Healing the Wounds We Don’t Talk About: A Guide to Recovering from Trauma
Why It’s Not Always What You Think
There are wounds that bleed, and there are wounds that bury themselves so deep we forget they exist, until one day, they show up in how we flinch when someone gets too close, how we shut down instead of speak up, or how we always feel like we’re holding back a part of ourselves we can’t quite name.
This is what trauma often looks like. Not the chaos of the event, but the quiet of the aftermath. The coping. The numbness. The hyper-vigilance wrapped in a high-functioning life. The smile that says, “I’m fine,” when you haven’t felt safe in years.
The truth is, trauma isn’t always the big, obvious thing. Sometimes it’s what didn’t happen.
No one came to comfort you.
No one asked how you were.
No one gave you space to fall apart, so you learned how to hold it all in and call it strength.
We don’t always recognize it as trauma because we survived. We got good at minimizing. We told ourselves it wasn’t that bad. And yet, the body remembers. It remembers what the mind tried to forget. That’s why healing isn’t just about unpacking the past. It’s about learning to feel safe in the present.
Please Note: This blog post is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Reading this content does not establish a therapist-client relationship with NuHu Therapy or any of its clinicians. If you are experiencing distress or a mental health crisis, please contact a licensed mental health professional, your family doctor, or visit your nearest emergency service. Always seek the guidance of your own qualified provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental health or medical condition.
What Is Trauma, Really?
In clinical terms, trauma refers to any experience that overwhelms your ability to cope. It’s something your body and nervous system perceive as threatening, and which you don’t have the internal or external resources to process at the time. But in real life, it’s messier than that. It doesn’t always come with a clear “before and after.”
Some people carry trauma from a single life-altering moment. Others carry it from years of subtle disconnection, instability, or emotional absence. Trauma doesn’t always come from violence or danger but sometimes it comes from not being seen, not being heard, or not being held when it mattered most.
This is what we refer to as developmental trauma, and it’s one of the most common, yet least acknowledged, forms of suffering that adults carry into every area of their lives, their relationships, work, self-worth, and emotional resilience.
You may have experienced trauma if:
You had to parent your parent, emotionally or physically
You were punished or ignored for showing emotions
You were praised only when you achieved or pleased others
You grew up around addiction, mental illness, or violence
You felt like love had to be earned, not given freely
You constantly worried about doing something wrong, even if no one said it out loud
When these experiences happen during childhood, especially before your brain has fully developed the ability to self-regulate, they don’t just go away. They imprint themselves into your nervous system and become part of how you navigate the world.
Trauma Isn’t the Event It’s the Aftermath
Many people struggle to identify with the word trauma because their experience doesn’t seem dramatic enough. They’ll say things like:
“I had a roof over my head. My parents weren’t bad people.”
“No one hit me. It wasn’t abuse.”
“Other people have it worse.”
But trauma isn’t just about what happened to you it’s also about what you had to do to survive it. Did you have to shut down emotionally to feel safe? Did you have to become perfect, quiet, invisible? Did you learn that your needs didn’t matter? Those adaptations are the symptoms of trauma, even if the original cause seems small or forgettable.
The most common trauma response we see in adults at NuHu Therapy isn’t a flashback or panic attack. It’s emotional disconnection, chronic guilt, hyper-independence, and deep fear of vulnerability. People who have spent years being “the strong one” come into therapy exhausted not because of a single event, but because of a lifetime of carrying what no one else could see.
As one client reported with Steele D’Silva, a therapist (Qualifying) at NuHu Therapy:
“It’s like I’m always waiting for the ground to fall out beneath me. Even when things are good, I don’t trust it. I don’t even know what calm feels like… It’s like my body doesn’t believe I’m safe.”
How Trauma Shapes the Nervous System
Your nervous system has one job: to keep you alive. When something overwhelming happens a frightening experience, a loss, a betrayal your brain and body work together to protect you. They might kick into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode. These are survival responses, and they’re automatic.
If you grew up in a home where chaos, fear, or emotional neglect were common, your nervous system may have gotten stuck in survival mode. This isn’t just psychological it’s also physical. Your brain becomes wired to detect danger even when none is present. Your body stays braced. Your heart rate increases. Your digestion slows. Your muscles stay tense. You’re always “on.”
This is why trauma isn’t just a memory, it’s literally a state your nervous system tends to get stuck in.
It explains why:
You flinch at sudden noises
You can’t sleep even when you’re tired
You overthink every conversation
You feel like you always have to be on guard
You find it hard to trust your own instincts or relax in relationships
Healing trauma means helping your body learn how to come down from that state of constant alertness. That’s one reason trauma-informed therapy doesn’t just focus on talking, it focuses on regulating the nervous system through mindfulness, somatic work, and emotional safety.
