Trauma isn’t tidy: neatly packing it away is not a long term strategy for life.

Welcoming our responses, even the ones that don’t help.

It’s tempting to believe we can pack away our painful experiences—hide them, contain them, control them. But trauma doesn’t vanish when we push it down. It lives in our bodies, in our reactions, in the parts of us that are just trying to protect us from more pain.

I once described it to a friend like shapewear: you can compress and smooth and squish, but the pressure always finds somewhere else to go. That’s what unacknowledged trauma does—it leaks out through anxiety, anger, numbness, or hyper-independence.

My approach is to welcome all of these responses with compassion. The part of you that’s angry? It might be protecting a part that felt powerless. The part that shuts down? It’s trying to keep you safe. None of these parts are “bad.” They’ve all had jobs to do.

Healing doesn’t come from pushing these parts away. It comes from listening, understanding, and letting them know they don’t have to carry the burden alone anymore.

Why trauma needs space, not suppression

Unprocessed trauma doesn’t go away. It shows up as anxiety, anger, numbness, difficulty trusting others—or even physical pain. Talking about trauma, feeling the pain, rage or fear, and acknowledging what happened—these are not signs of weakness. They are steps toward letting go.

Working with a trauma-informed therapist can help you do this safely. You don’t need to rush or explain everything at once. Therapy offers containment—so that your story doesn’t have to overwhelm you.

You are already surviving

To anyone reading this who carries trauma: you are already doing something remarkable. You’ve found ways to survive. And if those ways stop working—or start hurting—you’re allowed to find new ones. You don’t have to be fixed. You’re not broken. You’re just human, carrying what you’ve lived through.