#trauma

#trauma

Scroll through any wellness feed, and you might notice the same whiplash-inducing pattern. Dissociation is either a dangerous sign of pathology or "a protective intelligence that deserves reverence." Trauma responses are framed as evidence of brokenness or badges of resilience. Anxiety is either a disorder to eliminate or an intuition to honor. We've flattened the rich, complex reality of the nervous system into a binary: demonize or romanticize. But neither extreme helps us understand ourselves-or decide when we actually need support.

If you grew up feeling emotionally unsafe, unseen, or unloved, it's natural that your adult relationships might carry some of those same fears. You might unconsciously recreate familiar dynamics, because the brain often returns to what it knows, even when it hurts us. Much of early relationship conflict stems from our unhealed wounds. Tension often arises not just from our own behavior patterns, but from a lack of understanding of our partner's attachment needs and behaviors.

He describes turning to steroids after several spine injuries in the line of duty, the nightmares that haunt him from the day a tried to save a 2-year-old girl who drowned in a backyard pool, and the fateful morning where FBI armored cars drove onto his lawn and burst into his home with flashbang grenades while he poured milk into his kids' cereal bowls.

Already she remembers scenes, so many- her mother walking in through the front door with her wrapped-up baby brother; that time the big dog gobbled up her toast before she could take a single bite; that day a bad man pushed her so hard on the swing she spun out, landing face down in the dust. Also, sometimes, some first happy thing she barely senses anymore- a soapy bath toy, warm in her baby hands?

Has this happened to you? You run into someone, and they ask about something that you shared with them that was painful. They start talking about it, and there you go, hurting again? You weren't thinking about it, and the next thing you know, it hurts like it just happened. There are occasions - holidays and family gatherings - where the effects of a past painful experience will reemerge and trigger emotional pain all over again.

To start resolving our hurt, it helps to pause and ask ourselves a different question: What kind of wound am I dealing with? Many painful experiences-rejection, disappointment, humiliation, betrayal, exclusion-do not leave traumatic injuries. They leave emotional wounds. These wounds are real and impactful, even when they do not necessarily involve threat, terror, or a nervous system focused on survival. And yet, they can linger for years, shaping how we see ourselves and others long after the event has passed.

At the core of violence lies emotional rupture, not only when harm is inflicted intentionally, but also when life is interrupted by forces beyond one's control. Forced displacement is one such rupture. It does not simply change location; it reshapes identity, possibility, and the nervous system itself. For those who leave home under threat, hunger, or despair, exile is not a chapter that closes. It becomes a psychological terrain carried within the body and mind.

No one should ever have to go through one shooting, let alone two.

This can be hard for onlookers to understand, but for people who have lived through trauma, chronic emotional invalidation, or unsafe relationships, self-blame can become an organizing principle. It offers a painful kind of order. If suffering is my fault, then at least it makes sense. Over time, that belief does not stay confined to memory. It begins to shape behavior.

When desire fades or the bedroom grows silent, we often point to the surface- boredom, stress, a lack of spark. But let me tell you, sexual problems are rarely about sex alone. Sometimes, they're about unresolved trauma -a quiet force that shapes how we love, touch, and connect. It's the shadow we don't see, but it moves us all the same. It makes decisions for us that we're not aware of.

The 2025 film Frankenstein reframes Mary Shelley's story as a narrative told across two worlds: Victor speaking on a freezing ship after being rescued, and the Creature recounting his long journey of wandering and despair. Healing Through Storytelling The film is structured through storytelling itself-Victor's tale told under duress, and the Creature's own response as a counter-story he had held inside for years. Their exchanges suggest how many relationships fracture when we fail to tell the stories that hold our pain

My mother-in-law said it was just thunder. I said, No, the house is shaking.' Not long after, boulders came crashing down, she recalled. My younger sibling was staying over. When the landslide happened, I kicked him to wake him up. If we had all been sleeping, we would have died in that house. Grabbing her daughter, Eleanor, Sri fled to the nearby church. From the hilltop, they watched in horror as another landslide completely destroyed their home.

When Taylor Momsen was asked to explain her "bad attitude" on the set of Gossip Girl, she answered that her parents signed her up with Ford Modeling when she was just 2 years old. She said, "No 2-year-old wants to be working, but I had no choice. My whole life, I was in and out of school. I didn't have friends. I was working constantly and I didn't have a real life."

"Most places your mind saves JPEGs, mine has text files instead." This is how Mike (name changed for anonymity) describes living with complete aphantasia. Coined in 2015, aphantasia affects approximately 4% of the population and is a condition characterized by the brain's inability to visualize or imagine images. Though not classified as a disability or medical condition, it has a profound impact on Mike's daily life.

