The Violence We See: How Childhood Exposure to Domestic Violence Shapes Us

For adults who experienced domestic violence in childhood, the memories are often fragmented, blurred by the passing of time. Sometimes they resurface as feelings instead of images: tight chests when voices rise or the urge to flee when the tension gets too thick. You might have told yourself, “It wasn’t that bad,” or "Other people had it worse” to normalize your experiences. Maybe you still struggle to call it violence at all. But if you grew up afraid of what might happen when a door slammed, or you heard footsteps coming down the hall, then you are likely a child of domestic violence.

When you witness someone you love being hurt by someone who is supposed to love them back, the trauma doesn’t end when the yelling stops. The damage settles deep inside you, like dust in the corners of your soul. You adapt by getting smaller, quieter, more careful and staying alert. You learn to read moods like weather forecasts and disappear when the thunder clouds start brewing.

This experience has a name, Childhood Domestic Violence, and includes witnessing physical violence and enduring its psychological aftermath. Children who experience verbal abuse, intimidation, emotional neglect, or parentification as a result of domestic violence are collateral victims.

If you…

• Felt afraid of coming home and stayed away as much a possible,

• Were relieved when one parent was not around,

• Hid your needs to avoid being a burden,

• Protected a parent or sibling from the other,

• Felt like you had to parent your own parent,

• Blamed yourself for keeping the peace or failing to do so,

• Or felt like you had to be small, quiet, or perfect just to stay safe

…you may be a child of domestic violence.

Many adult survivors hesitate to call their experiences abuse. The uncomfortable reality is, if your childhood home was ruled by unpredictability, rage, or fear, then you lived with violence and that experience shaped you, even if no one else acknowledges it happened.

Domestic Violence as an Adverse Childhood Experience

Childhood Domestic Violence happens when a child grows up in a home where one parent or caregiver harms the other through physical violence, verbal degradation, emotional manipulation, or coercive control. The American Academy of Pediatrics classifies this kind of exposure as one of the most toxic Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) a child can endure.

ACEs are traumatic events that occur before age 18 and increase the risk of serious lifelong health consequences. They include:

• Witnessing domestic violence

• Parental separation or incarceration

• Abuse, neglect, or household mental illness

• Substance use in the home

• Loss of a parent

The higher your ACE score, the greater your risk for depression, anxiety, addiction, chronic illness, and suicidal thoughts. But while ACEs are predictive, they’re not prescriptive and they don't determine who you are; they merely reflect what you have been through.

Effects of Childhood Domestic Violence

Children who grow up in environments characterized by domestic violence live in a state of chronic stress. Children's brains are highly adaptive but also deeply vulnerable. When exposed to violence in the home, a child's psyche will neurologically wire itself to manage the dysfunction and prioritize survival over growth and connection. Without healthy coping skills, children exposed to CDV learn to navigate the chaos through trauma responses like freeze, fawn, flight, or fight.

This could look like:

• Toddler and preschoolers may regress in speech or toileting, become clingy, or act out through defiance and tempter tantrums.

• Grade-school children may struggle in school, experience social anxiety, develop unexplained stomach aches or headaches, have trouble sleeping or rely heavily on dopamine-ladened activities (i.e., playing video games, scrolling YouTube, constant snacking) to self medicate through disassociation.

• Teens may become emotionally withdrawn, hypervigilant, or overly responsible. They may engage in risky behaviors or experiment with substances and sex earlier than their peers.

Interestingly, many trauma symptoms in children closely mimic other common behavioral disorders, such as ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), or mood disorders. What looks like inattention or hyperactivity may actually be a nervous system in overdrive. These children are not disobedient, distracted or disruptive —they are dysregulated.

Studies have found that a substantial number of children, especially boys, diagnosed with ADHD have extensive histories of trauma exposure, and their behaviors were more accurately explained by as post-traumatic stress responses. Unfortunately, trauma is often overlooked in pediatric evaluations, and the right questions, such as "What has this child lived through?" simply are not asked.

When trauma is misread as a behavioral disorder, children may be medicated without receiving the trauma-informed care they actually need. Worse, they may come to believe that something is inherently wrong with them, rather than understanding that their reactions are normal responses to abnormal circumstances. This misunderstanding can delay healing and reinforce the internalized shame many survivors already carry.

The effects of CDV don't stay locked in the past either. These beliefs can quietly follow children into adulthood, affecting how they see themselves, others, and their place in the world. Having never experienced genuine, unconditional love, children exposed to domestic violence often equating love-bombing, future faking and possessive and controlling behaviors with intimacy. Without a model of healthy affection, manipulation can feel like attention, and control can masquerade as care. As a result, many find themselves inexplicably drawn to partners who mirror those early dynamics.

You Can’t Heal in the Environment That Hurt You

Chronic exposure to violence and fear sends children the message that their safety, needs, and emotional wellbeing don't matter. Instead of developing a strong identity and a secure sense of self, children learn to monitor everyone else’s reactions, suppress their own instincts, silence their emotions, and prioritize the needs of others over their own to avoid conflict. This survival strategy becomes a deeply ingrained pattern that can affect relationships even in adulthood. Trauma teaches children that love equals pain, that silence is safety, that they are unworthy of protection.

