Trauma Isn’t About What Happened — It’s About What Your Nervous System Held.

Dylan Gillis, MS, LPCC-S
Jan 15
4 min read

“I mean, people have it worse than me,” an all too familiar statement. Trauma is one of the most misunderstood topics in mental health. It’s also one of the most common.

Many people hear the word trauma and immediately think of extreme events: active combat, assault, severe abuse, or life-threatening accidents. Those experiences absolutely can be traumatic, and trauma is not defined solely by what happened. Trauma is defined by how the experience was processed and stored in the body and mind. Trauma occurs when something overwhelms our ability to process an event due to our nervous system not having the opportunity, safety, support, or ability to recover.

Trauma is what happens when something feels too much, too fast, or too alone, and your body remembers it.

It’s not a weakness, or a flaw, it is your brain's response designed to keep you alive. That process has been reinforced within our brains for thousands of years. Trauma can come from many sources, and can be defined as “T” and “t” trauma.

Examples of “T” Trauma

Combat exposure or military trauma
Sexual assault or rape
Physical assault or violent attack
Physical abuse
Domestic violence (witnessing or experiencing)
Serious accidents (car crashes, industrial accidents, falls with injury)
Life-threatening medical events (heart attack, ICU stays, emergency surgeries)
Natural disasters (tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, fires, earthquakes)
Witnessing death or severe injury
Repeated exposure to trauma through work (first responders, medical professionals, law enforcement)

Examples of “t” Trauma

Chronic emotional invalidation - Being told you’re “too sensitive,” “dramatic,” or “overreacting”
Growing up with emotionally unavailable or unpredictable caregivers
Consistent criticism or shaming - At home, school, sports, or work
Bullying or social exclusion
Repeated rejection or abandonment
Witnessing chronic conflict in the home
Living with a caregiver struggling with addiction or untreated mental illness
Medical procedures or hospitalizations, especially in childhood
Academic/work pressure paired with fear of failure
Relational betrayal - Infidelity, broken trust, sudden emotional withdrawal
Being parentified - Taking on adult responsibilities too early
Frequent moves or instability
Growing up needing to “walk on eggshells”
Workplace humiliation or chronic stress without relief
Repeated experiences of feeling unsafe, unseen, or unheard

It is important to note that we don’t compare traumas. “t” should not be taken with less severity because they are not life or death. Often people dismiss their “t” trauma as “not that bad.” If you are reading this now and meet any of the bullet points in “T” and/or “t” please don’t dismiss it. Your emotions are valid and your experience(s) are real and impactful.

Another important note, two people can experience the same event and only one may develop trauma. That doesn’t mean one is “stronger.” It means their nervous systems, support systems, timing, and internal resources were different. If you take two glass bottles from the same case, you hold them at the same height, drop them on the same cement, and one breaks and the other doesn't. One is not stronger and the other weaker, there are a multitude of reasons why they reacted the way they did.

Trauma often disguises itself as:

Anxiety
Depression
Irritability or anger
Perfectionism
People-pleasing
Avoidance
Emotional shutdown
Chronic stress or burnout
Relationship difficulties

It won't always be as obvious as flashbacks or nightmares.

Often, it’s much quieter, creative, and that can make it confusing.

Individuals feeling “on edge” or unable to relax not knowing it is constant anxiety or hypervigilance. Emotional numbness or dissociation can be perceived as concentration issues, daydreaming, or just zoning out. Shame that doesn’t seem to match reality, intrusive thoughts or memories that we just assumed everyone deals with. Relationship issues that we believe are character flaws because we have difficulty trusting others and/or trouble with having too strict or too loose of boundaries. Struggling to feel safe even when nothing is “wrong” or a feeling like we are waiting for something bad to happen.

That confusion is part of trauma. Your brain learned something once to keep you safe and it kept doing it, over and over. Our brains tend to take the path of least resistance… it blames ourselves, and it can be damn good at it. “Why can’t I just be normal?!” “I should be over this by now.” “Suck it up, other people had it worse.” “Why am I so needy?” “i’ll never be good enough.”

One of the biggest misconceptions about trauma is that it can be fixed by logic alone. If trauma were rational, you could just “think your way out of it.” You could take so many misinformed people's advice and “just not think about it.”

But trauma is stored in the nervous system.

That's why you know you’re safe, but don’t feel safe, unless you're sitting in a certain spot in the room. You know your workplace is safe but a door slams and you jump and your heart is beating out of your chest. Someone calls you an awful name at work and you spiral for the next 3 days on what you did wrong, even though it was their fault.

Many people don’t seek trauma treatment because they don’t realize trauma is involved. Healing trauma isn’t about rehashing awful experiences endlessly. It’s about helping the nervous system learn that the present is different from the past. In a safe, non-judgmental therapeutic relationship you can identify those flawed thinking patterns.

Learning how your nervous system works gives us more power on how to regulate.

Identifying skills to regulate emotions and bodily responses. Processing (even re-processing) traumatic experiences in a controlled, researched, and supportive environment. This can help in rebuilding a sense of safety, control, and trust in ourselves.

You are in control of your therapy, it is done at your own pace, and towards your own goals. Trauma therapy isn’t about becoming someone else, It’s about reclaiming parts of yourself that had to go into survival mode.

If any of this post spoke to you, I want you to hear this clearly: