Complex Trauma Isn't What Happened to You—It's What Happened Inside You
Most people think trauma is about what happened to you.
The specific event. The moment of impact. The thing you can point to and say, "That's when everything changed."
But complex trauma? Complex trauma is different.
It's not just about what happened. It's about what happened inside you while it was happening—and what's still happening in your body right now.
What Makes Trauma "Complex"?
Complex trauma (often called C-PTSD) doesn't come from a single event. It develops from prolonged or repeated exposure to harmful experiences, often in situations where you couldn't escape.
This might include:
Childhood emotional neglect or abuse
Growing up in a chaotic or unpredictable household
Long-term relationships with manipulative or emotionally volatile people
Systemic oppression and marginalization
Growing up neurodivergent in systems that punished your natural way of being
Here's what makes it "complex": it's relational, it's ongoing, and it shapes how your nervous system learned to exist in the world.
Unlike single-incident trauma (like a car accident), complex trauma doesn't just create memories you need to process. It rewires your baseline sense of safety, trust, and self-worth.
It changes the operating system.
The Body Keeps the Score—Literally
You've probably heard the phrase "the body keeps the score." But what does that actually mean?
It means trauma doesn't just live in your mind as a memory. It lives in your body as a pattern.
Your nervous system—the part of you that handles threat detection, stress response, and regulation—remembers everything. And when you experienced prolonged harm, especially early in life, your nervous system made adaptations to help you survive.
Those adaptations might look like:
Hypervigilance: Always scanning for danger, never fully relaxing
People-pleasing: Learning that your safety depended on keeping others happy
Emotional numbness: Shutting down feelings because they were too overwhelming or dangerous to express
Dissociation: Mentally "checking out" when things get too intense
Emotional flooding: Feeling like your emotions hijack you without warning
Here's the thing people don't always understand: These responses aren't signs that you're broken. They're evidence that your nervous system did exactly what it needed to do to keep you alive.
Your body learned to protect you in an environment that wasn't safe. And even now, even when the danger has passed, your nervous system is still running those old programs.
Your Symptoms Are Survival Strategies
Let's reframe this completely.
What if your anxiety isn't a disorder—it's your body's way of trying to keep you safe in a world that once hurt you?
What if your emotional dysregulation isn't immaturity—it's a nervous system that was never taught how to co-regulate or feel safe?
What if your difficulty trusting people isn't a character flaw—it's wisdom earned through experience?
Your symptoms aren't signs of weakness. They're proof of your resilience.
You developed these patterns because they worked. They helped you navigate impossible situations. They got you through.
The challenge now is that what once protected you might be keeping you stuck. Your nervous system is still responding to threats that aren't there anymore—or responding to present-day stress with the intensity of past trauma.
Why Traditional Talk Therapy Often Isn't Enough
Here's where many people get frustrated.
You've been in therapy. You've talked about your childhood. You understand cognitively why you react the way you do. You've gained insight, identified patterns, named the wounds.
And still—there's something that hasn't quite shifted.
That's because complex trauma lives in your body, not just your memories.
Talk therapy is powerful for processing events and building understanding. But if the trauma is stored somatically—in your nervous system, your muscles, your breath, your gut—you need approaches that speak that language.
You can't think your way out of a nervous system response.
Healing Complex Trauma: A Somatic Approach
Healing from complex trauma isn't about reliving every painful memory or analyzing every dysfunction. It's about teaching your nervous system that it's safe now—even when your body doesn't believe it yet.
This is where somatic (body-based) healing becomes essential.
What Somatic Healing Looks Like:
1. Nervous System Regulation Learning to recognize when you're in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn—and developing tools to gently guide yourself back to safety. This might include breathwork, grounding exercises, or movement.
2. Building Interoception Interoception is your ability to sense what's happening inside your body. Many trauma survivors have learned to disconnect from their bodies (because it wasn't safe to feel). Healing means slowly, gently rebuilding that connection.
3. Co-Regulation Before Self-Regulation You can't heal alone inside systems built to isolate you. Your nervous system learned dysregulation in relationship—it heals in relationship too. This is why therapy that includes co-regulation (attuning to another nervous system) is so powerful.
4. Honoring the Wisdom of Your Responses We don't shame survival strategies. We honor them, understand them, and slowly create new options when the old ones no longer serve.
5. Titration—Going Slow Trauma work isn't about flooding yourself with feelings or forcing breakthroughs. It's about small, manageable steps that build safety and capacity over time.
The Difference Between Healing and "Being Healed"
Here's something else nobody tells you: healing from complex trauma isn't linear, and it doesn't have a finish line.
There's no moment where you wake up and suddenly you're "fixed" or "over it."
Healing looks more like:
Having more tools to work with when you're triggered
Noticing your patterns faster and with more compassion
Building relationships where you feel safe enough to be yourself
Developing the capacity to stay present in your body, even when it's uncomfortable
Trusting yourself more—your perceptions, your boundaries, your instincts
Some days will be harder than others. Some triggers will still knock you sideways. And that's okay.
You're not trying to become someone who was never hurt. You're learning to be someone who was hurt and is finding their way back to wholeness anyway.
Your Body Knows the Way Out
As much as your body remembers the trauma, it also remembers resilience.
It knows how to heal—given the right conditions. Safety. Time. Attunement. Permission to feel without being overwhelmed. Space to rest without shame.
Your body has been trying to tell you something for a long time. Maybe it's finally time to listen.
Trauma-Informed Therapy in Colorado
If you're carrying the weight of complex trauma and you're ready for support that actually meets you where you are—body, mind, and spirit—I'd love to work with you.
I offer trauma-informed therapy in Lakewood, Colorado (in-person and virtual across Colorado) that integrates somatic approaches, nervous system regulation, and deep compassion for the ways you've survived.
Therapy with me isn't about pathologizing your pain or rushing you toward some arbitrary definition of "healed." It's about creating the safety, understanding, and tools you need to come home to yourself.
You deserve support that sees your strength, not just your struggle.
Schedule a consultation or learn more about trauma therapy services.
About the Author: Nehemiah Weiner is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist specializing in complex trauma, ADHD, and neurodivergent affirming care in Lakewood, Colorado. With training in somatic and trauma-informed approaches, Nehemiah helps clients heal from the inside out—honoring both what happened and what's still happening in the body. Learn more at Clearing Clouds Therapy.
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Regulation Is Resistance: How Healing Your Nervous System Disrupts Harmful Systems
The Body Keeps the Score—But Your Body Also Knows the Way Out
Dissociation Isn't Checking Out—It's Your Brain's Emergency Exit
