Is Trauma Affecting Your Daily Life?
- Have you lived through something that makes you feel unsafe in your life or relationships now?
- Do you feel like your mind and body are unsettled, even in everyday situations?
- Is it difficult for you to relax because you are so busy fighting thoughts about what happened?
Trauma, PTSD, & C-PTSD can Impact you Daily
Trauma has a way of quietly eroding everything it touches — your work, your relationships, your physical health, and the ordinary rhythms of daily life.
When part of you stays on alert for the next time you’ll be hurt, attacked, or abandoned, it becomes hard to feel safe anywhere, even inside your closest and most intimate relationships.
If you’re searching for a trauma therapist in San Diego, it’s often because that sense of safety has become harder and harder to find.
Trauma is relentless, and its symptoms can surface even when life seems to be going well. You might notice it as muscle tension, flashbacks, or disrupted sleep. Without real rest and recovery, trauma can leave you easily frightened, startled, agitated, or triggered by things that once felt manageable.
Living on edge like this makes it increasingly difficult to concentrate, to stay connected to the people you love, or to keep up a healthy routine — and many people carrying trauma feel physically and emotionally depleted just trying to manage irritable, anxious, or depressed moods.
If any of this feels familiar, trauma has likely worn away your ability to feel safe in your own body, secure in your relationships, and free to live the life you want. It can strip away your sense of agency, make it nearly impossible to stay present, and grow even heavier when you quietly blame yourself for what happened.
You don’t have to carry it alone. At Create Wellbeing Therapy Collective in San Diego, our trauma therapists use integrative, body-based approaches to help you calm your distress, reconnect with yourself, and begin to feel safe again — in your body, your relationships, and your life.
What you are experiencing is a normal reaction
The brain and body are designed to protect us from getting hurt again, but living in constant stress mode leads to regular feelings of fear, a lack of trust, and a high potential for becoming triggered.
The more the nervous system is overwhelmed, the more we are taken out of our comfort zone where it’s still possible to function in a calm-alert state.
Trauma tricks the body into thinking that it is in danger even when the threat of danger no longer exists. Therapy is an effective way to rewire the nervous system so that you’re no longer living on such high alert.
By working with a therapist who can help you feel safe while you describe, feel, and process your memories and emotions, you can have a new experience of life that is not dictated by your trauma.
You may be feeling the impact of trauma in your body
There is a commonly held truth in psychotherapy that “the body keeps the score.” [1] Though you may not see an obvious connection between your emotions and disruptive physical sensations, it’s possible that your nervous system is stuck in a trauma response. You may notice a constriction of your breath or a feeling of dread that doesn’t seem related to what is happening right now. Perhaps you’ve noticed that you isolate more and that the symptoms you experience are hindering the potential of cultivating happiness and meeting goals in your life.
Trauma is good at robbing the joy out of even the best moments, but therapy can help. Our clinicians understand that you desire peace and are ready to graduate from merely surviving to thriving. Working together in counseling, we can regulate your nervous system in a way that will reduce the physical, emotional, and mental effects that trauma has had on your life.
Trauma and PTSD affect millions of lives
Trauma is part of the human condition. In fact, The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) reports that 50 percent of women and 60 percent of men “will experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime.” [2] Some traumas are sudden—as is the case with assaults, accidents, or an unexpected death—while other traumas occur over a span of time, which is common among survivors of bullying, abuse, and military combat. If trauma occurs at the convergence of many losses, complex trauma may develop because the nervous system is so overwhelmed that it becomes “stuck” in fight, flight, or freeze.
Though not every trauma survivor will develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), painful experiences nevertheless have a way of compromising life in the present. Unfortunately, our culture puts tremendous emphasis on “keeping it together” and maintaining picture-perfect careers, relationships, and lifestyles. This, paired with the stigma of seeking mental health treatment, can make it difficult for people to seek help for their trauma.
Trauma therapy offers you a chance to reclaim your life
At Create Wellbeing, we practice integrative therapy, which attends to you as a whole person. This means that we combine approaches to reduce stress in your body, decrease intrusive thoughts and memories, and help you connect with your sense of deeper purpose in this world. We begin by assisting you in calming distress and then exploring the nature of your underlying trauma.
Our goal is to help you:
- Calm your distress
- Engage your whole self
- Integrate healing in your life
Through this process, you will learn essential co-regulation and coping skills so that you can remain grounded in all of the areas of your life, even when you feel triggered or on edge.
Our Approach
Perhaps the most valuable aspect of trauma therapy is knowing that there is someone at your side every step of the way who will listen and help bear the weight of your experience. Working with our skilled, experienced therapists, you can feel validated in your pain while learning to understand that you are not damaged or broken by what happened. We will also help you to heal the trauma held in your body.
Our therapists and body-based practitioners are trained in a variety of different evidence-based therapeutic methods that will be tailored to your unique needs. Alongside the therapeutic relationship itself, we utilize somatic counseling, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), the parts work involved in Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS), creative approaches, polyvagal theory, and behavioral therapies—including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)—in treatment for trauma and PTSD.
Using an individualized combination of these approaches, we will use therapy sessions to:
- Guide you in understanding the root of your trauma and how it’s impacting you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually
- Identify limiting patterns in your life and explore new possibilities for coping with symptoms of trauma or PTSD
- Address negative self-beliefs and other obstacles created by your symptoms
All of this is done at a pace that feels comfortable for you. We want you to feel safe to fully express yourself while gaining lifelong skills to help you cope with your emotions. It’s not that you will forget the traumatic experience, but it will no longer have the power over you that it once did.
Regardless of what happened, there is a place where you can come to tell your story, feel supported, and finally receive the relief you deserve. We know it may be difficult for you to reach out for help, but you are on the brink of discovering a new life for yourself—one filled with hope, confidence, and an enduring sense of safety and peace.
Frequently Asked Questions About Trauma Therapy
I am worried that I will have to talk about my worst memories.
We are here to help you feel better, so anything that makes you feel worse actually runs against the grain of what we are trying to do. If ever you do not feel ready or capable of discussing something, we will stop and take another route. Therapy is about your personal journey to healing, not about being sticklers who adhere to a specific routine for treatment. Whatever path is best for you, we will help you find a direction that puts you on your way to healing.
I am concerned that even a trauma therapist might judge me.
First and foremost, we will never judge or look down on you—you are a survivor and you deserve to be looked up to. Secondly, the fear, self-blame, or shame you feel is probably coming straight from the wounds that you have endured. And we deeply empathize with your experience. Trauma treatment is not just about moving forward with the future, it’s about understanding, processing, and finally reconciling the past so you’re no longer subject to its power. And that includes freeing yourself from feelings of guilt, judgment, and shame.
Does trauma therapy really work? Can I just do this on my own?
Trauma and PTSD change a person on a neurological level. When trauma has jolted your life, your circuitry gets scrambled and it becomes a challenge to go anywhere but in circles. Trauma counseling, in some ways, is like having a chance to fix your compass, find direction, and finally start taking steps forward. Most of the time, that journey is made easier by working with someone who has the experience, desire, and will to walk with you through the storm until you feel safe.
There is hope
Trauma counseling through Create Wellbeing Therapy can help you find clarity amid the chaos and show you how to move forward with your life. For more information or to schedule an appointment, contact us.