When a caregiver remains in an abusive relationship, even with the hope of preserving stability for the children, it severely compromises their protective capacity.  Many parents stay in violent homes believing it’s better for the kids to have “both parents” or for fear that they would not be able to provide for them alone. Children don’t need perfect parents, they need safe ones and there is no benefit to the presence of an abusive parent. In fact, homes with domestic violence are often also homes where children experience direct abuse, whether physical, verbal, or emotional. Leaving may be scary but staying can often be much more dangerous.

What Helps Children Heal

The single most important factor in a child’s recovery from trauma is the consistent presence of at least one nurturing adult who believes them and stands by them. Healing begins when someone tells them: “It wasn’t your fault.” That truth, repeated and reinforced, can begin to untangle years of guilt and shame. Children need to be heard, not fixed. They need space to grieve and make sense of what they’ve been through.

Trauma-informed therapy can help kids put language to their pain and develop tools to cope with anxiety, grief, and anger in healthy ways. Similarly, a parent modeling emotional regulation, naming feelings, apologizing when they mess up, and showing love through both presence and words can positively impact a child's healing and recovery from trauma.

Breaking the Cycle

Neuroscientist David Sousa writes, “One of our weaknesses as a species is that we start establishing our beliefs as children before we can choose them as adults.” Thankfully, the human brain is capable of rewiring. With intention, therapy, and supportive relationships, old beliefs can be replaced with healthier ones. Survivors are not doomed to repeat the past but must be given the tools, space, and support to unlearn it.

I don’t just write this from research, I write it from lived experience. My stepfather didn’t abuse HIS children but he did abuse my mother, my older brother and me. I learned early on that I mattered a lot less than my siblings. I became quiet, small, and invisible. I spent as little time at home as possible, seeking refuge with my grandmother, sports teams and friends. When I was home, I never left my bedroom, praying no one would notice my presence if I stayed out of the way.

I left home as soon as I was able, enlisting at 17 years old, hopeful that distance would equate to safety. But the patterns I thought I’d escaped found their way back to me. I became entangled in a relationship with a someone who, in hindsight, mirrored many of my stepfather's worst qualities. The same violent mood swings, the same need to dominate every space, and punish anyone who tired to draw boundaries. Like him, she would tear me down in private, then play the victim or hero in public. One moment I was everything to her, the next I was worthless. Her controlling behavior, and an unrelenting need to be the center of attention, especially from men, left me feeling like I was "too much" and "not enough" all at the same time. She controlled with charm one minute and cruelty the next—just like him.

When she unexpectedly became pregnant only a few months into our relationship, I had a gut sense it wasn’t accidental. I believe she knew I was pulling away and used our son to maintain control. After he was born, she often blamed me for “ruining her life,” for having to "take care of someone else", and putting a premature end to her partying and drinking days. Yet when I offered to raise our son alone so she could go live the life she said she lost, she would flip the script, threatening to take him and disappear forever if I tried to get custody. It was psychological warfare, and she always knew where to strike.

Even after giving her everything she wanted, her contempt for me was relentless. She was unfaithful throughout our marriage and made sure I knew it, memorializing her escapades with pictures taken in the beds of other men. She bragged about her conquests to friends and flaunted a steady stream of late night visitors in front of the entire neighborhood while I was working night shift. Her favorite refrain: “When I leave you from someone better, no one will want you. You're lucky I've stayed with you for this long.” It echoed every lie I’d already been taught about myself. I didn't matter.

The parallels didn’t stop at the emotional or verbal abuse. Eventually, she became physically violent too. Throwing objects, shoving, slapping. I still remember the silence that followed those explosive episodes, eerily reminiscent of the tense quiet that filled my childhood home after my stepfather's outbursts. There was no closure, no conversation. It was treated like it never happened. It didn’t feel like abuse; it felt like home. I didn't know love could be any other way.

And so I stayed, trapped in a destructive dynamic that mirrored my childhood. I had been trained to survive chaos and didn’t realize that I had become so desensitized to dysfunction that I mistook abuse for intimacy. It took me years to understand that love doesn’t threaten, isolate, or humiliate and even longer to believe I deserved something better.

Final Thoughts

If you grew up like this, it may feel like you're fated to repeat it. Like the chaos etched into your childhood has become a blueprint for your adult life. But it’s not. You are allowed to want more for yourself and for your children: more peace, more stability, more love that doesn’t bring pain as part of the package.

You’re allowed to set boundaries that protect your peace, even if those boundaries disappoint people who have benefitted from your silence. You’re allowed to say no. You’re allowed to unlearn survival patterns that once kept you safe but now keep you stuck. You’re allowed to become the parent you needed, the partner you never had, a version of yourself that feels authentic.

And if no one’s ever told you...

I see you. I believe you. It wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault.