Trauma Therapy Oakland: Peacekeeping as a Survival Strategy: Part 2 - When Family and Culture Make It Hard to Recognize Trauma
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"Maybe I'm Just Too Sensitive": When You Grow Up Questioning Your Own Feelings
In Part 1 of this series on peacekeeping as a survival strategy for trauma, we looked at the fawning response: how you may have learned to appease, accommodate, and anticipate other people’s needs in order to stay safe. In Part 2, we look at where that adaptation often takes root.
Every family has norms about what’s acceptable, what gets talked about, and whose feelings count. Cultural values shape those norms, and they can be a real source of connection and strength. But when they’re used to explain away hurtful behavior, your normal reactions to being mistreated can get recast as a flaw in you. You being “too sensitive” becomes the problem, rather than what happened or the behavior of others. Over time, you may have learned that keeping the peace meant doubting your own perceptions.
If you’ve spent much of your life navigating different cultural expectations and family dynamics, you may have grown up hearing things like:
"You're making a big deal out of nothing."
"We only criticize you because we want you to succeed."
"You wouldn't act that way if you knew what we went through."
As a trauma therapist in Oakland, many people I see from mixed-heritage families - often high-achieving adults - feel as though they are never enough. Not good enough. Not successful enough. Not tough enough. They struggle with criticism. Even a small comment from their boss can ruin their day.
They can also feel responsible for how other people feel. A brief, seemingly distant text from a friend can send their thoughts spiraling: Why do they seem so distant? Did I do something wrong? Did I offend them somehow?
If you can relate, maybe you think you’re too sensitive but it may not have ocurred to think about possible trauma in your childhood. Or perhaps you have, but questioning your upbringing brings up feelings of guilt because your sacrificed so much for you.
I've met many people who struggle to recognize how deeply their childhood experiences have affected them. Especially when those experiences were considered normal in their families. What if you're not overreacting? What if your nervous system learned to respond this way because of what you experienced growing up?
When Childhood Criticism Becomes Your Inner Voice
When we're kids, we depend on our caregivers for safety and connection. We need them to meet our emotional and other needs. When those same caregivers repeatedly criticize, dismiss, or shame us, we may begin to believe that something is wrong with us.
If you recognize yourself in any of this, it makes sense that you feel confused about behaviors you grew up believing were normal. And it doesn't mean you're too sensitive.
From an early age, we begin developing a picture of ourselves based on our experiences. If your achievements were never enough, if you were constantly compared to your siblings or other children, if you were told you were being dramatic when something hurt, you may have grown up believing things like:
I'm too emotional.
I should be stronger.
I'll never be good enough.
If someone is upset with me, I must have done something wrong.
Over time, these messages can become so familiar that you stop questioning them. In therapy I work with clients to parse out whether their self-talk is their voice or started out at someone else’s criticism. Over time, a parent's critical voice can become the way you speak to yourself, even long after you've left home. And you may form core beliefs about yourself that are rooted in someone else’s perceptions, vlaues and beliefs rather than your own.
Trauma Therapy Oakland: When Culture Makes Hurtful Behavior Harder to Recognize
Family loyalty, respect for our elderly, and collective responsibility can be deeply meaningful cultural values which you may hold. For many of us in Oakland, these are the values we were brought up with. The values we've adopted as our own and continue to cherish.
This is why it can sometimes be so difficult to distinguish protection from control. To recognize that what your parents described as their intent to motivate you through harsh criticism may have scared you into compliance while taking a toll on your mental wellbeing. And maybe it didn’t motivate you for the “right reasons”. Perhaps you were taught that questioning a parent is disrespectful so you held your tongue in the face of injustice or when
For someone with mixed heritage or a bicultural upbringing, the confusion can be especially difficult.
At home, your parents expected you to obey without questioning. Outside your home, you were encouraged to express your opinions and set boundaries.
You may grow up caught between two very different understandings of what a healthy family relationship looks like. And when everyone around you treats something as normal, it can be hard to see that it may have hurt you, too.
Here’s the thing though - respecting your culture and recognizing harmful family dynamics are not mutually exclusive.
