When I first started therapy to deal with my CPTSD and the trauma from years of childhood sexual abuse, I honestly thought I was ready to heal. I’d done the research, found the courage, and showed up. What I wasn’t prepared for was how often I’d end up feeling like the problem, misunderstood, rushed, or quietly shamed for not “getting better” fast enough.
That’s why finding a trauma-informed therapist is so important. You need someone who actually gets it, someone who won’t minimize your pain, mislabel your symptoms, or expect you to leap over years of survival in a few sessions.
Because healing isn’t just about finding the right help. Sometimes, healing starts with surviving the wrong therapists first.
Why Trauma-Informed Care Matters
Trauma doesn’t always look dramatic. It doesn’t always scream. A lot of the time, it’s quiet. It shows up in how your heart races when nothing’s wrong. How you freeze up during a normal conversation. Or how certain smells or tones send you spiraling.
It lives in your body. In your nervous system.
And when a therapist doesn’t understand that, when they try to slap a diagnosis on your pain without seeing the survival behind it, they can do real harm.
I learned that the hard way, and it took me years, and a lot of unlearning, to get back to a place where healing even felt possible.
Because when you’re carrying trauma, feeling safe isn’t optional. It’s everything. If someone rushes you, dismisses you, or treats your coping like a character flaw, it just deepens the wound.
What Trauma-Informed Therapy Looks Like
- They Listen Like It Matters: Your story, the pain, your pace, they respect all of it.
- They Don’t Pathologize Survival: They don’t treat your coping strategies like problems. They recognize them as what kept you alive.
- They Hold Space Without Pressure: There’s no timeline. No healing deadline. They let you set the rhythm.
- They Help You Feel Safe in Your Body: Because trauma lives there. And healing means gently returning to that space.
What Trauma-Informed Therapy Isn’t
Truth is, I had to go through a few painful misfires before I found the right therapist. And some of those sessions did more damage than good.
Here are a few things I was told:
“You need to forgive them.”
I showed up carrying years of abuse, and somehow the solution was to spiritually bypass the pain and just let it go.Forgiveness isn’t the same as healing. It might come later. But being pressured into it? That’s just shame in a hoodie.
“It’s in the past. Why are you still upset?”
Oh right, the Trauma Expiration Date. I must’ve missed the memo.
But trauma doesn’t stay politely in the past. It lives in the now. It lives in your nervous system. You can’t think your way out of fight/flight/freeze/fawn.
“Maybe you’re just not trying hard enough.”
Nothing like sprinkling a little blame on top of a breakdown.
Healing isn’t about willpower. You can’t grind your way through trauma. If effort alone worked, I’d be a damn gold-medal emotional athlete by now.
Trust Your Gut
Not every therapist is like that, thankfully. Eventually, I found someone who saw me. Who didn’t treat me like a broken machine to fix, but a human being trying to heal.
They didn’t rush me. Or shame me. They helped me slowly rebuild what trauma had torn down: safety, trust, and self-worth.
Piece by piece. At my pace. Without judgment.
That’s what real healing looks like. And it starts when you trust your gut. It’s been trying to protect you this whole time.