What Does Releasing Trauma Feel Like? How Trauma Therapy Can Help

The word “trauma” has made its way into our everyday lives. Sometimes it can be unclear what it really means, or what it means to have a traumatic experience. So, let’s clear the air a bit.

Trauma can be thought of as any experience that is intensely distressing that pushes you past your capacity to cope. This causes lasting negative impacts on your mental and emotional well-being, and may even have lasting effects on your physical health.

So, if you’ve experienced trauma, what does releasing trauma feel like? Is it forgetting what’s happened to you, and just moving on? Does it mean intentionally having a mental breakdown? Does it feel healing and cathartic, yet painful? It doesn’t always have to take a dramatic or obvious form: often, it’s subtle and gradual.

The best part is, your mind and body actually want to release trauma and move towards healing. Just like we intuitively heal from physical injuries like cuts or scrapes, your nervous system actually wants to heal itself!

A Little More in Depth on What Trauma Can Feel Like

I touched on what constitutes a traumatic experience, but the felt experience of that can differ person-to-person. It’s less about what happened to you, and more about how your nervous system has taken it in.

(You’ll notice me using the term “nervous system” here. I’m referring to the entire system: your body’s primary way of controlling, communicating, and regulating everything in your body from your conscious thoughts, movements, to unconscious things like breathing and digestion. This includes your brain, your spinal cord, and all your nerves.)

Once your body and nervous system have been pushed past their limits and “trauma” is experienced, it can show up in different ways. Often, if you’ve experienced trauma, you’ll notice you feel on edge, even when things are okay. You might overreact or shut down in certain situations. You might have trouble trusting others, and even yourself. You might feel “young”, or like you’re stuck in the past while everybody else is moving forward.

So, What Does Releasing Trauma Actually Feel Like?

Again, healing trauma doesn’t necessarily take a dramatic or obvious form. Often, the signs of true healing are often quiet and gradual!

If you’ve been feeling on edge, you might notice a quiet sense of relief. Almost like you’ve been holding in a breath for weeks, months, or even years, and you finally get to exhale. You’ll notice more space in your mind, like the chatter slowly starts to quiet down. You’ll notice more patience and less reactivity, especially in situations that used to trigger you.

You’ll start to experience life as it is, in the present moment, instead of feeling like you are living on autopilot. And, you might even start to trust your thoughts and feelings as real information, instead of just pushing them away and arguing with them. Sometimes, people describe releasing trauma as a weight being lifted from them.

A quick note: releasing trauma doesn’t always happen overnight, or in a linear way. It doesn’t happen all at once. There will be some days where you feel clear and grounded, and other days you feel like you are getting triggered right and left. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. This is often part of the process as your nervous system works to “clear out” the trauma.

Why Does Trauma Get Stuck?

Have you ever tried to work through a past trauma and felt like no matter what you do, you can’t seem to move on? You’re not alone in this. As humans, it’s natural for us to move through things from a logical and rational perspective. You might know why a traumatic event happened, and you might even having understanding of why your system responded the way that it did.

However, this often isn’t enough. Since trauma happens at a nervous system level, healing needs to happen on the same level. Knowing can be helpful, but until you truly show your system that it is safe now, things will often feel stuck. Your body is trying to protect you based on past experiences, even if you’re not experiencing those things currently. Releasing trauma can be thought of as showing your nervous system that you’re safe, instead of just telling it that you’re safe now.

How Can Trauma Therapy Help?

Trauma-informed therapy can help provide you with a space that is safe and steady, and goes at your pace. Releasing trauma is a gradual process, and shouldn’t be pushed or forced. Individual therapy is tailored to you, so you don’t have to rush the process or minimize your experience. Trauma therapy can help you:

• Show, not tell, your nervous system that it is safe again

• Understand your triggers without shame

• Learn to regulate your emotions

• Reconnect with your body in a safe and controlled way

• Build trust in yourself

• Feel more present in your life

Healing doesn’t have to happen alone. Group therapy can be especially powerful as you start to expand your view and start to dip your toes back into rebuilding relationships from a trauma-informed perspective.

Feeling Ready to Experience Healing?

If any of this resonates with you, it might be time for you to take that next step in releasing your trauma. At Catalyss Counseling, we help people like you recover from trauma and reconnect with their true self. Whether you’re interested in individual therapy, EMDR, or group counseling, we’re here for you. You deserve to feel like yourself again. You deserve to feel peace within yourself, and around others. 

How We Can Help

We can help you get there. If you're ready to take that first step toward healing, reach out today for a free 20-minute consultation. 

Author Biography

Frankie Washofsky is a therapist with Catalyss Counseling who works with adults experiencing anxiety, depression, and ADHD, as well as relationship, LGBTQIA+, and polyamory/non-monogamous issues. Frankie is also an avid gamer and blog author. She specializes in working with trauma survivors, highly-sensitive people, and people-pleasers. Follow Catalyss Counseling on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

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Other Therapy Services Available at Catalyss Counseling:

Here at Catalyss Counseling, we want to meet all of your counseling needs in the Denver area. Our supportive therapists provide depression counseling, therapy for caregiver stress, grief and loss therapy, stress management counseling and more. We also have specialists in trauma and PTSD, women's issues, pregnancy and postpartum depression or anxiety, pregnancy loss and miscarriage, and birth trauma. For therapists, we can also provide clinical supervision! We look forward to connecting with you to help support your journey today.