"But That's Normal in My Family": When Harm and Culture Become Difficult to Separate
If you are someone who believes that your achievement is tied to family sacrifice, that you are indebted to their parents, who had left their lives back home and moved to a new country "to give the kids a better life.", you may have spent years in a career you never really chose or are in a relationship you wouldn’t have picked for yourself. Many mixed folx also come from families where you simply didn't discuss your problems with people outside the home (nor inside the home for that matter).
In trauma therapy Oakland, we will spend time questioning what you may have spent years dismissing: Maybe you are not too sensitive. Maybe some of what you experienced really did hurt you.
Having conflicting feelings is okay. You can appreciate everything your parents did for you and still acknowledge that some of the ways they treated you were hurtful.
You might want to explore: Why Second-Generation Adults Lead Double Lives: Navigating Cultural Expectations and Personal Identity | Therapist in Oakland
You Tell Yourself, "It's Not a Big Deal," but Your Nervous System Still Reacts
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Let's go back to the childhood we mentioned earlier. If criticism, anger, or unpredictability were common, you may have learned to stay alert. To read the room and closely monitor even the subtle changes in tone, expression, or mood.
Even though you hav grown up, you may still freeze when someone raises their voice, even when it's not directed at you. You still feel ashamed after making small mistakes or compelled to stay in conversations for hours feeling the constant urge to overexplain and defend yourself.
Sometimes an everyday situation can bring up an old expectation of criticism or rejection. Has there been a time when you were left out, for example colleagues have made planns with out you? And you felt rejected, sad, inherently flawed and spent countless hours replaying conversations from the day trying to figure out what you had done wrong?
Sometimes, these reactions are connected to early trauma. But they don't necessarily mean you have a trauma disorder. Your temperament, your history of anxiety, neurodivergence, and everyday stress can also influence how strongly you respond.
The thing is, sometimes your reaction isn't just about what's happening now. It's also about what your nervous system learned to expect a long time ago.
You might want to explore: Shame vs. Guilt: Understanding the Emotions That Keep You from Healing in Trauma Therapy in Oakland
How Being "Too Sensitive" Can Turn Into People-Pleasing and Fawning
Children who are frequently criticized may learn to avoid conflict by becoming agreeable, helpful, or emotionally accommodating.
You never stand up for yourself.
You apologize. All the time.
You agree because that feels safe.
You take responsibility for keeping everyone comfortable.
For some people, being called "too sensitive" doesn't make them less sensitive. It just teaches them to hide their feelings and become more attentive to everyone else's.
You might want to explore: You’re Not “Too Sensitive”: A Trauma Therapist in Oakland on Why Certain Moments Hit So Hard
Learning to Trust Your Feelings Without Rejecting Your Family or Culture in Trauma Therapy Oakland
Healing doesn't require you to pick sides and decide your parents were entirely bad. It doesn't ask you to reject your cultural identity or cut ties with your family.
Instead, trauma therapy with me focuses on helping help you understand how childhood experiences shaped your responses. It can help you separate cultural values from those of your parents and the behaviors that caused harm.
We explore guilt, loyalty, anger, and grief without judgment. You learn to begin trusting your own emotional experiences. Finally, you learn to set boundaries without immediately assuming you are selfish or disrespectful.
You don't have to choose between honoring where you come from and acknowledging what hurt you. You may still struggle with guilt when you disagree with your parents. You may still become emotional when someone criticizes you.
But you will begin to put your reactions into context and understand them differently.
Maybe you were never too sensitive. Maybe you learned to pay close attention to other people's emotions because yours weren't always cared for in the way you needed them to be. Healing begins when you stop asking whether your feelings are too much and start becoming curious about what they're trying to tell you.
Author Bio
Lara Clayman, LCSW, Trauma therapist Oakland
Lara Clayman, LCSW, is a trauma therapist in Oakland, California. She helps clients process trauma and reconnect to their nervous systems while developing a felt sense of safety. She specializes in anxiety therapy, online therapy, multicultural mental health, counseling for men, parenting support, and climate distress.
Learn more at www.laraclaymantherapy.com.
