Trauma
You may be struggling with how you view yourself and others.
Feel a guilt and shame that you can’t really explain.
Suffer from intrusive thoughts or memories of times where you felt unsafe.
Avoid situations, self-medicate or have impulsive reactions.You might even go through periods of emotion dysregulation to absolute numbness.
You may find yourself repeating a pattern of abusive or destructive relationships. You may fear getting close with others or the opposite, seem to be around people who cross your boundaries and invalidate your needs.
Or maybe you are a parent of a teenager whose concerned about your teen and notice some of the these things happening to your child.
What we know about trauma is that it actually changes us on a biological level. Your body stores information about your daily experiences. So things like systemic oppression or discrimination for example, can be stored in your body the same way that it might if you were exposed to a violent event or in the middle of surviving a war.
When your body experiences circumstances that remind it of a perceived danger, it signals off a cue in your brain to help you respond in a way that will promote you to survive. When this happens over and over again, it can really impact your ability to connect with yourself, your body, and to others around you.
In therapy, we can work together to identify how trauma has shaped your life through getting to know yourself more, what triggers you, what things help you feel more grounded, and how to set better boundaries in relationships to promote safety.
Lets start your journey to healing together.
Here are a few presentations of trauma that I specialize in:
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Posttramatic Stress Disorder
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Acute Stress Disorder
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Complex and Relational Trauma