Trauma

Sometimes the difficult thing isn’t remembering what happened. It’s realising how much of it you might still be living.

When we hear the word trauma, most of us think of something catastrophic. An accident, an assault, a sudden loss, abuse or an experience so frightening that life becomes divided into before and after. Trauma can absolutely come from experiences like these, but it can also be quieter and much harder to recognise.

Sometimes it looks like never being able to properly relax. Always wondering what might go wrong. Feeling unusually sensitive to criticism or rejection. Finding yourself in relationships where the same painful patterns keep playing out. Perhaps you struggle to trust people, need a lot of reassurance or feel frightened when somebody you love pulls away. You may know that your reaction is bigger than the situation in front of you, but knowing that doesn't necessarily make the feeling disappear. These can be some of the fingerprints of trauma. Not always a clear memory of something terrible, but ways of thinking, feeling and responding that made sense once and have somehow followed us into the present.

Trauma isn't always one big event

Some people come to therapy knowing exactly what happened to them. For others, even describing their experiences as trauma feels uncomfortable. You might think your childhood was fine, that your parents did their best or that other people had it much worse. What matters is not only what happened, but what it was like for you to live through it and what you had available to help you cope.

Perhaps home was unpredictable and you became very good at reading the room. Maybe a parent was loving but emotionally unavailable, critical, frightening or struggling with difficulties of their own. You might have experienced bullying, neglect, illness, loss or a relationship in which you gradually stopped feeling safe. Sometimes it isn't only what happened that leaves its mark. It is what didn't happen. Not being comforted when you were frightened. Not feeling protected. Not knowing whether somebody would be there when you needed them.

Children adapt remarkably well to the worlds they grow up in. We learn what keeps us safe, what gets us love and what reduces the chances of something difficult happening. The trouble is that we can become adults and continue using those same strategies long after the original danger has passed.

When the past keeps turning up in the present

Trauma has a way of turning experiences into rules about life. People leave. I can't rely on anyone. My needs are too much. If I make a mistake something bad will happen. If I let somebody get too close, I'll get hurt.

We don't usually walk around consciously thinking these things. They are more likely to appear in our reactions. Your partner asks for some space and suddenly you feel certain the relationship is ending. Somebody is disappointed with you and you feel an overwhelming need to put it right. A raised voice makes your whole body tense. An unanswered message becomes impossible to ignore.

Or perhaps your way of coping is to switch off. You withdraw, become fiercely independent or convince yourself you don't need anybody. What looks like not caring can sometimes be a very effective way of avoiding the risk of caring enormously.

From the outside, these reactions may seem disproportionate. From the inside, they can feel completely real. Therapy can help us move away from asking why am I like this? and towards the much kinder and more useful question of why might this make sense?

The body remembers too

Trauma isn't only something we think about. Our bodies are involved in how we experience safety and threat, which is one reason we can't always think our way out of how we feel. You might notice your heart racing, your stomach tightening or your breathing changing before you have consciously realised that something has upset you. You may feel constantly alert, find it difficult to sleep or struggle to switch off even when there is nothing obvious to worry about. Other people experience the opposite and feel numb, disconnected or strangely absent when something becomes overwhelming.

This can be confusing when your adult mind knows that you're safe. You may have left the relationship, grown up, built a good life or not thought about what happened for years. Yet something in the present can touch something from the past and your body responds before you've had time to make sense of it. That doesn't mean every uncomfortable feeling is trauma or that we need to search our past for an explanation for everything. It means that sometimes our reactions have a history, and understanding that history can help us respond to ourselves differently.

Trauma often shows up in relationships

Relationships are one of the places where old wounds can become particularly visible because loving somebody asks us to be vulnerable. We have to trust another person, allow ourselves to need them and accept that we cannot completely control what they do. If closeness hasn't always felt safe, this can be difficult.

You may desperately want reassurance but struggle to believe it when you receive it. You might become anxious when somebody pulls away, then feel uncomfortable when they get too close. You may find yourself repeatedly choosing people who aren't emotionally available or staying guarded with somebody who genuinely is.

Conflict can be particularly powerful. What your partner experiences as an ordinary disagreement may feel to you like rejection, abandonment or danger. Before long, you aren't only responding to what is happening between you now. Something older has entered the room too. Understanding this isn't about blaming everything on childhood or excusing hurtful behaviour. It is about recognising that we all bring a history into our relationships. When we begin to understand our own, we have more choice about what we do with it.

What does trauma informed therapy actually look like?

Trauma therapy shouldn't mean immediately opening the most painful part of your life and talking about it before you're ready. For many people, the first part of the work is about feeling safer in the present.

We might begin with what is happening in your life now. What brings you to therapy. What situations feel difficult. What happens when you become anxious, angry, frightened or overwhelmed. We can think about what helps you feel grounded and how you manage difficult emotions before deciding whether exploring earlier experiences would be helpful. The pace matters because feeling in control of the process matters. As therapy develops, we can begin to connect some of the dots between past and present. The relationship that keeps ending in the same way. The fear of being left. The relentless need to achieve. The inability to rest. The feeling that everybody else's needs should come before your own.

Sometimes what we have spent years calling a flaw turns out to have been a form of protection. That doesn't mean we have to keep living with it forever. It simply gives us a more compassionate place from which to begin changing it.

Healing isn't about forgetting

I don't think healing means reaching a point where what happened no longer matters. Some experiences change us, and therapy doesn't erase them. What can change is the amount of influence they have over the life we are living now.

Over time, you may begin to notice an old fear without immediately assuming it is telling you the truth. You might recognise that somebody needing space doesn't necessarily mean they are leaving. You may become better able to soothe yourself when something feels threatening rather than immediately reacting, withdrawing or looking to somebody else to make the feeling disappear. Perhaps most importantly, you can begin to feel differently about the parts of yourself you've spent years criticising. The part that worries. The part that needs reassurance. The part that keeps people at a distance. The part that never quite switches off. Those parts didn't appear from nowhere. Often they developed because, at some point, they helped you cope.

Trauma informed therapy can help you understand what happened, recognise what you carried forward and gradually discover that you don't have to respond today exactly as you did then. The past will always be part of your story, but with time and the right support, it doesn't have to keep deciding what happens next.