Is Trauma From Your Past Affecting Your Present?

Have you experienced past trauma? Is the pain you suffered as a child still haunting you as an adult? Has shutting down emotionally become your default for coping with painful memories?  Do you think you might be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and you don’t know what to do?

When the effects of trauma experienced in your past are impacting your day-to-day life, they can be impossible to ignore. Though it could have happened long ago, it feels like these painful memories are still informing every aspect of your life. 

Unresolved trauma could be showing up for you physically—in sleep disturbances, self-harm, headaches, or an unhealthy relationship with food and your body. You might even have a chronic illness like fibromyalgia, which many experts think may be caused by unresolved trauma.  

Perhaps you’re prone to outbursts of anger, have difficulty focusing, or experience recurring bouts of depression or anxiety. If your trauma hasn’t been dealt with, it could be leading to substance abuse problems. Additionally, your history of trauma may be coloring your relationships with mistrust and suspicion, leading you to become isolated and estranged from the people you love.

Trauma that is not dealt with may be causing you to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The biggest problem with unresolved trauma is that you carry it with you at all times, even when you’ve tried to deny or numb the pain it caused. If left untreated, it can negatively affect your relationships and your physical and mental health.

The good news is that trauma therapy is an effective treatment to address the pain of the past so that it no longer negatively affects your life.

Trauma Comes In Many Forms And Is Often Hard To Recognize

Trauma, whether it is a one-time event or a chronic negative experience, can show up in anyone’s life, regardless of career path, socioeconomic level, cultural background, or age. The statistics surrounding trauma are grim and underscore how widespread it is. According to the Veterans Association, PTSD affects 6 out of 10 men and 5 out of 10 women. Research shows that as many as 13 percent of women in the US are victims of forcible rape. And it is estimated that 20 percent of female children are sexually abused in their own families. 

Many of us think PTSD only affects members of the military, police force, or people who have witnessed a traumatic event, suffered physical (or sexual) abuse, or come from poor backgrounds where trauma is often rampant. But those of us whose lives appear to be “successful” or “normal” can experience trauma. If we grew up with emotionally or verbally abusive or neglectful parents, or in homes where one or more parents had substance abuse issues, then trauma was as ever-present as the air we breathed. 

It is this more subtle form of trauma inflicted by our parents or caretakers—those we looked to for love and protection—that we often carry into our adult lives without recognizing it. When we suffer mental or psychological abuse at the hands of our parents, we may not even realize that we’ve experienced trauma. The experience was, after all, our version of normal. Rather than acknowledge it, we learned to stuff our pain inside, deny our feelings, and “numb out” in order to survive. 

The good news is that treatment for trauma can get rid of the painful memories that are negatively impacting your life. When you decide to seek out a trauma therapist, you will get the opportunity to move out of the past and into the present moment and find joy there.

Trauma Therapy Can Help You Heal From Past Emotional Wounds

With over 20 years of experience—first as a pastoral counselor and then as a licensed psychotherapist—my hope is that you will have emotionally enriching experiences in our sessions together, where you feel heard, understood, and valued. Trauma counseling can improve your sense of self and expand your resources for dealing with life’s challenges.

If you are a survivor of trauma, therapy offers you a chance to look at what is causing the pain in your life, address the root cause of it, and learn to create a healthy connection with yourself and others. Whenever we are emotionally wounded, a connection with someone else helps us heal. As your therapist, I serve as a temporary attachment figure, providing you with a sense of safety and unconditional positive regard.

If you’ve suffered child abuse or neglect or others forms of trauma, I want to create safety in our sessions and go as slowly as you need. My intake process gives me a chance to assess what you’ve experienced and how you’ve handled it up until now, which will add to my understanding of how best to work with you. Cultivating a safe, gentle space to look at the impact of your trauma will help you rebuild a healthy sense of trust. 

Trauma experienced in childhood can affect how you construct your life and relationships, as well as increase the likelihood of being retraumatized. In ongoing sessions, we will address any sense of helplessness or passivity you may have adopted over the years and work on ways of defending yourself. Preventing re-traumatization involves redefining your sense of self without the shame and low self-esteem that often accompanies trauma. 

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a research-proven, effective method to treat trauma.  As a certified Emotionally Focused Individual Therapist (EFIT), I use EFIT to eliminate the effects of trauma and PTSD. By helping you safely look at a traumatic experience and the feelings that still hold an emotional charge within you, I can help you feel compassion for the younger, vulnerable version of you that endured the trauma. By acknowledging and processing pent-up negative emotions, you’ll be able to replace the shame with self-compassion and better manage life’s stressors.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is another effective form of therapy for resolving trauma. By safely looking at the traumatic experience—while paying attention to back-and-forth eye movements and calling to mind the traumatic experience—a shift occurs in the way you experience that memory, allowing more information from the past to be processed and released. EMDR helps eradicate the effects of trauma from the body and mind in a way that prevents them from returning.

Once you have undergone trauma therapy, your self-confidence and ability to successfully navigate relationships can flourish. Through trauma treatment, you will be able to better identify and express your needs in a healthy way. And, most importantly, when you heal from trauma, you will be able to accept care and support from others and provide care and support to others. 

You may still be wondering whether trauma therapy is right for you…

I don’t want to look at my past trauma—it will only make it worse.

Looking at your trauma may make you anxious because addressing trauma does involve facing pain. But the rewards of acknowledging, processing, and resolving your trauma far outweigh any misgivings you have. Therapy promotes emotional regulation and openness to new experiences of trusting. Working with a trauma counselor helps reframe your sense of self as someone who is lovable, loving, and loved. Basically, the world becomes a safer, happier place to be.

My trauma happened a long time ago and I have forgotten it.

You may think you have forgotten your trauma, but your body hasn’t. When you don’t address past trauma, it has a way of settling into your body and psyche and showing up in ways that cause physical, emotional, and relational pain. Your instinctive defense mechanisms might have convinced you that it’s been forgotten, but your body remembers. Therapy is a chance to uncover the subliminal ways that your body remembers trauma and keep the past from continuing to affect your life. 

Trauma counseling is just an expensive way to revisit events from the past I should have gotten over by now.

Many of us think we should be over things that happened when we were children, but the effects of trauma know no expiration date until they are addressed. The depression, anxiety, and negative sense of self that accompany trauma can make life feel dark. Therapy is a priceless investment that helps us overcome shame and transform a negative sense of self, others, and the world into a more positive, life-giving one. 

Your Life Doesn’t Haven’t To Be Defined By Past Trauma

Seeking treatment for trauma allows you to live your best life. By acknowledging and processing events from the past, you can regain emotional balance, self-confidence, and rediscover your capacity for self-love. For a free, 15-minute consultation, please contact me or call me at 561-866-6607.