You Made It Through, but Something Still Doesn’t Feel Right: Unpacking Trauma with Trauma Therapy Oakland
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Oakland, while gritty and beautiful, can be a hard place to come up. Close-knit communities like ours face many challenges and trauma happens here every single day. Many people grow up in chaotic environments they may believe to be “normal”. Others might have witnessed traumatic loss, faced financial insecurity or seen or experienced violence. Trauma is so much a part of life, we may not realized the ways we are impacted by it. Most humans I know have some form of trauma. Some are able to move through these experiences and find healthy enough ways of coping. If you find yourself wondering why you react so strongly in certain situations, why you sometimes feel numb, disconnected or always on high alert, your body may be reacting to trauma that it has stored inside.
If you're considering trauma therapy in Oakland, you may wonder: Do I even need it? How do I know if I have trauma? In this article, we'll unpack what trauma really is, how it might show up when you thought you were "okay", and what you can do next.
How Do I Know if I Have Trauma?
You might not think of yourself as someone who has "trauma" because everything felt quite normal overall. Maybe you tell yourself your upbringing was "typical." Didn't everyone get yelled at or spanked while growing up?
Perhaps you grew up navigating the challenges of being a second-generation adult. Or you lost a parent early in life, but learned to keep moving just like everyone else. Maybe there were moments when you felt different, or like you had to work a little harder to be accepted. Perhaps it's the impact of transgenerational trauma passed down from one generation to the next in your family, causing you to struggle with self-worth, shame, and mental health without understanding the reasons behind them. Maybe you still have nightmares that repeat too frequently and cause distress or having healthy, fulfilling relationships feels impossible. You either keep people at a distance, struggle to trust them, or hold on too tightly out of fear of losing them.
For many people, especially men, it's easy to downplay what happened in childhood or to believe it "wasn't that bad." But trauma isn't only about obvious abuse or tragedy. It can also come from years of feeling unsafe, unseen, or responsible for things no child should have to carry — even in communities filled with love and resilience like Oakland. And it can stay with you long after you are no longer a child.
What Is Trauma?
Trauma is an emotional, physical, and mental reaction to a deeply distressing experience — something that overwhelms your ability to cope. As Dr. Gabor Maté puts it, "Trauma is not what happens to you; it's what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you."
Trauma is typically categorized into three types:
Acute or single trauma caused by an isolated, highly stressful, or dangerous event, such as a severe car accident, sexual or physical assault, or a natural disaster.
Chronic or repeated trauma means being repeatedly or continually exposed to highly stressful or traumatic conditions, such as long-term neglect or exposure to community violence.
Complex trauma happens when you're exposed to lasting or multiple and developmentally disruptive traumatic experiences, such as ongoing physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.
What is "Little T" Trauma?
There are traumatic experiences — the so-called "little t" traumas — that many people don't even recognize as trauma because they don't involve violence or life-threatening harm. These can include things like a high-stress parental divorce during childhood, ongoing financial hardship, growing up in an underrepresented community, or enduring emotional abuse. Yet these emotionally distressing experiences can still profoundly impact how you feel, how you navigate daily life, and how you connect with others.
Each person's experience with trauma is different. You might have had a stable home and still carry the emotional residue of what was left unspoken. Even if you grew up in a peaceful neighborhood surrounded by community, trauma can still settle quietly in the nervous system. Feeling powerless, frozen, or detached isn't weakness — it's how your body learned to protect you.
How Trauma Affects the Brain
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Trauma is stored in the mind and body. When you grow up in an environment under chronic stress, your body learns to operate in protection mode. Imagine growing up in a family with a parent who drank too much. Or there was constant tension, where you never knew how someone would feel or act from one day to the next. Where emotions were unpredictable, emotional boundaries did not exist, or someone you deeply trusted did something that seriously betrayed your trust.
If you relate to any of these experiences, your nervous system may still be primed for danger. When the brain shifts into survival mode, the prefrontal cortex, responsible for logic and memory, is sidelined, while the amygdala, the brain's fear center, takes over. This changes how your brain functions, leading you to freeze, become tense, or feel disconnected whenever it senses a threat, even long after the danger is gone. You get so used to paying attention to every tone and gesture, every shift in mood. You're always feeling on edge. Always prepared for what might happen next. Over time, this heightened awareness becomes your normal, even though it keeps you exhausted and disconnected from yourself.
The Four F's: The Body's Natural Responses to Trauma
In response to stress or trauma, our nervous system triggers one of four instinctive survival responses, commonly referred to as the 4 F's: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.
