03/24/2025
There is a lot I have to say about trauma, detecting and treating trauma, and the truly incredible trauma treatment EMDR. In fact, I have to restrain myself from making more videos on YouTube about it because it seems like my phone just suffered a stroke and won't let me clear space to make more.
But if any of what I am posting speaks to you, resonates with you, try a trauma screening.
Or think about how you would describe your childhood, white clouds and blue sky or black darkness or shades of gray clouds with splatters of sunshine?
Do you remember your childhood, or are chunks of memory missing?
Did you feel safe enough with your parents that you always knew you could come to them when you felt bad or upset?
If you don't remember much of your childhood, there is a reason.
If your childhood had more specks of black and gray than white clouds or blue sky, you may have experienced "small" traumas that add up to a big heap of trauma.
If you didn't feel safe turning to your parents, you are likely not feeling safe turning to people today either.
Trauma isn't only found in the big horrors such as wildfires, earthquakes, r**e or war.
The small daily injuries of being snapped at, invalidated, criticized, scolded, or being told we were bad are hurtful to a child in a way that it "shrinks" the personality. That's trauma too.
Our ability to be in a relationship is directly affected by how securely we could "attach" to our parents way back when. It's what we learned early in life about relationships.
Was it good?
Are there similarities in your relationships today and the relationship with your parents? Do you have feelings similar to those you had toward your parents in your relationship today?
Look closely, and take time to reflect.
As a trauma therapist and professed EMDR enthusiast, I (and many others, now that we're talking about it) view relationship problems through a trauma-informed lens. If relationships today are a mixture of dating limes and holding on to sour gr**es, or serial dating of non-keepers, or suffering through your relationships, then something happened early on that "wired" you into believing that this is just what life and relationships are like. Or that this is all you can have, deserve, or all that exists.
This is not the truth about you. These are beliefs you formed at a time when, well, you were a little bit too young to decide the truth about life quite yet.
We can rewrite negative scripts. Our brains need an occasional update, just like the laptop I'm currently wrestling.
When your inner experience changes, your outer experience will as well.
If you're hurting mentally or emotionally, or feeling isolated and estranged from your community, please don't hesitate to seek professional help. Your life-time is too valuable to suffer it away.
