Healing Complex Trauma: You Are Not Alone in This

Living with complex trauma can feel deeply isolating. Many people carry the belief that they should be “over it by now,” or that something is wrong with them because they still feel anxious, shut down, overwhelmed, or disconnected — even years later.

If this resonates, I want you to hear this clearly:

You are not broken. And you are not alone.

Complex trauma leaves real imprints on the nervous system, the body, and our sense of self. Healing is not about fixing a flaw — it’s about gently supporting what learned to survive.

What is Complex Trauma?

Complex trauma usually develops from repeated or ongoing experiences of emotional, physical, or relational harm — often beginning in childhood and involving relationships with caregivers or people who were supposed to provide safety.

Rather than one single traumatic event, such as a car accident, complex trauma is cumulative. It shapes how we relate to ourselves, how safe we feel with others, and how our nervous system responds to the world.

Many people with complex trauma say things like:

• “I don’t feel safe, even when nothing bad is happening.”

• “I’m either on edge or completely shut down.”

• “I feel too much… or nothing at all.”

• “Why is this still affecting me?”

These questions make sense — especially in a culture that values pushing through instead of slowing down to listen to the body.

How Complex Trauma Impacts the Nervous System

If you see yourself in these words, please know there is nothing “wrong” with you. They are survival strategies your body and mind developed to help you survive.

When we experience trauma, our bodies automatically respond through the autonomic nervous system — the system that activates survival states like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. For someone who lived through a single traumatic event, the nervous system may return to balance once the danger passes.

With ongoing trauma (complex trauma); however, the nervous system doesn’t get the chance to reset. Instead, it becomes “wired for survival,” which can look like:

• Always being on edge, like you can’t relax

  You may feel anxious, restless, hypervigilant, or easily startled. The body stays on high alert, as if danger could appear at any moment. It can be hard to concentrate and reason logically.

• Feeling disconnected from the body
  At times, the nervous system can drop into flight, freeze or fawn, leading to deep sadness, fear, or complete shutdown, or dissociation(e.g, numbness or feeling disconnected from your body). This is your system’s way of protecting you from overwhelm.

• Struggling to regulate your emotions
  Because trauma impacts the prefrontal cortex (responsible for self-control) and the amygdala (the brain’s alarm system), you may feel overwhelmed by everyday stressors and have difficulty maintaining stability at home, work, or school. It can feel much harder to calm down after distressing events.

• Deep shame, self-blame, or feeling unworthy

  You may feel displaced guilt and shame, where you feel like somehow you did something to deserve what happened to you.

• Fatigue, tension, or unexplained physical symptoms
  Long-term nervous system activation often manifests in the body as chronic pain, fatigue, digestive issues, or tension.

• Feeling alone, isolated, abandoned

  Difficulty trusting others and interpreting neutral situations or miscommunications as rejection or abandonment.

  These are not choices you made — they are automatic survival responses, adaptive survival strategies, not character flaws. Your nervous system learned to do exactly what it needed to do to protect you.

Why Healing Can Feel So Hard

Many people try to heal complex trauma through insight alone — understanding why things happened, or telling themselves to “think differently.” While insight can be helpful, complex trauma is not just stored in thoughts. It lives in the body and nervous system.

Imagine your nervous system as a car.

• The gas pedal represents your fight-or-flight system (adrenaline, hypervigilance, anxiety).

• The brakes represent your freeze/shutdown system (numbness, exhaustion, dissociation).

For someone with complex trauma, the car often gets stuck in extremes:

• Sometimes the gas pedal is jammed down, and you feel revved up, anxious, and unable to relax.

• Other times, the brakes slam hard, and you feel frozen, disconnected, or too tired to function.

• What’s hardest is that the car can switch suddenly between these states without warning.

Healing involves learning how to gently regulate the engine—so you can cruise at a steady pace, rather than lurching between overwhelm and shutdown.

That’s why healing often requires approaches that focus on:

• Safety

• Regulation

• Slowing down

• Learning to notice and respond to internal cues

Healing isn’t about forcing change. It’s about creating enough safety for the nervous system to soften.

What Healing Actually Looks Like

Healing complex trauma is not linear. There are moments of relief, moments of grief, and moments where old patterns resurface. This doesn’t mean you’re going backwards — it means your system is learning. It’s a process of building resilience, discovering your strengths, and learning that you are worthy of love and connection.

Supportive healing often includes:

• Trauma-informed therapy that works with the body and nervous system.

• Learning tools for emotional regulation and grounding.

• Rebuilding a sense of trust — within yourself and in relationships.

• Developing self-compassion instead of self-judgment.

• Allowing your pace to be slow, intentional, and respectful.

In my practice, I use an integrative approach that includes

• EMDR and Somatic Therapy to help your nervous system process trauma safely

• Parts Work and Inner Family Healing to care for the most wounded parts of you

• Mind-body practices like meditation, mindfulness, and breathwork, to gently reconnect with your body and regulate your nervous system through the body

• Compassionate, non-judgmental support so you never have to walk this path alone

• Trauma Survivor Support groups to foster safety, connection and community.

Healing is less about “getting rid” of symptoms and more about building capacity for safety, connection, and choice.

A Gentle Grounding Practice

If you’re feeling overwhelmed right now, you might try this:

Put your hands over the center of your chest and start to deepen the breath in through your nose.
Exhale gently through your mouth.
Notice the sensations of the inhale, the exhale, and the pressure of your hands on your chest. Notice if it feels supportive and if there is even a slight shift in your physical sensations, thoughts, and feelings. You are not judging, you are not trying to change anything. You’re just letting your nervous system know you’re here. That’s enough for this moment.

A Message of Hope

Living with complex trauma can feel like carrying invisible wounds — but healing is possible. Not by erasing the past, but by building a present that feels safer, more grounded, and more connected.

Your reactions make sense.
Your survival was intelligent.
And your healing deserves patience and care.

You don’t have to do this alone.

If you’re looking for support, I offer trauma-informed therapy and integrative approaches designed to help adults heal complex trauma with compassion, safety, and respect for the nervous system. I help people move toward lives marked not only by survival but by authentic connection, joy, and empowerment.

You are not too much. You are not behind. And you are not alone.

Trauma-informed therapy in San Diego and online across California and support groups worldwide.