Now is not the time to see those videos. I don't think either of you is in the place to navigate the emotions they're going to dredge up. Moreover, if and when you do see them, that act needs to have a recovery-focused purpose. If they will help you make more specific amends or if he needs you to see something specific so that you can process together, that's one thing. But it doesn't sound like that's where either of you is at present.

Starting today I'm leading the Global Center for Journalism and Trauma, a new, independent nonprofit championing trauma-aware reporting and advancing the resilience of news professionals worldwide,

Next: different walks around different parks with different friends, each with the same feeling of being warmed from the inside out; also, bumping into neighbours at the playground and feeling a part of my community. I remember powerful moments with my patients, who have felt understood, by me and within themselves. And I think of the moving messages from readers who have got in touch, sharing precious stories from their lives.

Normally, a person goes about their life, making meaning of everything that happens to them, slotting it into a world that makes sense. Psychologist Bessel van der Kolk explains that a traumatic event short circuits this process. Trauma overwhelms a person, rendering them unable, in the moment, to integrate the event into their lives. In the context of spirituality, trauma is a hand grenade, exploding two of spirituality's primary functions: to help a person make meaning and feel at home in the universe.

Trauma Culture blurs the line between survival wounds and the ordinary pain of living. Even in unsafe lives, small daily hurts can deepen distress and block healing. Healing can begin by tending to small, manageable wounds that restore agency. Full healing means repairing what keeps hurting inside, not just surviving events. A few days ago, I had the honor of presenting my new book, How Deep Is the Wound?, in the company of a panel of incredibly talented clinicians at my alma mater, NYU.

The brother of a girl who died when she fell off a cruise ship "viciously" attacked one of his surviving sisters, pulling out her hair extensions and biting her nose.

First of all, I'm so sorry that your family and daughter went through something so deeply traumatizing. The thing about experiences that emotionally damage an entire group of people at once is that everyone has to deal with it differently. I understand how reminders of this horrific day cause you tremendous pain. And I see how, for that reason, you'd be squarely against having someone you love tattoo such a reminder on their body where you can never not see it.

In my work as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, I've supported thousands of people navigating trauma, loss, and mental health challenges. But nothing prepared me for the identity crisis that followed the deaths of three of my children, Johnny, Reggie, and Miah. Each loss shattered something in me, not just emotionally, but existentially. I didn't just lose my children; I lost my sense of self.

War photographers are not meant to reach 90. Fate has had my life in its hands, says Don McCullin. Over his seven-decade career covering wars, famines and disasters McCullin has been captured, and escaped snipers, mortar fire and more. How does it feel to be a survivor? Uncomfortable, he says. No wonder he finds solace in the beautiful still lifes he creates in his shed, or in the images he composes in the countryside around his Somerset home.

When the causes of body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs), such as hair pulling (trichotillomania), skin picking (excoriation disorder), or nail biting, are discussed, the question often arises: Are these behaviors caused by trauma? It's a fair question. The assumption makes intuitive sense. Many behaviors that cause physical harm or distress are linked to emotional pain or traumatic experiences. However, the science paints a more nuanced picture.

Many approaches treat trauma responses as "low-level" cognition: primitive, irrational, something to overcome through reason. They offer cognitive restructuring: "Let's examine the evidence that you're safe now." But this misses what's actually happening. My clients haven't failed to learn-they've learned extraordinarily well. They've achieved a sophisticated, integrated understanding of how to survive in genuinely dangerous contexts. The problem isn't that their thinking is distorted. It's that their highly accurate thinking is organized around contexts that were destroying them.

"I want to live a life I'm not disturbed by." It was an intense session with a new client, a 30-something single mother baffled by a long and winding trail of chaotic relationships-from partners whose fingers kept sneaking back to dating apps, to outbursts of rage toward those she loved most, often triggered by something trivial. A kind, intelligent woman with gentle eyes and a warm demeanor,

Remember the king tried to kill her but instead a guy secretly took her wings but anything from the father in heaven the real father whom is the one I only claim who loves unconditionally, Anything holy is never forgotten... her wings were holy so the king couldn't take them not one person could say they were restored and hidden locked in a secret holy stain glass church... not that this has any relevance with me but I do find it incredibly interesting.

Loosely inspired by Victor's own experiences, the film sees her take on the role of Agnes, an East Coast English professor who, after a shock sexual assault, begins to quietly unspool. It's a story we know well in the post-MeToo era, but Sorry, Baby is a sharp reinterpretation of the typical trauma plot: there is no violence, no gratuity, no moralising and no revenge. Instead, it's more about the strange, slippery nature of trauma, and the mundane, often unsatisfying, ways we have to stitch ourselves back together.