01 Jul Healing After Childhood Trauma: A Journey Back to Yoursel

There are moments in life when we stop and ask ourselves, “Why do I feel like this?” Perhaps you’ve achieved success in your career, built a family, or created a life that looks good from the outside, yet inside you still feel anxious, overwhelmed, disconnected or never quite good enough.

Maybe you find it difficult to trust people. Perhaps you constantly put everyone else’s needs before your own, struggle to relax, or feel as though you’re always waiting for something to go wrong. You may have spent years believing these feelings were simply part of who you are.

The truth is, they may be signs that your nervous system is still responding to experiences from your childhood.

Childhood trauma can shape the way we see ourselves, the world around us and the relationships we build. It can influence our confidence, our emotional wellbeing, our physical health and even the choices we make every day. Many people don’t realise that the difficulties they face as adults may have their roots in experiences they had as children.

The good news is that healing is possible.

Over the last few decades, researchers have transformed our understanding of trauma. We now know that trauma isn’t simply something we remember in our minds. It can also affect our bodies, our nervous systems and the way we respond to stress long after the original danger has passed. This understanding has changed the way many professionals approach recovery, offering hope to people who may once have believed they would always feel trapped by their past.

Healing after childhood trauma doesn’t mean pretending the past never happened. It doesn’t mean forgetting painful memories or erasing difficult experiences. Instead, healing is about learning to feel safe again. It’s about understanding why your mind and body respond the way they do, treating yourself with compassion rather than criticism, and gradually building a life where you are no longer controlled by survival.

Whether your childhood experiences involved abuse, neglect, emotional rejection, bullying, loss, or living in an unpredictable environment, your feelings are valid. Trauma isn’t measured by comparing your experiences with someone else’s. It’s measured by the impact those experiences had on you.

For many people, survival became normal. Being constantly alert, trying to keep everyone happy, hiding emotions, or expecting the worst became everyday ways of coping. When these patterns begin in childhood, they can become so familiar that we mistake them for our personality.

But survival isn’t the same as living.

One of the most hopeful discoveries in modern psychology and neuroscience is that our brains and nervous systems can change throughout our lives. This means that no matter how long you’ve carried the effects of childhood trauma, it is possible to create new patterns, build healthier relationships and experience a greater sense of peace and emotional freedom.

Healing isn’t about becoming someone else.

It’s about rediscovering the person you have always been beneath the fear, the protective behaviours and the survival strategies that once kept you safe.

In this guide, we’ll explore what childhood trauma really is, how it can continue to affect adulthood, why healing involves both the mind and the body, and practical steps you can take to begin your own journey towards recovery. Most importantly, I hope you’ll discover that you are not broken, you are not alone, and healing is possible.

What Is Childhood Trauma?

When people hear the word trauma, they often think of a single catastrophic event. While this can certainly be traumatic, childhood trauma is often far more complex. Childhood trauma refers to experiences that overwhelm a child’s ability to feel safe, protected and emotionally secure. These experiences may happen once, or they may continue over many months or years. Because a child’s brain and nervous system are still developing, repeated exposure to fear, uncertainty or emotional pain can have a lasting impact.

Trauma isn’t only about what happened to you. It can also be about what didn’t happen.

A child who grows up without emotional warmth, consistent care or a sense of safety may experience just as much long-term impact as a child who experiences physical abuse.

Some examples of childhood trauma include:

• Physical abuse
• Emotional abuse
• Sexual abuse
• Emotional neglect
• Growing up with domestic violence
• Living with parents affected by addiction or mental illness
• Bullying
• Losing a parent or caregiver
• Constant criticism or rejection
• Feeling unsafe or unsupported at home

Every child responds differently. Two people can experience similar events yet be affected in different ways. What matters isn’t whether someone else thinks your experience was traumatic. What matters is how those experiences affected your sense of safety, identity and ability to trust.

Many adults minimise what happened to them. They might say, “Other people had it worse,” or, “It wasn’t that bad.” Yet their body tells a different story through anxiety, hypervigilance, difficulty relaxing or struggles in relationships.

Acknowledging your experiences isn’t about blaming the past. It’s about understanding yourself with greater compassion. When we understand where our survival patterns came from, we can begin to choose new ways of living rather than remaining trapped in old patterns that no longer serve us.

One of the biggest turning points in my own healing journey was realising that I had spent most of my life surviving rather than truly living.

For years, I had completely normalised my childhood. It was all I had ever known, so I didn’t see it as unusual. I could talk about experiences that, to me, simply felt like facts, without recognising the impact they had on my life.

Everything began to change while I was writing my book, Broken Bones. Two wonderful people, Penny Ferguson and Gabriel Firth, gently challenged me. They noticed that the way I spoke about my childhood didn’t match the reality of what I had lived through. I spoke about years of abuse and fear as though I were describing an ordinary day. To me, it had become normal.

Their observations stopped me in my tracks.

For the first time, I began to understand that what I had accepted as “normal” was, in fact, trauma. I had normalised my experiences because that was how I had survived them. As a child, I couldn’t change what was happening around me, so my mind and body adapted in the only way they knew how.

That realisation became the beginning of a very different journey. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” I started asking, “What happened to me?” That single shift changed everything.

As I learned more about trauma and began to heal, I realised that so many of the behaviours I had criticised myself for weren’t character flaws at all. They were survival strategies. They had protected me when I needed them most. The challenge wasn’t to judge those parts of myself, it was to gently thank them for getting me this far, and then teach my mind and body that I was finally safe enough to live, not just survive.

If any of this feels familiar, I want you to know you’re not alone. Many people who have experienced childhood trauma don’t realise how much they’ve normalised until they begin to look back with compassion instead of survival. Recognising that is not the end of the journey, it’s often the beginning of healing.

A Final Thought

If you’ve read this far, I want to leave you with one message.

You are not the things that happened to you.

For many years, I believed my childhood had defined me. I didn’t realise I had normalised so much of what I’d experienced simply because that was how I survived. Healing taught me something different.

The past may explain why we think, feel and respond in certain ways, but it doesn’t have to determine who we become.

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that another person’s behaviour doesn’t have to become our identity. My father’s choices were his to own. They were never mine to carry. When I finally understood that, I began to let go of shame that had never belonged to me in the first place.

Today, my purpose is simple.

If sharing my story helps even one person realise they are not broken, that healing is possible, and that they deserve to live a life filled with peace, hope and authenticity, then every step of my journey has meaning.

I also hope to leave something important for my daughter: the knowledge that we all deserve to live as our true selves, free from the weight of someone else’s pain or behaviour. Every generation has the opportunity to change the story. Healing doesn’t just transform one life; it can ripple through families, friendships and communities for years to come.

Wherever you are on your own journey, I want you to know this:

You don’t have to stay in survival mode forever.

You deserve to feel safe.

You deserve to feel seen.

You deserve to experience joy without guilt.

And above all, you deserve to become the person you were always meant to be.

Healing doesn’t happen overnight, and it isn’t always a straight path. Some days will feel easier than others. Be patient with yourself, celebrate every step forward, and remember that progress is still progress, no matter how small it may seem.

Your story isn’t over.

In many ways, it’s only just beginning.