It’s Not Just the Trauma — It’s What Comes After

We’ve got it all wrong.
Trauma isn’t just the event, it’s the silence that follows.

I’ve worked with trauma survivors for over a decade, and while their stories vary wildly, the pain that echoes loudest isn’t always what was done to them. It’s the disbelief. The minimization. The rejection. The way people looked away.

Trauma doesn’t just hurt because of what happened. It hurts because of how alone we were in it.

And maybe I understand that so deeply because I’ve been on the other side of that silence too.

There were moments in my life when I needed someone to say, “That wasn’t okay.” Moments I wanted someone to stay , and instead, they left. I didn’t have the words then. But my body remembers. The tension. The shame. The survival. That’s the thing about trauma: it’s not just a memory. It’s a place we still live.

“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”
— Peter A. Levine

And I know this not just from the therapist chair , but from the other side of it, too.

In my own healing work, I’ve been the client who couldn’t make eye contact. The one who shut down or ghosted when things got too close. I’ve worked with therapists who recognized my avoidance for what it was: attachment fear, not resistance. And I’ve also been with ones who labeled me “too much,” who overlooked the complexities of relational trauma, or even identified it. Their lack of attunement only deepened my shame.

It took time, and the right kind of presence, for me to understand that my “pushing away” was warranted and to be expected. It was survival.

I think about two clients I’ve worked with. One was abused by a family member. He told his parents right away. They believed him. They kept him safe. Pursued justice. Was he traumatized? Of course. But his healing started the moment someone said, “I believe you.”

The other didn’t tell anyone. She started acting out — loudly, destructively. No one asked why. They called her defiant, manipulative. She was sent away. Again and again. Forced to name her pain in systems that couldn’t hold it. She didn’t speak about it until her 40s. Therapy started with drawings because words were too vulnerable.

The rupture had widened.
The pain had been layered.
And yet — she showed up. Week after week. And we slowly rebuilt trust, in one another and in herself.

“Attachment trauma is the most severe trauma of all because it’s relational and ongoing. It’s the rupture of the safety we are biologically wired to need.”
— Dr. Allan Schore

I’ve come to believe that the soul keeps score just as much as the body does.

When someone carries trauma alone, they don’t just feel fear. They feel shame. They dissociate. Not because they’re weak, but because they had to. Shame isn’t pathology. It’s protection. It preserves the relationship, even at the cost of the self.

The child who believes they are bad is safer, at least for a while, than the child who realizes the people meant to protect them didn’t.

And those children grow up.

They become adults who say things like:

“I don’t know what I feel.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“I think I’m just broken.”

They might overwork or restrict food. They might seek relationships but panic when someone gets close. They often come to therapy believing they’re too much, or not enough. And every time I hear that quiet, careful question, “Am I doing this right?”, I feel the ache of what they’ve survived.

It’s not pathology.
It’s protection.
And it kept them alive.

We can’t rewrite the trauma — but we can rewrite the aftermath. We can become the person who stays. The one who says, “You make sense.”

“What was once unbearable becomes speakable.
And once it is speakable, it becomes shareable.
And once it is shareable, it becomes more survivable.”
— Laura van Dernoot Lipsky

That’s when healing begins.
Not when the trauma disappears, but when we’re no longer alone in it.

I don’t rush people into healing. I don’t start EMDR in session two. I don’t flinch when they can’t look me in the eye. I stay.

Because sometimes, the most sacred thing we can offer is presence.

And in that presence, I’ve witnessed miracles:

“I’m not safe” becomes “I can trust some people.”
“It’s all my fault” becomes “I was just a child.”
“I’m too much” becomes “I’m just enough for the right people.”

The trauma doesn’t vanish.
But it softens.
It integrates.
It becomes part of the story — not the whole story.

And sometimes, the deepest healing comes when someone finally says:

You didn’t deserve that.
I believe you.
I’m here.
I’m sorry.

Jennifer Hoffman, LCSW is a licensed therapist in CT & NY, and a certified therapeutic yoga specialist. She takes healing seriously (but not always herself.) Her work blends nervous system science, somatic practices, and deep relational attunement to help people reclaim the parts of themselves that once felt like too much.