What Trauma Really Is (And What It Isn’t)
What is Trauma?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed the word trauma gets used a lot these days. It shows up in conversations, social media posts, and headlines—sometimes to describe devastating experiences, and other times to describe everyday stress or discomfort that comes with adversity. With all this usage, it makes sense to feel confused about what trauma actually is, whether your experiences “count,” or whether you should “just be able to move on by now”.
Let’s break this down and clarify what trauma really is—and what it isn’t.
Trauma Is Not Just About What Happened
One of the biggest misconceptions about trauma is that it’s defined solely by the event itself. I often here questions like:
“Everyone goes through stuff, is my experience bad enough to be trauma?”
“Other people had it way worse—why can’t I get over it?”
“Nothing dramatic happened to me, so why do I feel this way?”
The answer lies in this differentiation — Trauma is not defined by how extreme, violent, or visible an event looks from the outside. Trauma is defined by how an experience is processed by the nervous system, “aka” by what happens on the inside. Trauma has very real impacts on the brain and the body that are not dictated by the details of the event alone.
At its core, trauma occurs when something happens that overwhelms your ability to cope, process, or feel safe—at the time that it happens. It’s less about the event and more about the impact.
Trauma Is What Happens Inside You
A helpful way to think about trauma is this:
Trauma is not what happened to you. Trauma is what happened inside you as a result of what happened.
Think about how, in the Emergency Department, a person can arrive in an ambulance from a car accident. It isn’t the accident itself that is the problem; it is the internal bleeding, the broken ribs, the laceration on the arm that is happening inside because of the accident.
Trauma can affect how your body responds to stress, how safe you feel in relationships, how you make sense of the world, and how you experience yourself. It often lives in the body and nervous system, not just in memory or thought.
This is why people with trauma histories may experience things like:
Feeling constantly on edge or easily startled
Emotional numbness or disconnection
Intense reactions that seem to come “out of nowhere”
Difficulty trusting others or feeling safe
Chronic shame, guilt, or self-blame
Constantly bracing for the other shoe to drop
Physical symptoms with no clear medical cause
These responses are not character flaws. They are adaptive survival responses that once made sense and kept you safe—even if they’re no longer serving you now.
Trauma Can Impact People Differently
Two people can go through the same experience and come away very differently. That doesn’t mean one is weak and the other is strong. It means their nervous systems, histories, supports, and resources were different.
Here is an example of how this can look. One person (Person A) has a background with a nurturing family, supportive friends they see on a regular basis, and participates in kickboxing as an outlet. Another person (Person B) has a background with an emotionally withholding and critical family, difficulty making friends, and has only learned to self sooth with alcohol. If both people experience a painful event — such as a breakup with their partner, losing their job, or an assault — Person A and Person B will likely have very different experiences healing from the event.
Differences in the impact of trauma may be influenced by:
Pre-existing beliefs about the self/others/the world
Previous trauma or adverse experiences
Attachment
The nervous system’s ability or inability to recognize and seek safety
Presence or absence of interpersonal relationships; and much more
Trauma Can Be Big, Small, or Repeated
Historically, some people refer to “Big T” trauma and “small t” trauma, though many clinicians now focus less on labels and more on impact.
Trauma may include:
Abuse or neglect (emotional, physical, or sexual)
Domestic violence
Serious accidents or medical procedures
Sudden loss or grief
Growing up with chronic instability, criticism, or emotional unavailability
Bullying or social rejection
Living in environments where you didn’t feel safe, seen, or supported
Trauma can be one single event, or it can be chronic and relational, building slowly over time. In fact, with long-term relational trauma—especially in childhood—it is often harder for one to recognize their own trauma precisely because it was “normal” in the environment where it occurred. Just because it was “normal” doesn’t mean it was right.
Trauma Is Not Weakness or Overreaction
Trauma is often misunderstood as being “too sensitive,” “dramatic,” or “unable to let things go.” In reality, trauma responses are signs of a nervous system that did exactly what it was supposed to do: protect you. It learned that it was effective at one point, so why wouldn’t our nervous system repeat what once worked?
If your system learned that the world was unpredictable, unsafe, or overwhelming, it adapted accordingly. Hypervigilance, avoidance, shutdown, people-pleasing—these are not failures. They are actually intelligent responses to past conditions.
Healing doesn’t mean judging these responses or forcing them away. It means understanding them, working with the nervous system, and gently creating new experiences of safety and choice. Many people I’ve worked with describe experiences like “I don’t think my body knows how to just relax”, or “I’m tired of being in survival mode but I don’t know how to shut it off.”
It’s not a race; it’s a process that we pace in a way that works for your nervous system.
Trauma Is Not a Life Sentence
Another common misconception is that trauma means you’re permanently broken or damaged. This simply isn’t true.
The nervous system is changeable. The brain is not fixed; it has an amazing ability to change and heal. With the right support, pacing, and approach, people can heal, have a more balanced view of their experiences, and feel more present, connected, and regulated.
Healing from trauma doesn’t mean erasing the past or pretending it didn’t matter. The nature of a traumatic experience may always be bad. Healing means the past no longer runs your present.
You Don’t Have to “Earn” Support
If you’ve ever questioned whether your experiences are “bad enough” to seek help, that question alone is often a sign that something inside you needs care.
You don’t need a dramatic story, a diagnosis, or a specific label to deserve support. If something is affecting your quality of life, your relationships, or your sense of self, it matters.
Trauma isn’t a competition. Pain isn’t measured by comparison. Your experience is valid because it’s yours and it’s real.
A Final Thought
Understanding trauma is not about putting yourself in a box or identifying with a label. It’s about replacing self-blame with compassion and curiosity.
When we understand trauma for what it really is—not weakness, not exaggeration, not failure—we open the door to healing, growth, and deeper self-understanding.
And that door doesn’t require you to have all the answers before you walk through it.
