Healing What Still Shapes You
When you experience a trauma, your body and mind quickly switch into survival-mode, and it’s normal in a dangerous situation to do whatever you can to seek safety. However, strategies that helped protect you from the danger you encountered may no longer serve you in your present-day efforts to get your emotional needs met- especially when trauma responses seem to almost reflexively pop up quickly when you become emotionally triggered in different contexts, where no danger exists. It’s common to avoid painful reminders of what happened, and to be triggered by similar experiences before your brain can even recognize, much less have time to reflect before responding. Without professional support, unresolved trauma(s) can become repeated cycles of emotional distress and relational difficulties in your life.
What happened to you is not your fault. You are not broken. There is nothing wrong with you. You are a person having a reasonable reaction to abnormal circumstances. It is normal to feel hopeless about being able to trust yourself (or others), or even to feel like yourself, again. Therapy can help you experience symptom relief, providing soothing emotional support and relational safety as you begin to make sense of what happened to you. In treatment, you will learn to identify your triggers and practice using helpful coping skills for regulating emotional distress with a caring therapist who will guide your healing process as you learn to let go of what no longer serves you.