6 Reasons You May Find It Difficult To Get Help After Trauma

If you’ve experienced trauma, you may find it difficult to seek help. Why? There are many possible reasons why. Let’s explore just a few.

A common defense is to minimize what you experienced. 

If “it wasn’t a big deal,” why would you need help? Isn’t that making more of it than it is? The mind has difficulty “digesting” traumatic experiences, just like a Thanksgiving dinner. One defense against being overwhelmed is to minimize or even bury the significance or aspects of what happened. 

It may feel so huge that you’re afraid to deal with it. 

“If I open this up, it will take over my life.” But if you don’t deal with trauma, it can still take over your life, but in ways you’re not aware of. A skilled therapist will not push you to deal with things before you have established a safe, trusting relationship with the therapist and you feel ready. 

You may have the idea that you’ll have to relive the trauma in therapy, but that’s not necessary. 

Be sure to look for a therapist who will work with you to relieve the traumatic symptoms, rather relive the trauma. 

I know someone who experienced significant trauma and her therapist said to her in a first group session, “Please tell the group what happened to you.” Before she knew anything about the other group members. NO!!! That retraumatized her. 

A skilled therapist will take a slow and gentle approach to avoid retraumatizing you.  

The trauma may have been chronic, not one big dramatic event. 

It’s not always assault and rape, though sometimes it is. If your childhood needs were chronically unmet, you may wonder if this even qualifies as trauma. (It does.) Here’s some more information about chronic forms of trauma and trauma treatment.

You may blame yourself and/or fear that the therapist will blame you. 

You are not so powerful that you are responsible for someone else’s actions. You didn’t make someone harm you. Or so powerful that you caused a tornado, or other natural disaster that had a traumatic impact on you. (Can you guess that I grew up in “tornado alley”?) Therapy isn’t about assigning blame. It’s about understanding cause and effect. It’s partly about dealing with unfortunate things in life and finding a way to lessen the negative impact of these things, so that you can fully enjoy and experience the good moments in your life. 

You may be scared that you will be seen as only what happened to you, rather than as your whole, full self. 

You’re not only what happened to you, any more than you are only your mother’s child, your child’s father, an office worker, or anything else. Getting help doesn’t make you “only” a trauma survivor or that person who was raped. You may be concerned that you will be seen only as the worst thing that ever happened to you. Or that you will be pitied. Or seen as weak. You’re still you, not what happened to you. I hope that you don’t allow this fear to stop you from getting the help you need. 

Getting help lets you own your trauma instead of it owning you!

These are just a few of the reasons that you may not have gotten help for the trauma you’ve experienced. You deserve to enjoy your life, despite whatever you’ve experienced or whatever you’ve been told. Let’s work together to make things better. 

I hope that if you read this and recognize yourself, you’ll contact me and schedule an appointment.

Click here for more information on anxiety therapy.