Symptoms of Trauma.

Do you go through your day like your head is on a swivel, often scanning for something unsafe to happen at any moment?
Do you feel a chronic pressure to please and take care of those around you?
Do you sometimes feel fidgety in your body or tightness in the pit of your gut or chest?
Do you sense so much energy inside that you can’t sit still or want to crawl out of your skin?
Do you sometimes find yourself feeling grumpy or edgy, like a volcano ready to explode?

Maybe you tend to feel just the opposite.
Perhaps you are the kind of person who feels numb and disconnected? 
Maybe you don’t how to show affection or shed tears when others do?
Maybe you do cry but you isolate from people when tears begin to flow?
Do you notice wanting to feel invisible?
Do you find it difficult to ask others for help?

Perhaps you find thinking of a particular location, like a childhood playground or the church you grew up in, too challenging? Or maybe it’s hearing a sound or seeing gesture someone makes that puts you on edge? Maybe you experience nightmares or flashbacks in your waking hours. These (and others like them) can all be normal symptoms of someone who has been traumatized.

Trauma impacts everyone.

Trauma and attachment expert, Diane Poole Heller, writes, “It doesn’t matter who you are; all of us inevitably bump into challenges and hardships that are beyond our control. If you’re on this planet long enough, you’re going to be hit with some form of misattunement or loss or abuse or divorce or disease or a car accident or an environmental disaster or war or who knows what…You can’t stop these things from happening; they’re just a part of what it means to be human.”

Trauma can strike out of nowhere as a one-time “shock” event that is “too much, to fast.” This could be a sexual assault or a car crash, sudden loss of a job or a global virus (like COVID-19), fall on the ice or a difficult medical procedure. We often call these events capital “T” traumas.

But trauma also invades our lives in less obvious ways. Childhood neglect or abandonment, living under the constant pressure to perform “or else,” small relational misses or personal jabs that happen over and over again, or painful ruptures with our loved ones that reoccur without repair. Any or all of these ongoing stressors take a collective toll. Trauma informed therapists refer to these, especially in our younger, formative years when our brains are still developing, as “developmental” or little “t” traumas.

Trauma overwhelms our nervous system and renders us stuck in a state of unsafety.

Even though an event or experience came and ended (even decades ago), we sometimes get stuck. Anything that is “too much, too fast,” or “too scary or challenging for too long”—can leave us swirling in a vortex survival threat state of anxiety, anger, or apathy. 

We may tell ourselves that it’s over. That the trauma is long behind us, and we can move on. But it’s not that simple—not when there was no noticeable relief or calm. Instead, unfinished instincts to flight or fight linger in the body’s nervous system, and we remain stuck in a survival state that reinforces fear and defense. The part of the brain (that unconsciously detects danger and safety) has yet to sense that it-is-over; that we survived and are going to be okay. And the long term struggles of getting stuck in a dysregulate state can be just as devastating as the original trauma itself.

Not experiencing the original threat of trauma is over tends to high-jack our nervous system and cause us to see danger where it may not even exist. Feeling an emotion or noticing a smell, observing the way someone looks or walks or talks, or sensing some physical sensation (like tightness in the belly or clenching our jaw) that even slightly reminds us of past traumatic experiences sounds the alarm of unsafety. And whether we notice the connection or not, it can “seem” like something dangerous or disappointing is happening or about to happen again. 

One minute we can feel relatively okay and then suddenly not okay. We become anxious and tense or irritable. We may feel the urge to want to act out and escape or become aggressive.  Relaxing becomes difficult. Stuck in a state of threat, we sense “clear and present danger” and react in ways that are often out of proportion to the situation. And when flight or fight is unsustainable or will only make things work, we may switch into shut down mode and check out. We can still be somewhat functional, but we are no longer present. We are simply going through the motions of life, feeling indifferent, maybe even paralyzed or depressed.

We don’t merely remember trauma. We relive it.

The effects of trauma from years past are lived out in our bodies, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, as something that is happening—NOW.  As trauma’s impact rears it’s ugly head, we are not open to experiencing safety, connection, repair or even the possibility that something different could happen. When get stuck in a threat response the only kind of story we are available to experience is the same terrible thing happening again and again and followed by either some form of escape and aggression or shut down and turning invisible. 

Trauma’s effects don’t have to be a life sentence.

The good news is those who have been traumatized can get unstuck! Healing is possible, but there’s more to getting well than just talking about what happened and telling ourselves it’s over. You can experience gradual, profound shifts in your beliefs about yourself, relationships and the traumatic things that occurred to you, but only as you slowly allow trauma to come up and process through where it most deeply resides—in your body. 

Trauma resides in the body as much as it was in the original experience, and it is there, in your body’s nervous system, where we will invite you to start your healing process. 

Somatic Experiencing can help.

Somatic Experience (SE) therapy focuses first on calming our dysregulated nervous system It can help those stuck in states of anxiety, anger, or apathy get unstuck and help them find flexibility, stability and safety again. Rather than talk you into feeling calm or thinking different thoughts, SE starts with a gentler, “bottom up” approach through tracking physical sensations, impressions, body movements and behaviors, emotions, and meanings that get over coupled around traumatic situations. 

Our goal is to help you set the conditions for your body’s fixated nervous system to get unstuck and develop flexibility and resiliency. Through felt sense and reparative experiences, your brain can rewire new pathways of safety that can replace old  pathways of threat, find calm and connection, and know the difference between what was then and what is now. 

Examples of questions we might explore with you are:

• What state is your nervous system in right now? Flight/flight. freeze, or Fold?
• Is there anything you can notice that tells you are safe in this moment?
• When did you last feel most like the self you want to be?
• When was the first moment you realized you were going to be okay?

Call or email today if you want to chat more or make an appointment.  Learn that it’s possible to find calm, feel safe, and stay more present and connected!