Healing Complex Trauma: You Are Not Alone
What is Complex Trauma?
Complex trauma can feel like a shadow that follows you everywhere. It usually develops when someone goes through repeated or ongoing traumatic experiences, often beginning in childhood. Complex trauma usually happens within relationships—often involving caregivers or people who were supposed to provide safety. It may include chronic neglect, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, domestic violence, or growing up in an environment that never felt safe.
Unlike a single-event trauma, which might come from an accident or disaster, complex trauma is more like a thread woven into the fabric of someone’s life. If you’ve ever thought, “Why do I feel broken even though I survived?”—you are not alone.
The impact is not only psychological, “in your head,” but also neurological and physical, affecting how a person experiences themselves, others, and the world.
How Complex Trauma Impacts the Nervous System
When we experience trauma, our bodies automatically respond through the autonomic nervous system — the system that controls 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, but with complex trauma (ongoing, repeated trauma over time), 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
Dropping into flight, freeze or fawn
At times, the nervous system can swing the other way, 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.
Physical symptoms of illness
Long-term nervous system activation often shows up in the body as chronic pain, fatigue, digestive problems, or tension.Feeling alone, isolated, abandoned
Trauma shapes the nervous system to stay in survival mode. That means:
Hypervigilance → difficulty trusting others
Freeze/shutdown → feelings of isolation or disconnection
Threat sensitivity → interpreting neutral situations as rejection or abandonment
These are not choices you made — they are automatic survival responses.
Many people with complex trauma feel like outsiders, even in their own families or communities.
Yet, here’s something I want you to notice: the fact that you’ve survived and are here searching for answers shows incredible strength!
trouble concentrating,
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.
Why This Matters for Healing
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.
Understanding the nervous system helps explain why willpower alone isn’t enough to “get over” trauma. The body needs to learn safety again. That’s why approaches like EMDR, somatic therapy, mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and breathwork are so powerful—they help regulate the nervous system and create new pathways for calm and resilience.
Healing From Complex Trauma
Recovery is possible—but it does not mean forgetting or minimizing what happened to you. It means slowly creating a new sense of safety and learning that it is possible to live without constant fear or shame.
Healing often involves:
Therapy: approaches such as EMDR, Somatic Therapy, and Parts Work help process trauma and restore nervous system balance.
Mind-body practices: yoga, meditation, breathwork, and grounding techniques reconnect individuals with their bodies in safe ways.
Relationships and community: supportive, safe connections are essential in healing from relational trauma.
Self-compassion: shifting from self-blame to understanding that survival responses were creative adaptations to overwhelming circumstances.
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
Healing is not a straight line. It’s a process of building resilience, discovering your strengths, and learning that you are worthy of love and connection.
A Personal Note
As a therapist, I’ve had the honor of walking alongside many trauma survivors. I’ve witnessed incredible healing and resilience—people who once felt broken beginning to see themselves as whole, strong, and capable of joy again.
I also know this work personally: I’ve experienced my own challenges and understand what it feels like to search for safety and healing. My work is my “calling;” that’s why I believe so deeply in creating a safe space where you feel seen, understood, and supported.
A Message of Hope
Living with complex trauma can feel like carrying invisible wounds. But healing is not only possible—it can also lead to profound resilience, deeper self-understanding, and the ability to thrive. By addressing trauma with compassion and integrative approaches, people can move toward lives marked not only by survival but by authentic connection, joy, and empowerment.
✨ I offer complex trauma therapy in San Diego and secure online therapy across California, and online support groups,
