At its core, a trauma is anything that overloaded your capacity to cope. It is “too much too fast.” How one makes sense of those events and processes the effects of trauma can influence how the memory of the event gets stored. If those events aren’t able to be resolved within our nervous system, we experience ongoing effects from the event. This is why two people may experience the same thing yet respond to it in very different ways.

Complex trauma is a term used to describe the experience of traumatic events, chronic stressors, and their effects over time that can lead one’s nervous system to feel consistently overwhelmed.  Oftentimes, complex trauma is related to relationship ruptures in primary relationships (like parents or close trusted adults in your life) that occurred in childhood. Some complex trauma scenarios may include neglect or abuse growing up (witnessing or experiencing), having a parent who misused addictive substances, or being bullied at school. There may also be more “sneaky” but still pervasive things that could be connected to why you’re feeling the way you do: “-isms” like racism, sexism, ableism, or fatphobia.  Often, we think about events which happened over time in our childhoods, but adult experiences like the following can also contribute to complex trauma symptoms: medical trauma, traumatic childbirth experience, unsafe and ongoing sexual experiences, and even having symptoms of an eating disorder or a postpartum mood disorder which go untreated or inadequately supported for a long time.  

Some symptoms of complex trauma may include: feeling like you’re constantly on an emotional roller coaster; emptiness, or hopelessness; believing you’re damaged or worthless; believing no one can understand or believe what happened to you; avoiding relationships or finding them difficult; feeling disconnected from your body, the world around you or the moment you’re in; contemplating or planning your own death.