As a reaction to perceived threat, the brain quickly scans for the safest option to protect us, by:
· getting angry or defensive (fight response)
· avoiding the situation altogether (flight response)
· getting numb or unable to decide what to do (freeze response)
· pleasing others at our expense in an attempt to keep the peace (fawn response)
These reactions are not a sign that you are flawed. They're the body's way of keeping you safe when it perceives danger, even when the danger has long passed.
When Trauma Becomes Your Identity
As a trauma therapist in Oakland, I often see how difficult it can be for adults to process painful experiences and express their emotions. Now imagine how much harder this is for a child who doesn't yet have the language or emotional maturity to make sense of what's happening inside.
Some people never develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in response to trauma. But this still doesn't mean the experience didn't leave a mark. When you don't learn as a child to understand or express your emotions, it can manifest as irritability, emotional detachment, emotional outbursts, or a lingering sense that you're never fully at ease.
Over time, more complex issues like anxiety, depression, people-pleasing, impulsivity, or relationship problems may develop. You may find yourself reacting out of proportion in situations that are generally safe, without knowing why. Your mood swings are unpredictable. You take on others' feelings. Even though you know that your partner truly cares about you, intimacy doesn't feel safe.You say yes when you actually mean no, just to keep the peace and survive.
These behaviors, over time, can start to feel like who you are — like being guarded, overly accommodating, or always "on" is just part of your personality. But it's not. These are coping mechanisms that you learned after experiencing trauma, not who you are as a person. However, many people don't recognize these behaviors as trauma responses, so they rarely get the support they need to heal and move on.
How to Let Go of Past Trauma
When you spend years or even decades organizing your life around what others need or want, it can be hard to figure out what you truly need. If you're so used to suppressing your feelings or feeling disconnected from who you are at your core, it can be difficult to find stability. Because trauma makes you feel like it's not okay to have needs. Like you can trust no one. You may feel ashamed for wanting to actually do something for yourself for once. Or that admitting trauma would be a betrayal of your past, family, and legacy.
But healing asks you to do the opposite. To allow your needs to resurface. To allow the truth of your pain to speak without shame. And to learn that acknowledging past hurt is an act of compassion toward yourself.
When you've experienced trauma, your brain can get stuck in that experience, making it hard to regulate your emotions, trust others, and feel whole. Trauma therapy, such as EMDR, psychodynamic, or somatic approaches, helps your brain process these memories properly so they no longer cause emotional distress. You learn how to respond more calmly in situations that remind you of past trauma instead of feeling overwhelmed. Over time, you start feeling more balanced, in control of your life, and at ease in your own body.
How to Release Trauma in the Body
A body that has lived in survival mode for years doesn't naturally know to relax and let go. It doesn't matter that your life feels safe right now, because trauma isn't just a memory stored somewhere in your mind. It lives in your nervous system and every other part of your body. That's why some people might benefit from more than just talk therapy. Grounding techniques, such as deep belly breathing, gentle movement, body awareness, and mindfulness, can help calm the nervous system, reduce reactivity, and help you anchor yourself during emotional distress.
Does Trauma Ever Go Away?
The goal of trauma therapy in Oakland is not to erase what happened, but to let your body release the energy it has stored. It's not about forgetting but about rewiring your brain through constant support and guidance so it stops living in a defense mode. The memories of a traumatic past may remain, but your nervous system learns that the past is over and you're safe now.
What You Can Do Next
If you feel detached from yourself or your experiences, have trouble relaxing or trusting others, or find yourself easily triggered by reminders of your past, or if something just doesn't feel right, it's important to pay attention to those feelings. Seeking professional mental health support can help you better understand and work through what's happening inside you.
Trauma Therapy Oakland: Healing Trauma is Possible When You Have the Right Support
Trauma therapy in Oakland can help you unpack deep wounds, process trauma, and reconnect with yourself and others. You don't have to keep carrying what once helped you survive. If you often feel not enough, disconnected from your feelings, or you notice that your reactions are too strong and don't fit the situation, there is a reason for it. Recognizing that your unregulated nervous system is just trying to cope is the first step toward regaining a sense of balance and healing.
Trauma therapy can help you understand how the past still lives within your body and rewire your brain back toward safety, grounding, and connection. Healing, when done with care, is not so much about forgetting what happened as about finally being free to live beyond it.
Author Bio:
Lara Clayman Trauma Therapist Oakland
Author Bio: Lara Clayman, LCSW, is 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.
