🔹 What Is Trauma?
Trauma is your emotional and psychological response to a deeply distressing or disturbing event. It overwhelms your ability to cope and makes you feel helpless, frightened, or unsafe.
Common causes:
- Abuse (physical, emotional, sexual)
- Car accidents
- Violence or assault
- Loss of a loved one
- Natural disasters
- Medical emergencies
Trauma can be:
- Acute: From a single event (e.g., an accident)
- Chronic: Ongoing, repeated exposure (e.g., abuse, neglect)
- Complex: Multiple, layered traumatic experiences over time (especially in childhood)
🔹 What Is PTSD?
PTSD is a mental health condition that can develop after experiencing or witnessing trauma. Not everyone who goes through trauma gets PTSD.
Core symptoms include:
- Re-experiencing the trauma (flashbacks, nightmares)
- Avoidance of reminders (places, people, conversations)
- Negative changes in thinking/mood (guilt, shame, numbness)
- Hyperarousal (being jumpy, irritable, trouble sleeping)
Symptoms last more than a month and cause serious distress or problems in daily life.
What We Treat
Acute Trauma
“It happened fast, but it changed everything.”
Acute trauma stems from a single overwhelming event — like an accident, assault, or medical emergency. Even after it’s over, your body and mind might still feel stuck in fear or shock. You may find yourself jumpy, avoiding reminders, or replaying the moment again and again.
Complex Trauma
“It wasn’t just one thing — it was years of never feeling safe.”
Complex trauma is the result of ongoing or repeated harm, especially in childhood — like emotional neglect, abuse, or constant chaos. It can leave you feeling disconnected from yourself, unsure who to trust, and always bracing for something to go wrong.
Relational & Attachment Trauma
“The people who were supposed to protect me were the ones who hurt me.”
When your closest relationships — with a parent, partner, or caregiver — are sources of harm, connection itself can feel unsafe. This kind of trauma can make it hard to trust, set boundaries, or believe you’re worthy of love and care.
Intergenerational Trauma
“I’m carrying pain that didn’t start with me — but it’s still mine to hold.”
Sometimes, the trauma you carry isn’t from your own life, but from the experiences of your parents, grandparents, or community. Even if it was never spoken aloud, its impact can live on — showing up as anxiety, shame, or a constant sense of survival mode.
Traumatic Loss
“I didn’t just lose someone — I lost a part of myself.”
Grief becomes traumatic when the loss is sudden, violent, or deeply complicated. You may feel disconnected from the world, stuck in sorrow, or haunted by the moment it happened. When grief settles in the body, time alone doesn’t always bring healing.
Secondary or Vicarious Trauma
“I didn’t experience it — but I carry the weight like I did.”
Caregivers, therapists, first responders, and loved ones of trauma survivors often absorb the emotional impact of what others endure. Over time, this can feel like more than burnout — it’s the cumulative toll of holding pain without enough space to process it.