Understanding Trauma
What is Trauma?
Trauma is the psychological and emotional response to a distressing or disturbing event—or a series of events. This could include:
- A one-time event, like an accident or natural disaster
- Repeated exposure to stressful or harmful situations
- Any experience that overwhelms your ability to cope
Everyone experiences trauma differently. What one person processes as traumatic, another might recover from quickly. Your unique personality, development, attachment history, age at the time, the people involved, how others responded, the support you received, and your sense of self all influence how trauma affects you.
🧠 Remember: Your experience—and your emotional response to it—is valid and uniquely yours. It’s important not to judge how you feel.
How Trauma Affects the Brain
When trauma occurs, the brain processes the experience in a way that’s meant to protect you:
- The amygdala takes a “snapshot” of the traumatic event.
- The hippocampus stores that memory with heightened sensory details—sights, sounds, smells, physical sensations, and emotions.
These memories can get “stuck,” especially if they happened during childhood, when the brain was still developing. At that time, your beliefs and thoughts about the event form based on your developmental stage. Even as you grow older and your thinking matures, the original beliefs can remain frozen in time, locked in by your survival instinct.
The subconscious mind doesn’t recognize the passage of time, which is why you may still feel unsafe—even if you’re completely safe now.
“Why Can’t I Just Let It Go?”
Many people wonder, “I had a good childhood, so why would I have trauma?” or “My parents did their best—what’s the problem?”
Trauma isn’t always about extreme abuse or neglect. Sometimes, it’s about how an experience felt to you at the time.
🔁 If there’s a childhood memory that resurfaces often—especially if it leaves you feeling discomfort, irritation, or disconnected when others laugh about it—it could be a sign of trauma. Your amygdala marked it as a threat and stored it deeply to protect you from ever forgetting.
These memories may cycle in your mind unconsciously, manifesting as:
- Anxiety
- Chronic stress
- Unexplained anger
These are all trauma responses, rooted in your nervous system.
Fight, Flight, Freeze (and Fawn)
The trauma response isn’t just fight or flight—it can also include:
- Freeze – dissociating or feeling emotionally numb
- Repression – when memories seem to disappear
- Delayed anger – reacting strongly to a situation later with no clear connection to the original event
- Fawning – read more here.
I’ve written more on these specific responses in separate articles on anger and anxiety, as they can appear in complex ways.
Common Symptoms of Trauma
Emotional and behavioral symptoms might include:
- Flashbacks or nightmares
- Hypervigilance (startling easily)
- Mood swings or irritability
- Daydreaming or zoning out (dissociation)
- Relationship struggles
- Low self-esteem or beliefs like “I’m not good enough”
You might also experience:
- Anxiety, depression, or PTSD
- Obsessive or compulsive behaviors
- Addictions or unwanted coping behaviors
Physical Symptoms of Trauma
Trauma lives in the body and manifests in physical ways:
- Headaches or migraines
- Fatigue or low energy
- Frequent illnesses or infections
- IBS or other digestive issues
- Chronic pain with no clear medical cause
Coping Mechanisms (and Why They’re Hard to Break)
Many people don’t realize their coping strategies are linked to unprocessed trauma. These mechanisms develop to help you avoid uncomfortable emotions.
Some common (and often unhealthy) ways people cope:
- Alcohol or drug misuse
- Self-harm (like cutting)
- Overeating, undereating, or disordered eating
- Addictions (gambling, shopping, sex, porn)
These behaviors serve one purpose: to avoid feeling the painful emotions connected to past experiences. In fact, some people describe the feeling as so unbearable, they’d rather do anything not to feel it.
How Trauma Counselling Can Help
I use person-centred counselling, which encourages you to welcome and explore your feelings safely. This approach helps validate your experiences—something that may never have happened before.
🔑 Feelings matter.
They are built-in signals that help us understand our needs—like a car engine’s warning light. Ignoring them means ignoring parts of yourself, which can be deeply damaging.
You are not broken. You’re just carrying something your body and mind weren’t designed to hold alone.
And here’s the truth: A feeling has never killed anyone. It may be uncomfortable—but it’s temporary, and it’s your way back to healing.
I also use trauma therapy models such as CBT, NLP, imagery and hypnotherapy.
Are you ready to talk?
I offer a low-cost confidential service. I offer space to speak, find your voice, be really heard and validated. I am a trained professional counsellor who specialises in anxiety and trauma. Make an appointment to meet me and tell me what you want from counselling. See if you feel comfortable. The first session is over Zoom for both of our safety and then you can do sessions over Zoom from your own home or in person in mine, in my safe, comfortable therapy room.
Book your appointment today
Click here and book a free initial consultation with me today. Read what people are saying about working with me in counselling here. I hold a private, confidential space for you. I’m looking forward to meeting you and hearing you very soon. Best wishes, Karen.
Disclaimer: I am a UK qualified person centred counsellor specialising in anxiety and trauma within the context of counselling. I write from my experiences and from my client work in counselling. My work is dependent on the therapeutic relationship and the meeting of two minds. It is a humbling experience and that is all part of the healing process that I witness every day. It is the best job in the world. This is not an emergency service. If you need to speak to someone urgently outside of my sessions, please call the Samaritans on 116 123 (24/7 confidential helpline in the UK).