Many people dismiss their childhoods as “fine” because nothing dramatic happened. But trauma isn’t only about what occurred, it’s also about what was absent.
When attunement is inconsistent, the nervous system adapts by over-reading others, downplaying your own needs, and organising yourself around keeping the peace. These patterns feel like personality, but they’re actually survival strategies.
One of the most powerful things about EMDR, especially attachment-informed EMDR, is that it gives you the opportunity to process what shaped you, so your nervous system can move out of survival and into living.
If you’d like support with this work, you can book EMDR with me or one of my associates via the link in my bio.
#trauma #complextrauma #attachmenttrauma #emdr #attachmenttheory
Being “fully yourself” in a relationship can feel uncomfortable if you grew up in an environment where authenticity wasn’t met with safety or attunement.
From a nervous-system perspective, this makes sense.
If your early relationships required you to monitor others, adapt quickly, or suppress your own needs to avoid conflict, your system learned that self-expression comes with risk.
So in adulthood, even in a healthy relationship, showing the parts of you that weren’t welcomed before can activate old protective patterns.
This is called conditioning. Your brain and body prioritise familiar strategies because they once kept you safe: staying agreeable, staying small, staying contained.
Growing in a relationship often involves tolerating the activation that comes with doing something unfamiliar: being honest, setting limits, expressing needs, or allowing someone to see you more fully.
These are skills the nervous system develops gradually, with repetition and with consistent relational safety.
The discomfort isn’t a sign that closeness is wrong.
It’s a sign that your system is adjusting to a new relational experience - to one that doesn’t require the old forms of self-protection.
#complextrauma #trauma #relationships #attachment #secureattachment
‘Cycle breaking’ gets talked about as if it’s all clarity and empowerment but for many people, the reality is far more complicated.
It often feels lonely because you’re doing emotional work without a blueprint. You’re practising boundaries you didn’t grow up with and you’re learning to regulate in a body that never felt regulated. You’re grieving the childhood you didn’t have while trying to create something healthier now.
And you’re doing the work that generations before you should have had the capacity, safety or support to do.
That weight isn’t yours because you’re “stronger”, it’s yours because you’re willing.
None of this means you’re doing it wrong. It means you’re doing something unfamiliar, and your nervous system is adjusting to a new pattern.
If this is where you are, be gentle with yourself.
You’re carrying work that was never meant to be done alone and the loneliness you feel reflects that, not a personal failing.
✨ If you’d like support with this, you can book a consultation to talk it through and explore what you need at this stage.
#cyclebreaker #cyclebreaking #intergenerationaltrauma #complextrauma #trauma
