While complex trauma and single-event trauma such as a car accident or a medical emergency are both traumas, they are different “doses” of trauma. Single-event traumas happen once. They are…
Some trauma survivors feel guilty when they begin to recognize that what happened to them was traumatic. The guilt is not always about whether the event "counts" as trauma. Sometimes…
You may feel guilty when you think about or talk about your experiences as “trauma.” While this can come in the form of many different reasons, they can be categorized…
If you didn’t leave or tell someone when you were experiencing trauma, you may be falling into the trap many survivors fall into after a trauma: victim-blaming. A lot of…
It is very common for children to blame themselves for the abuse they experienced growing up. If you blame yourself, this is not surprising. You might be surprised to hear…
You might feel like you are exaggerating your past because compared to people who grew up in less traumatic environments, it may sound exaggerated. That doesn’t make what you experienced…
Many trauma survivors minimize what happened to them. They may tell themselves that it wasn't that bad, that other people had it worse, or that they should be over it…
Yes, you can experience trauma without understanding or realizing it was trauma at that time. Whether or not an experience is traumatic is determined by the nervous system experiencing it.…
Yes, you may experience an event as traumatic even if other people believe it wasn’t. This is because trauma is individual. What one person experiences as traumatic may be experienced…
Yes, something can be traumatic even if other people had it worse. Trauma is relative to each person. The idea of “worse” is also relative. Person A may think that…