Childhood Wounds
You look put together and are successful but you struggle with self confidence. You feel like you can’t trust yourself …
You find yourself people pleasing often at a cost to you
People ask you how you feel and you respond with “I don’t know”
You feel guilty talking about your parents because your childhood wasn’t “all that bad”
You can recognize that you were often left alone, minimized, gas lit, or manipulated but it doesn’t feel like “real trauma”
Often times trauma doesn’t look like outright physical abuse but can be as subtle as ongoing emotional neglect. It may look like a parent struggling with substance abuse or their own mental health issues and not able to pay attention to their children. It could look like a caregiver who was manipulative with their words or gas lit their children out of their feelings.
Adults who have experienced developmental trauma may struggle with anxiety, depression, low self-worth, perfectionism, people-pleasing, emotional numbness, difficulty trusting others, or feeling disconnected from themselves and their needs. Often, these patterns began as ways to survive overwhelming experiences in childhood.
I can help! In our work together we can help you understand how early experiences continue to influence present relationships, emotions, and behaviors.
Through a safe and supportive therapeutic relationship, we can process painful experiences, develop greater self-compassion and strengthen your connection to your emotions.
We can process the feelings that come up about your childhood while still honoring your parents.
We will take a look at the various survival strategies that were needed and help you to see how they impact you now.
We will help you get to a place of resolution about how you were treated in the past and discuss how you might want to move forward.
We can help you get to place where you feel confident in moving forward without leaving yourself behind.