To learn more about that process, see our in-depth guide on Body Scan Meditation, a gentle practice we often recommend to begin reconnecting with the body after trauma.
The Invisible Forms of Trauma: What Gets Missed
When we think of trauma, we often focus on the obvious such as violence, disasters, abuse. But some of the most damaging forms of trauma are subtle. They’re found in what was missing from your life rather than what was present.
This includes:
Emotional neglect — when no one asked how you were feeling, or comforted you when you were upset
Enmeshment — when a parent relied on you emotionally, and you felt responsible for their mood
Invalidation — when your feelings were minimized or mocked
Parentification — when you had to take on adult roles, like caring for siblings or managing the household
Chronic unpredictability — when your home environment was unstable or emotionally unsafe
These experiences don’t leave physical scars, but they leave psychological ones. They teach you that love is conditional. That emotions are dangerous. That you have to fix everything or no one else will. This is what many of our clients are working through even when they can’t pinpoint one specific event that “caused it.”
Our article on Hyper-Responsibility Syndrome explains how this shows up in adults who feel like they always have to keep everything together often at the cost of their own wellbeing.
Why You Might Not Know You’re Carrying Trauma
One of the hardest parts of trauma recovery is realizing that you’ve been carrying it at all. Especially if your pain wasn’t validated or recognized when it happened, you may have internalized the belief that it didn’t count. You may think:
“I’m just being dramatic.”
“I should be over this by now.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
But trauma doesn’t ask for permission. It imprints itself through emotional withdrawal, chronic stress, and a loss of internal safety. If you relate to the signs and have trouble trusting people, fear of rest, always anticipating something going wrong, then your body might be carrying stories your mind hasn’t told yet.
And that’s okay. You don’t need to remember everything in order to heal. You don’t need a perfect timeline or a clear diagnosis. All you need is a willingness to be curious about your patterns and the support to help you make sense of them.
You don’t need to remember it all to heal from it.
The Science Behind Trauma & What the Research Tells Us
Trauma is not just a personal experience. It’s a public health concern, woven into the lives of millions. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), trauma is widespread, often hidden, and deeply misunderstood. Their comprehensive report, Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services, helps uncover what’s really going on beneath the surface.
Trauma Is Common & Far More Than You Think
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study found nearly two-thirds of participants reported at least one adverse experience, such as abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction. Over 20% had three or more. These aren’t outliers. They’re normal people who carry invisible scars.
Even a single traumatic event can derail development, and the effects multiply with chronic exposure. The SAMHSA report, available here:
“Trauma is not limited to war zones or crime scenes. It is present in the stories of people who grew up in emotionally neglectful households, endured bullying, lived through natural disasters, or experienced marginalization.” — Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services
The Body Keeps the Score: How Trauma Lives in the Nervous System
When we talk about trauma, we often focus on emotions but the body tells a story long after the mind tries to move on. Trauma isn’t just something that happens to you; it’s something your body remembers. Research from SAMHSA’s Trauma-Informed Care report shows that traumatic stress directly impacts the body’s biology. The stress response system, especially the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis becomes overstimulated. This axis controls how your brain and body respond to threat. In short, it’s your survival command center.
When you experience trauma, your body goes into fight, flight, or freeze mode. This releases a surge of cortisol and adrenaline which are hormones designed to help you escape danger. And while this system is adaptive in moments of acute threat, prolonged exposure to trauma keeps the system stuck in overdrive.
Over time, this dysregulation causes:
Immune System Suppression: Chronic cortisol elevation weakens the immune response, making survivors more vulnerable to infections and chronic inflammation.
Hormonal Imbalance: The endocrine system becomes disrupted, affecting everything from metabolism to fertility to thyroid function.
Sleep Disruption: Hyperarousal in the nervous system makes it hard to fall asleep or stay asleep. Nightmares, restlessness, and insomnia are common among trauma survivors.
Mood Instability: The limbic system, which processes fear and emotion, becomes sensitized. This can lead to heightened anxiety, depressive episodes, and emotional volatility.
As SAMHSA explains, trauma survivors often live in a persistent state of hypervigilance constantly scanning for danger, even in safe environments. This isn’t paranoia or drama. It’s a biological adaptation to past harm. What once helped them survive now leads to exhaustion, health issues, and burnout.
“Trauma’s effects on the body and brain are not fleeting. They shape the way individuals perceive the world, manage stress, and interact with others often without conscious awareness.” — Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services The real damage is often invisible. Trauma rewires how the body manages safety, trust, and recovery. It keeps the nervous system bracing for a threat that’s long gone, but still felt.
These physiological shifts explain why survivors might:
Overreact to small stressors
Feel constantly “on edge”
Struggle with chronic pain or autoimmune issues
Shut down emotionally or mentally when overwhelmed
And most importantly, this is why talking alone isn’t always enough. The body has to feel safe and not just know it.
