How Your Body Remembers Trauma
In trauma therapy, clients often share how a sudden and untraceable sense of dread interrupts a normal, calm day. This doesn’t have to be full blown panic - you don’t have to have a PTSD diagnosis to experience the effects of trauma. You may know the feeling: maybe you’re getting along really well with your partner or family but suddenly you feel a surge of resentment that comes out as an irritable response. Perhaps you get the urge to shut down and isolate. You might be tempted to say your reaction “came out of nowhere” or feel tempted to blame the trigger event. That feeling – like it’s your fault for being moody and unpredictable – makes it even harder to talk about. Maybe you know it’s connected to childhood trauma, and maybe the idea that your childhood was less than perfect is even more painful to consider.
Hypervigilance: You’re Not Alone
Our nervous systems evolved powerful emotional responses (think fight, flight, or freeze) to protect us from perceived threats in our environment. One of the key takeaways in trauma therapy is how unconscious and automatic our stress and survival responses are. The stronger the response to threat in the moment (or over time), the stronger its impression on our nervous system. Whether the trauma happens in a moment or over time, we grow more vigilant for any small cue that we’re back in an environment where trauma could reoccur. Those cues likely don’t register consciously: maybe you smell the same food you ate that day, or other people’s stress registers as anger to you.
This sense of dread or panic is called hypervigilance: it's an extreme version of the normal, healthy vigilance that keeps us from doing unsafe things like touching stoves or running with scissors. Hypervigilance arises from traumatic experiences that shape PTSD, but also from cumulative experiences that form a more complex trauma response. Trauma therapists recognize that your experiences are the only point of reference your body has. You may think your trauma isn’t ‘traumatic enough’, but your body disagrees, and your experience matters – no matter what. Here’s what hypervigilance can look like:
Physical distress (restless leg, air hunger, tense muscles, insomnia)
Social withdrawal (difficulty relaxing in social situations, mistrust in close relationships, increased reservedness)
Cognitive burden (rehearsing responses to anticipated threats or conflicts, avoidance of uncertainty or spontaneity, intolerance of boredom/downtime)
You and Your Body: Separate but the Same
Hypervigilance can be extremely disruptive to the normal rhythm of our lives, and it’s never something we choose or want to happen. But while it may feel like hypervigilance is for “no reason,” our bodies don't do anything for no reason, and most of the time, they’re just trying to protect us. No one can blame you for resenting, protesting against, even hating your panic. But panic can also be understood as proof that your body has never given up on keeping you safe.
When we get blindsided by feelings we don’t fully understand, it’s natural to imagine our bodies, and even our brains, as separate entities from us, with whom we share an intimate but confusing relationship. We say things like “my brain decided I couldn’t x today” or “my Dad perceives being late for the airport as being chased by a bear.” While these statements can portray that relationship as one-sided or antagonistic, they also — crucially — create space for your body to feel the way it does without your mind arguing. This is the first step of a common technique in trauma counselling called parts work, and most people don’t even know they’ve discovered it.
Hearing All the Parts of You
Surviving trauma often means holding many conflicting truths at the same time. For example: I know my environment is safe, but I don’t feel that way. At our West Ottawa therapy centre, our trauma therapists use parts work to encourage you to identify and advocate for different “parts” of you, like the part of you that’s angry at your body for panicking and also the part of you that wants your body to feel safe.
Trauma therapy might be right for you if:
You often experience a feeling of threat or unease in safe environments
Your reactions sometimes feel bigger than the situation calls for
You struggle to feel safe, calm, and connected
If you find yourself holding the conflicting truths that you believe therapy might help but are afraid or unsure where to start, feel free to reach out to us at the Wren Centre any time to explore how therapy can help or to discover which therapist on our team might be a good fit.
Here are some other Trauma Therapy posts
Surviving trauma often means holding many conflicting truths at the same time. For example: I know my environment is safe, but I don’t feel that way. At our West Ottawa therapy centre, our trauma therapists use parts work to encourage you to identify and advocate for different “parts” of you, like the part of you that’s angry at your body for panicking and also the part of you that wants your body to feel safe.