neglected myself in that.

[00:31:31]And the man that I became in that was someone that I didn't even respect. So you have to that men have to learn how to respect themselves by honoring their space, honoring their boundaries. And it is the most selfish thing to not have boundaries because you're not going to be able to show up in the fullness of who you are as a man and everyone will have to pay the price for that. Number six is a man who struggles with communication from the disconnection that he has with his own nervous system where he doesn't even know what's going on in his own body in his own nervous system. He's not even aware of how things feel for him or from what place he's actually communicating from. So, how this shows up is he may communicate in a very passive aggressive way where he is he uses his behavior and his energy to actually show you how he feels because he can't speak his truth. When a man can't speak his truth and can't communicate in a healthy way, he will show you when he's not okay. He will try and communicate in these sneaky roundabout ways to then have you ask him how he's feeling. What he'll then do is he won't because he can't speak his truth, he will avoid or not respond to a message or uh he'll say certain things in a message to in a roundabout way try and communicate what he's actually trying to say. So he'll say things indirectly because he is fearful of actually speaking directly into how he actually feels. And these sneaky ways of communication or how he communicates through his behavior is because he isn't able to be aware of his own emotional experience and how to convey that in a way that he can bring it forward where he feels that it's not going to be rejected or shut down or dismissed or minimized because that's mostly most likely what happened when he was a little boy. So a lot of men communicate like children, like little boys in relationship because they never learn how to set boundaries or to have the safe space to to know that their needs matter, their emotional experience matters, and that it's actually important and okay that he has his own space. Some other ways that this unhealthy communication shows up is he doesn't believe that repair can actually happen in relationship where you can then grow from the repair. So what I mean by that is he feels if I was to share how I really feel she might leave me, reject me or abandon me instead of I can bring this forward and I know that it will be received because that's what a healthy relationship is by the way.

[00:34:36]You can have challenging conversations and be challenged and both not be okay and also repair and grow from it. But that's not what was familiar to his nervous system. So he does everything to avoid challenging conversations or bringing things forward because his nervous system doesn't feel safe to know that it's actually safe to have rupture because relationships are actually built on there being rupture and repair.

[00:35:02]Repair is the key word there. So this is where men just go quiet. They shut down.

[00:35:08]They don't know what to say.

[00:35:10]uh or he just goes completely blank and has no idea what's going on in his emotional experience. And maybe a lot of these things a woman is actually trying to tell him, but he he doesn't get it because he thinks it's about who he is today. It's got nothing about who he is today and everything to do with the little boy within him that's actually being triggered in this moment. I want to invite you to take a few moments to really acknowledge what stood out to you most in these six points or everything I shared with you today. And I want you to take some time to journal and reflect on what really stood out to you. And maybe take a moment to really begin to develop your awareness and be curious about what actually happened as a little boy and start creating a bit of a dialogue.

[00:35:59]Right? This is what I call debriefing.

[00:36:02]Debrief on your childhood. Debrief on some experiences that you experienced that triggered uh was triggered for you in today's video and then link it to okay, how is this a mirror? How is this a reflection of how it's showing up for me today? So, take a little bit of time to reflect, to journal, to debrief, meditate on this a little bit, breathe with this, be with this, and then go check out this video. It's going to create the opportunity for you to go deeper into this work and start creating this shift within your nervous system that's going to rewire these patterns and how you show up as a man today.

[00:36:44]Thank you so much for watching. I can't wait to see you in the next