Does this sound familiar?
On the surface, everything might look fine. You go to work, you do your job, and you even laugh at the right moments. People even admire you: “so strong,” they say, “so resilient.” But inside, there’s a weight you can’t explain. Some mornings, you wake already exhausted, even though you slept. Some nights you lie awake, mind racing. Some days, you numb yourself just to get through.
That heaviness often has a name: trauma.
Trauma doesn’t fade just because we want it to. It sits in the body and nervous system, shaping how we think, feel, and connect with others and ourselves. We can try to keep pushing it down, but it always finds its way out. It comes out through anxiety, anger, unhealthy coping, or a constant sense that something’s missing.
Trauma therapy is often the turning point in healing because it goes beyond surface fixes. It gets to the root. For many people, it’s the first time they stop just surviving and begin to live fully again.
The many faces of trauma
We tend to think of trauma as dramatic events—combat, natural disasters, accidents, and abuse. And while those are absolutely traumatic, they aren’t the whole picture. Trauma can be quieter and more insidious. Growing up with a parent who was emotionally unavailable. Being shamed over and over. Experiencing bullying, betrayal, or chronic stress that never let up.
Trauma expert Peter Levine defines trauma as any experience that overwhelms the nervous system: too much, too soon, or too fast. By that definition, it touches far more people than we might guess.
Physician and author Gabor Maté explains, trauma is not simply the event itself, but the wound left behind: “Trauma is not what happens to you, but what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.”
One study published in Psychological Medicine found that about 70% of adults worldwide report experiencing at least one traumatic event in their lifetime (Benjet et al., 2016). Many experience several, and yet, so many people carry it silently.
How trauma shows up in daily life
Sure, the effects of trauma can feel dramatic and may show up as flashbacks or nightmares. Trauma responses can also be subtle:
- The way you flinch when someone raises their voice.
- The way you avoid intimacy because closeness feels dangerous.
- The way you overwork or overdrink, anything to escape the feelings
Neuroscientist Bessel van der Kolk (2014)’s famous book The Body Keeps Score discusses how trauma lodges itself in the body and nervous system, long after the event has passed. The muscles stay tense. The heart beats faster. The mind stays on high alert.
This is why so many people come to therapy saying, “I don’t even know why I feel this way.” On the outside, life may look stable. On the inside, it feels like survival mode never switched off.
The problem beneath the problem
When people seek help, it’s usually because of the symptoms: Panic attacks, insomnia, explosive anger, and addiction.
And those symptoms matter—they deserve treatment. But if therapy only focuses on treating symptoms, it can feel like treating a wound that won’t heal.
Take addiction as an example. Many people try to stop drinking or using drugs, only to relapse again and again. Why is this? Because the pain driving their behaviour hasn’t been addressed. As the National Institute on Drug Abuse notes, trauma is one of the strongest risk factors for substance use disorders (NIDA, 2020).
Without working through that underlying pain, recovery can feel like an endless uphill climb. Trauma therapy changes the question. Instead of asking, What’s wrong with you? it asks, What happened to you?
Inside the work of trauma therapy
Trauma therapy is about learning how to live freely in the present, so the past no longer holds you back.
Here are some of the ways it works:
1. Safety first
The cornerstone of trauma therapy is safety. For many survivors, even naming feelings feels threatening. Therapy creates a space where emotions can surface without overwhelming. The therapist helps regulate pace, so healing happens gradually and gently.
2. Rewiring the nervous system
Trauma alters the brain’s alarm system. The body stays primed for danger long after the event. Therapies like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) help reprocess those stuck memories. Over time, triggers lose their power, and the nervous system learns it’s safe again.
3. Reclaiming agency
Trauma often leaves people feeling powerless, as if life is happening to them. Therapy helps restore choice. Instead of automatically shutting down or exploding, you learn to pause and respond differently.
4. Rewriting the story
Perhaps most importantly, trauma therapy helps challenge the stories trauma plants: “I’m unlovable. I’m broken. It’s my fault.” Healing reclaims the past. You begin to see that the pain happened to you, but it is not who you are.
The turning point: From surviving to living
For many people, trauma therapy is the moment things finally start to make sense. They begin to connect the dots between what happened back then and how they’re living now. Patterns they once judged as weakness, shutting down, lashing out, are seen for what they really were: survival strategies. That realisation alone can feel like a breath of air after years underwater.
One client put it this way: “I thought I was just broken because I couldn’t move on. In therapy, I saw that my reactions were natural. And once I understood that, I could finally change them.”
That’s the power of this work. It’s about healing the wound that was there all along.
When addiction is really about pain
At Camino Recovery, we see the connection between trauma and addiction every day. Many of our clients didn’t turn to substances because they “just liked to party.” They turned to them because it dulled unbearable feelings.
Research backs this up. A report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2014) highlights how trauma-informed care significantly improves outcomes for people in recovery. Addressing trauma reduces relapse risk and helps people rebuild relationships with trust.
As physician and author Gabor Maté (2010) explains, every addiction is “an attempt to solve a problem,” usually the pain of unresolved trauma. He urges us to move away from judgment and instead ask not why the addiction? but why the pain?” This shift makes a lot of sense. It helps people see that their struggles aren’t signs of weakness but signals of wounds that need healing.
When the root is healed, recovery stops being just about avoiding relapse and becomes about building a life worth staying sober for.
How Camino Recovery approaches trauma
This is why trauma therapy is woven into everything we do at Camino Recovery.
We don’t treat symptoms in isolation. Instead, we combine evidence-based trauma therapies—such as EMDR and cognitive-behavioural therapy with holistic practices like mindfulness, yoga, and equine therapy. Healing isn’t only about the mind; it’s about reconnecting the body, spirit, and relationships too.
Our setting matters. It’s beautiful here, but the scenery also contributes to the healing. Tucked into the Andalusian hills, people often say it’s the first place they’ve truly exhaled in years. The quiet, the light, the sense of space — all of it helps create the safety needed to do deep work.
No two healing journeys look the same. Some unfold gently, with slow steps and long pauses. Others gather momentum once a person feels safe enough to keep going. At Camino, we don’t measure progress by speed. We stay with each person at their own pace and offer steady support until they’re ready to step forward on their own.
Reclaiming what trauma stole
Trauma leaves its mark, but it doesn’t have to be the final word. The shift often comes the moment someone stops running from the pain and, with the right support, turns to face it. That’s when the weight begins to lift. That’s when the future starts to feel like something you want to step into.
At Camino Recovery, we see this transformation every day. With the right guidance and care, trauma therapy can become the doorway back to yourself.
If you’re ready for that turning point, contact us. We’re here to walk with you.
References
- Benjet, C. et al., (2016). The epidemiology of traumatic event exposure worldwide: results from the World Mental Health Survey Consortium. Psychological medicine, 46(2), 327–343. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291715001981
- Maté, G. (2010). In the realm of hungry ghosts: Close encounters with addiction. Vintage Canada.
- National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2020). Drugs, brains, and behavior: The science of addiction (NIDA Research Monograph, updated July 2020). National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK424859/
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2014). SAMHSA’s concept of trauma and guidance for a trauma-informed approach (HHS Publication No. SMA 14-4884). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://library.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/sma14-4884.pdf
- Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books.
