Understanding it isn’t enough

Your partner reaches for you, or moves their hand and your body freezes. You hold your breath without even realising it. You know you’re okay, you love your partner and feel safe with them. Yet, your body behaves as if they are dangerous. You’re confused about why this is happening, and sometimes you may not recognise what is happening in that moment.

Sometimes it looks like this:

* Saying yes when you mean no, then replaying it for days or beating yourself up about it

Walking into a room and reading everyone’s mood before you’ve even put your bag down

Going somewhere else in your head during sex

Never being the one that starts sex or affection, even when you really want to

Rage or grief turning up out of nowhere (or bigger than needed), decades after you thought you’d dealt with it

Trauma comes in many forms and sits with us in different ways. What didn’t happen to us is just as important as what did happen, because trauma is what also happens inside us, that’s just as important as how we remember it.

It lives in your body, your reactions, your beliefs, and how you see the world and other people. Talking about it doesn’t always change things. Talking can help you understand why your behaviours show up in certain ways, or why you keep going back to the same type of people, but it doesn’t change how you respond.