What Is Trauma?
Trauma is the lasting emotional response to deeply distressing or disturbing events. It is not the event itself, but how your mind and body process, or fail to process, what happened.
Many people experience difficult or frightening events without developing lasting trauma. Others carry the weight of their experiences for years, affecting their relationships, work, physical health, and sense of self.
Neither response is right or wrong. Trauma is not a measure of weakness, and healing is not a measure of strength. Both are simply human responses to overwhelming circumstances.
At Graceway Wellness, we help individuals in Burlington and across Ontario understand and heal from trauma with compassionate, evidence-based care.
Types of Trauma
Trauma can result from many different experiences:
Single-incident trauma
A one-time event that overwhelms your capacity to cope:
- Car accidents
- Assault or violence
- Natural disasters
- Sudden loss of a loved one
- Witnessing something traumatic
Complex trauma
Repeated or prolonged exposure to distressing events, often in childhood or within relationships:
- Childhood abuse or neglect
- Domestic violence
- Growing up with an addicted or mentally ill parent
- Ongoing emotional abuse
- Being in a war zone
Developmental trauma
Trauma that occurs during critical developmental periods and shapes how the brain and nervous system develop:
- Early childhood neglect
- Insecure attachment with caregivers
- Chronic invalidation of emotions
- Lack of safety or predictability in childhood
Secondary or vicarious trauma
Trauma that comes from exposure to others’ traumatic experiences:
- First responders and healthcare workers
- Therapists and social workers
- Family members of trauma survivors
- Journalists covering traumatic events
Understanding PTSD
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a specific mental health condition that can develop after experiencing or witnessing trauma. Not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD, and not all trauma responses meet the clinical criteria for PTSD.
PTSD symptoms fall into four categories
1. Intrusive symptoms
- Flashbacks: feeling like the event is happening again
- Nightmares related to the trauma
- Intrusive memories that come without warning
- Intense distress when reminded of the event
- Physical reactions to reminders (racing heart, sweating, nausea)
2. Avoidance symptoms
- Avoiding thoughts, feelings, or conversations about the trauma
- Avoiding places, people, or activities that trigger memories
- Emotional numbing or feeling detached
- Inability to remember parts of the traumatic event
3. Changes in thoughts and mood
- Negative beliefs about yourself, others, or the world
- Persistent feelings of fear, horror, anger, guilt, or shame
- Feeling detached from others
- Loss of interest in activities you used to enjoy
- Difficulty experiencing positive emotions
4. Changes in arousal and reactivity
- Being easily startled
- Feeling constantly on edge
- Difficulty sleeping
- Irritability or angry outbursts
- Difficulty concentrating
- Self-destructive behaviour
When does trauma become PTSD?
PTSD is typically diagnosed when symptoms persist for more than a month and significantly impair daily functioning. Many people experience trauma symptoms immediately after an event that resolve naturally within weeks. If symptoms persist or worsen, professional support may be needed.
Why Some People Develop PTSD and Others Do Not
Several factors influence whether someone develops PTSD after trauma:
- Nature of the trauma: Interpersonal violence, especially from trusted people, tends to be more traumatic than accidents or natural disasters
- Duration and repetition: Prolonged or repeated trauma is harder to process
- Age at the time: Childhood trauma during brain development has deeper effects
- Previous trauma history: Prior trauma can make the nervous system more reactive
- Support afterwards: Having supportive people helps the brain process what happened
- Pre-existing mental health: Prior anxiety or depression can increase vulnerability
None of these factors make PTSD your fault. They simply help explain why some people need more support to heal.
How Trauma Affects the Brain and Body
Trauma is not just psychological. It is stored in the body and shapes how your nervous system responds to the world.
The survival response
When you experience something threatening, your brain activates survival responses:
- Fight: Anger, aggression, the urge to confront
- Flight: Anxiety, panic, the urge to escape
- Freeze: Feeling stuck, unable to move or speak
- Fawn: People-pleasing, submission, going along to stay safe
These responses are automatic and happen before conscious thought. After trauma, your nervous system may become stuck in these survival states, even when there is no current threat.
The memory system
Traumatic memories are stored differently than normal memories. They may be:
- Fragmented and disorganized
- Stored with the full emotional and physical intensity of the original event
- Triggered by sensory cues (smells, sounds, sensations) rather than conscious recall
This is why trauma can feel like it is happening now rather than in the past. Your brain has not fully processed that the event is over.
Signs You May Need Trauma Therapy
You do not need to have PTSD to benefit from trauma therapy. Consider reaching out if you:
- Cannot stop thinking about something that happened
- Avoid people, places, or activities because of past experiences
- Feel on edge, irritable, or easily startled most of the time
- Have trouble sleeping because of nightmares or racing thoughts
- Feel disconnected from yourself or others
- Struggle with shame, guilt, or self-blame related to past events
- Notice that old experiences are affecting current relationships
- Use substances, food, or other behaviours to cope with difficult feelings
How Trauma Therapy Helps
Effective trauma therapy helps you:
Process stuck memories
Evidence-based therapies help your brain process traumatic memories so they no longer trigger intense distress.
Regulate your nervous system
Learn to recognize when you are in a survival state and develop skills to return to calm. This might include breathing techniques, grounding exercises, or body-based approaches.
Understand your responses
Recognize that your symptoms are adaptations to overwhelming experiences, not character flaws. Many behaviours that seem problematic now made sense as survival strategies.
Update negative beliefs
Trauma often leaves you with beliefs like “I am not safe,” “It was my fault,” or “I am broken.” Therapy helps you examine and update these beliefs.
Rebuild connection
Trauma often damages your ability to trust and connect with others. Therapy provides a safe relationship where you can practice being seen and supported.
Trauma Therapy Approaches
At Graceway Wellness, we use evidence-based approaches to trauma:
Trauma-focused talk therapy
For some clients, talking through their experiences in a safe, supportive environment is the right approach. We work at your pace, never pushing you to share before you are ready.
Attachment-informed therapy
Because trauma often occurs within relationships, healing often needs to happen within relationships too. We pay attention to how early attachment experiences affect your current patterns.
You Do Not Have to Relive Everything
One of the biggest fears about trauma therapy is having to tell every detail of what happened. Modern trauma therapy does not require this. You stay in control of what you share and how much you process in each session.
Healing does not mean forgetting. It means the past no longer controls your present.
Faith and Trauma
For those with faith, trauma can raise profound questions. Where was God when this happened? Why did He allow it? How do I reconcile my faith with my pain?
At Graceway Wellness, we offer Christian trauma therapy that holds space for these questions. Faith integration is always at your invitation, never imposed.
Taking the First Step
Reaching out for help with trauma takes courage. You may have spent years managing on your own, and asking for support can feel vulnerable.
The team at Graceway Wellness offers a free 15-minute consultation to help you:
- Understand whether trauma therapy might help
- Learn about our approach
- Ask questions in a no-pressure environment
We serve Burlington, Oakville, Hamilton, and all of Ontario through virtual sessions.
Learn more about trauma therapy at Graceway Wellness.
What happened to you was not your fault. And healing is possible.