Why So Many Trauma Survivors Avoid Help?
One of the most overlooked truths about trauma is that getting help doesn’t always feel safe even when it’s deeply needed.
Many trauma survivors grow up in environments where authority figures caused harm, where trust was broken repeatedly, or where asking for help was met with punishment, neglect, or dismissal. Over time, they learn a simple but devastating equation: dependence equals danger.
So even as adults, when the threat is gone and support is available, the body still says, “don’t trust it.”
As the SAMHSA report on Trauma-Informed Care puts it:
“A trauma-informed approach recognizes that trauma survivors often feel unsafe in systems that ignore their history.”
And those systems? They’re everywhere such as schools, healthcare, workplaces, even therapy offices.
For someone with trauma, sitting in a waiting room, filling out a clipboard, or being asked personal questions by a stranger can mirror the very dynamics that once stripped them of power. A well-meaning provider might not realize that their tone, body language, or choice of words is activating a memory the client can’t even name.
This is why trust can’t be assumed in mental health services. It has to be built slowly, with care and consistency.
Without a trauma-informed lens, providers may:
Dismiss symptoms as overreactions or resistance
Mislabel coping behaviors (like dissociation or silence) as noncompliance
Rush the process or push for vulnerability before the client is ready
Fail to recognize power imbalances, especially in marginalized or racialized populations
These missteps, even when unintentional, can re-traumatize clients reinforcing the belief that no one will truly see or protect them.
In fact, the report emphasizes that many survivors “have histories of betrayal and abuse by those who were supposed to care for them.” For them, healing isn’t just about telling their story it’s about being in a space where their story won’t be used against them.
That’s why trauma-informed therapy prioritizes:
Safety first, always
Collaboration over authority
Empowerment, allowing clients to set the pace
Awareness of cultural and systemic trauma, not just personal history
At its core, the trauma-informed approach is about restoring a basic human right: the right to feel safe while healing.
Dr. Nadine Burke Harris on Childhood Trauma
For anyone still questioning whether childhood trauma leaves a lasting mark, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris’s now-legendary TED Talk is essential viewing. A pediatrician and the former Surgeon General of California, Dr. Burke Harris makes the science impossible to ignore. In this powerful talk, she explains how early trauma isn’t just an emotional wound but a public health crisis. Exposure to abuse, neglect, and parental mental illness or substance dependence has been linked to triple the risk of heart disease, cancer, and a shortened lifespan. Drawing from the landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study, she calls for a full-scale reform in how we understand, prevent, and treat trauma, not just in therapy, but across medicine, education, and policy.
“The science is clear: Early adversity dramatically affects health across a lifetime.” — Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, TED Talks
Watch the full video here: Understanding Childhood Trauma – TED Talk by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris
Please Note: This video is shared strictly for educational purposes. It is not a replacement for therapy, diagnosis, or individualized mental health treatment. The views expressed by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris are her own and reflect the findings of her clinical work and public health advocacy. Viewing this video does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with NuHu Therapy or its clinicians. If you are experiencing emotional distress or trauma-related symptoms, we encourage you to seek help from a qualified mental health professional. To learn more or book a free consultation with one of our therapists, visit nuhutherapy.com/free-consult.
What Recovery Actually Looks Like
Here’s the truth: Recovery isn’t about “fixing” yourself. It’s about coming home to yourself.
It’s about recognizing that you’re not too sensitive but you’re deeply attuned.
You’re also not lazy, you’re exhausted from carrying what you were never meant to.
You’re not broken, you were adapting.
At NuHu Therapy, we don’t believe in one-size-fits-all solutions. We believe in walking beside you through the uncertainty, the tears, the shame, and the hope. We believe in building safety, learning how to trust your own body, and reclaiming your story on your own terms.
Tools That Help
We integrate trauma-informed methods like:
IFS (Internal Family Systems) to help you meet your inner parts with compassion.
Narrative Therapy to rewrite the story you’ve been carrying.
Somatic approaches to regulate your nervous system and ground your body.
Mindfulness and breathwork to bring you into the present, gently.
CBT and DBT if structure and coping tools help you feel more anchored.
We tailor the approach to your experience — not the other way around.
What You Can Expect with Us
No judgment.
No pressure to relive everything.
Full transparency and collaboration.
A therapist who sees your strength even when you’re struggling to.
Your trauma does not define your future. It’s part of your story, but not the end of it.
Let’s Take the First Step Together
You don’t have to figure it all out before reaching out. We offer a free 20-minute consultation so you can ask questions, feel it out, and take the pressure off.
All sessions are virtual, fully confidential, and available anywhere in Ontario. Most insurance providers cover therapy with a Registered Psychotherapist.
Book your free consult today:
👉 https://nuhutherapy.com/free-consult
