Unresolved Childhood Trauma, Neglect, and/or Abuse
“We didn’t understand as children that our parents still had work to do on themselves.” – Maryam Hasnaa
You have a secret.
You have a box that’s filled with painful memories from your past. And you locked it up, and you shoved it at the very back of your mind. It’s too painful to look at it, but you feel the weight of it everyday. You don’t like to talk about it either because you’re afraid of what will come out once that forbidden box opens.
You tell yourself: “What doesn’t break you makes you stronger. What’s the point of talking about what happened in the past?”
Here’s the thing about emotions, especially the hard ones.
With physical wounds, if you don’t clean it, let it breath in the open air, and be tended to - it will get infected. It gets worse and worse and you’ll start to feel the ache, feeling the annoying presence of it whatever you do.
Emotions and trauma are the same way. If we don’t look at it, tend to it, try to heal it - the infection of it will show up in various aspects of your life: Your relationships, emotional reactions, the way you see yourself and others, and your behaviors. You might notice a pattern - certain things trigger you to a full panic attack or anger, certain situations create unbearable anxiety, or you find yourself avoiding certain type of people, places, and/or situations.
You believe that it is because of your past trauma that you are as strong and high functioning as you are today. But you can’t ignore that unexplainable tension, emptiness, unreasonably explosive anger, and your strong need and urge to stay distracted with unhealthy habits/relationships.
You’re here because you want to imagine a life that is different than this.
I know you’re scared, skeptical, and cautious at the idea of healing from your childhood trauma, neglect, and/or abuse. Your family was and will always be dysfunctional and toxic, and what’s done is done, so what’s the point? But I know there’s a part of you that wants to know if your life can feel peaceful, easy, balanced, healthy, meaningful, and fulfilling.
Therapy is a perfect space to open up and talk about your painful parts. With the right therapist, you’ll feel safe to explore all the ways that the past trauma has impacted you and you’ll feel truly seen and heard without any judgment. From that place of being seen and heard, you’ll be free to find new ways of showing up for yourself and others.
Take back control of your life.
Expand.
Unresolved trauma can leave us with limiting beliefs and ideas about who we are and how the world operates. Therapy can help you expand those beliefs and ideas by challenging the story that kept you stuck.
Connect.
Surviving trauma can make you feel lonely and isolated. Shame, embarrassment, and anger chains you from connecting with others, which further reinforces even more shame, embarrassment, anger, and host of other negative emotions. Therapy can help you create more fulfilling and meaningful relationships by helping you create more understanding and compassion towards yourself.
Find.
That sense of doom and uneasiness inside makes you want to distract yourself with unhealthy habits like binging, alcohol/substance use, shopping, etc. You feel ashamed about it, so you hide or dilute the truth of how bad it actually is. Therapy can help you find healthier coping strategies.
Integrate.
The point of therapy is not to erase the memory of what happened to you. We can examine the ways that the unresolved trauma has shaped your perception of yourself and the world, and the way it has influenced your lived experiences. Therapy can help you see the full picture of what happened, and therefore helping you find greater meaning in all that’s happened. When this happens, you can live your life without your trauma narrative taking the centerstage of your life.
Therapy for Unresolved Childhood Trauma, Neglect, and/or Abuse
I can help. Let’s start.