What Is Trauma?

Trauma is not an event. It's a wound left by an event you couldn't process alone.

Let me be honest: something happened to you. Your nervous system reacted the only way it knew how—to keep you alive. But then something else happened. Silence. You carried it alone. And in that silence, your brain began to believe that something was wrong with you.

This is what we need to talk about.

What Actually Happens in Your Body

When a traumatic event occurs, your nervous system doesn't think. It reacts. This is biology, not psychology. Your brain's alarm system (the amygdala) detects threat and floods your body with stress hormones. Your system freezes, fights, or flees. This is perfect design—it keeps you alive in acute danger.

But here's what matters: your nervous system is designed for acute threats. A predator. A car crash. Something that happens and then ends.

Trauma often isn't like that. Especially if what happened was relational—someone you trusted, a system that failed you, an event that occurred without anyone to help you process it.

When that happens, your nervous system never gets the signal that it's safe. It stays in protection mode. And that's when the real struggle begins.

The Part Nobody Talks About: Shame Grows in Silence

You know what separates a difficult experience from a traumatic one? 

It's not the event itself.

It's what happens after.

One woman, a trauma survivor, said something that changed how I understand this work: "Shame grows in silence."

When something terrible happens and you're alone with it—when you can't tell anyone, when you're afraid to tell anyone, when you believe telling someone will destroy them—your nervous system interprets that silence as evidence that something is fundamentally wrong with you.

Your brain doesn't think: "This is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation."

Your brain thinks: "Something is broken inside me. If I tell anyone, they won't survive it. I have to carry this alone."

And so you do. You carry it. And it gets heavier.

How Trauma Gets Stuck

Your nervous system doesn't distinguish between past and present. When you're triggered—by a smell, a sound, a sensation, even a word—your system doesn't say "that was then." It says "that is NOW. Danger. Protect."

This is called a flashback. And it's not imagination. It's not weakness. It's your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do—trying to protect you from a threat it believes is still happening.

The problem: the threat isn't happening. But your body doesn't know that.

When trauma isn't processed—when it lives only inside you, unshared, unwitnessed—your nervous system has nothing to contradict it. The event remains stuck, active, present. Your system stays in protection mode. And you stay exhausted.

This is why people with unprocessed trauma often experience:

- Hyper vigilance (always scanning for danger)

- Intrusive memories (flashbacks, nightmares)

- Emotional numbness (your system shutting down to manage the load)

- A sense that something is fundamentally wrong with you

These aren't symptoms of weakness. They're evidence that your nervous system is still trying to protect you.

Why Your Experience Matters (And Why It Matters That Someone Hears It)

Here's what I know from working with people who've experienced trauma:

The event matters. But the silence matters more.

Your nervous system has one job: keep you alive. It doesn't care if you're alone. But it does know the difference between processed experience and unprocessed experience. 

Processed experience: Something happened. It was difficult. Someone was there. I survived. I can integrate this.

Unprocessed experience: Something happened. No one was there. I'm alone. There must be something wrong with me.

This is why sharing matters. Not because you need someone to "fix" you or "heal" you. But because your nervous system needs the signal: "I survived. Someone knows. This can be processed now."

When trauma is shared—when someone witnesses it without being destroyed by it, without judgment, with understanding—something shifts biologically. Your nervous system finally gets permission to move from protection mode into something else.

Not healing. Not "getting over it."

But processing. Integration. Your nervous system can finally say: "This happened. It was difficult. But it's not happening now. I can move forward."

What Happens Next

Trauma recovery isn't linear. It's not about "moving on" or "being strong enough."

It's about understanding what your body did to survive. Understanding that every reaction you had—dissociation, numbness, hypervigilance, rage—was your nervous system trying to protect you. None of it was wrong. None of it means you're broken.

And then, crucially, it's about bringing that experience into the light. Sharing it. Allowing someone trained to witness trauma without being overwhelmed by it to sit with you and help you understand what happened and why your nervous system responded the way it did.

That understanding changes everything.

Because once you know why you react the way you do, you can begin to change how your nervous system responds.

That's where therapy begins.

If you feel ready to explore your experience, you can book a free initial session. Just click the “Book Now” button at the top right of this page to get started.

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