Trauma Isn’t Always One Big Event
It all begins with an idea.
Redefining Trauma Beyond the Catastrophic:
When most people hear the word “trauma,” they think of something catastrophic: an accident, an assault, a natural disaster. Something sudden and severe — a moment that splits life into before and after.
But for many of us, trauma doesn’t arrive in a single, dramatic event.
It arrives slowly. Quietly. Over time.
In the repeated moments when our emotions were met with blank stares or harsh judgment.
In the should haves and what ifs.
In the subtle but chronic ways we were told to tone it down, toughen up, or stop crying.
In the feeling that we had to earn love by being easy, helpful, performative, or impressive.
This kind of trauma doesn’t always leave obvious scars.
But it lives in the body.
It shapes the nervous system.
It teaches us what parts of ourselves are safe to show — and which must be hidden.
Sometimes, the wound wasn’t what happened — it was what didn’t.
We weren’t held.
We weren’t seen.
We weren’t listened to or validated.
We weren’t allowed to fully exist in the messy, beautiful complexity of our emotions.
These are the invisible forms of trauma — the kind that don’t make headlines, but still make homes in our bodies.
The kind that show up years later as anxiety, disconnection, people-pleasing, or a deep sense that something’s missing… but we can’t quite name it.
So what is trauma, really?
Trauma isn’t the thing that happened.
It’s what happened inside us as a result.
It’s the overwhelm our system couldn’t fully process.
It’s the narrative we live by as a result.
It’s the adaptive patterns we developed to stay safe — emotionally, physically, relationally.
And those adaptations were wise. They helped us survive.
But they’re not always meant to last forever.
Healing starts when we stop minimizing our pain just because it doesn’t look “big enough.”
When we stop denying that we need to heal by telling ourselves that our pain isn’t as bad as theirs, so we keep pushing through.
When we begin to understand that trauma isn’t about comparison — it’s about impact.
And when we gently, patiently begin listening to the parts of ourselves we once had to silence.