What is trauma?
When we hear the word trauma, many people picture something big – a car accident, a natural disaster, a single life-altering moment. Trauma does not always look like that. Sometimes, it is the small things that happen over and over. Or the important things that did not happen at all.
Often, it is about the relationships that were meant to be safe but were not. This is called relational trauma, and it can shape the way you think, feel and connect with others.
What is relational trauma?
Relational trauma happens when the people who were meant to support you emotionally (parents, caregivers, teachers or partners) were inconsistent, not as responsive or safe in their interactions with you.
When you are growing up, your experience is “your normal”. You do not have anything else with which to compare your experience. You accept what is happening around you, because that is your normal.
So if your emotional needs were not met, or were met inconsistently, how would you know if this was not enough?
For many people, it is only later, through repeated patterns in relationships, or by observing how others relate, that they start to feel like something has been missing.
It is not always about what happened.
It is sometimes about what did not happen. What you may not have received.
How often you felt unseen, unheard or like you had to shrink yourself to be accepted.
Over time, this can lead you to believe things like:
- “Having needs makes me a burden.”
- “I’m not good enough.”
- “It’s safer to be quiet.”
- “I have to keep everyone else happy to be okay.”
These beliefs come from early interactions, and shape how you see yourself, and what you expect from others, influencing the way you interact with others. (Which in turn influences the way in which others interact with you. It is a cycle that will repeat, until you examine within yourself your “templates” of yourself and the world.)
Complex trauma and developmental trauma
Complex trauma is the kind that builds up over time, perhaps starting from childhood and continuing in your adult long-term relationships.
Developmental trauma occurs during key stages of emotional growth, when your brain and body are learning how to feel safe, seen and supported.
If your psychological and emotional needs were unmet for a sustained period of time, your nervous system and body adapted to expecting stressful interactions that make you:
- Go quiet during conflict.
- Feel panicked when people get emotionally close.
- Second guess your boundaries and what your body is telling you.
- Lose yourself in relationships, throwing away any notion of boundaries between you and your loved one.
- Prioritise others over yourself. Over-empathising with others.
- Punish yourself by not resting enough, denying yourself food, and items of pleasure.
- Numb out, overthink or over-function to cope.
Maybe you have been doing that for so long, it just feels normal.
How trauma might be showing up in your life
You might not think of yourself as someone with trauma.
Maybe this sounds familiar:
- You feel responsible for keeping the peace, even when it hurts you.
- You feel angry or reactive but don’t know why. You think you’re the problem.
- You always put others first and end up feeling mentally and physically exhausted.
- Saying “no” feels wrong or not even allowed.
- You’ve learned how to “read the room” but not how to feel safe in it.
Sometimes you might wonder:
“Why do I keep ending up in the same kind of relationships?”
“Why do I always feel like the one doing the work – emotionally, practically, everything?”
It might not be about who you are with now.
It might be about what you learned to expect from others a long time ago.
These patterns are common in relational trauma and therapy can help you understand where they started and how to change them.
How therapy can help
At Child & Family Matters, we work with relational, developmental and complex trauma every day.
We help you:
- Understand the patterns that keep showing up.
- Make sense of your emotional responses.
- Learn how your nervous system has adapted to protect you.
- Slowly build new ways of relating to others and to yourself.
We use EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) to process the negative beliefs we hold like:
- “I’m unsafe.”
- “I’m unlovable.”
- “It’s always my fault.”
- “I can’t trust anyone.”
With time, therapy can help shift those beliefs and help you feel more grounded in who you are, not just who you had to be to survive.
“Warning: Therapy might change you.”
As Dr. Latika says, therapy might not give you what you expect.
It might give you more than that.
It might help you:
- Say no without guilt.
- Stop trying to fix or carry everyone else.
- Understand your emotions instead of fearing them.
- Recognise your needs and believe they matter.
Change can be uncomfortable. Think of what you miss out on if you stay stuck and avoid change. Think of what could be possible if you allowed yourself to change.
What makes trauma-informed therapy different?
Working with a therapist (someone outside your family or friendship circle) can be powerful.
A qualified and experienced professional is not emotionally tied to your world. We are here to hold space, reflect on what’s really going on and help you reconnect with yourself.
Wounds made in early relationships, require safe and containing relationships within which to heal. The most healing thing is to feel truly seen by someone who does place emotional demands on you.
Trauma therapy in Brisbane
We offer trauma-informed therapy (including EMDR) at our Spring Hill clinic in Brisbane for individuals, families and anyone working through relational ruptures. We also offer low-cost group-based intervention to help repair and recover at your own pace.