Complex Trauma & C-PTSD
Healing the lasting impact of experiences that shaped how you learned to feel safe in the world.
Trauma Therapy in Syracuse, NY
So, what even is Complex Trauma?
Complex trauma develops through overwhelming experiences that happen repeatedly or over time, typically within relationships and environments that we were supposed to feel safe in. Unlike PTSD, which can develop after a single traumatic event, complex trauma tends to develop in situations that are ongoing, where there is little ability to escape or get away.
You might also hear complex trauma described as developmental trauma, because it so often begins in childhood, or relational trauma, because it almost always occurs in the context of relationships (caregiver & child, abusive partnerships, or in other situations where safety, connection, and dependence become tangled together).
When we can’t escape what’s happening, we adapt to it.
We learn how to stay connected, stay safe, keep the peace, shut things out, or simply get through. These adaptations are incredibly protective at the time, and honestly, pretty brilliant in what they allow us to survive. The problem is, they don’t tend to just disappear once we don’t need them anymore.
That’s why complex trauma can reach into so many parts of our lives. The wiring we developed for connection and survival doesn’t necessarily update on its own just because our circumstances have changed. Trauma changes that internal wiring. It shapes how we experience our emotions and our bodies, how we see ourselves, what we expect from relationships, and even what it means to feel safe.
On the inside, complex trauma can sound like…
I’m too sensitive.
Everything feels like such a big deal. Why can’t I just get over things? Things affect me more than other people.
I’m so aware of how other people see me.
What if they’re judging me? What if I’m too much for them, or not enough?
I am constantly beating myself up.
My inner critic is loud and relentless. I should be able to figure this out.
There is something wrong with me.
Sometimes I feel broken, or just fundamentally different than everyone else.
It’s really hard for me to hold boundaries.
I’m so used to taking care of everyone else, even if it’s not good for me. Saying no feels so uncomfortable.
I often feel disconnected from who I am.
It is really hard for me to know what I want or I what I like. I have a hard time making decisions. I don’t know who “I” am.
It can be hard to recognize complex trauma because it can feel like
this is simply who I am.
How we’ll work, together….
Complex trauma therapy is not about digging through your past or asking you to relive everything that happened to you. In fact, you actually don’t have to tell me every detail of your story for us to still do work that is meaningful.
We will focus on the ways your nervous system learned to protect you. Whether it’s through anxiety, shutting down, people pleasing, disconnection, or something else….these patterns usually make a lot more sense when we understand what they have been doing for you, rather than simply trying to make them go away.
Together, we’ll work with these protective patterns rather than against them, while creating more safety and capacity within your nervous system. The goal isn’t to turn you into a different person. It’s to help you have more space between what happened to you then and how you move through the world now.
And your system will set the pace. Trauma processing happens when you have enough safety, support, and internal resources to approach what happened without becoming overwhelmed by it. You are always in control of how far we go.