19/09/2025
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CteoCUoRt/
We often picture trauma as loud—yelling, fighting, violence. But trauma isn’t defined by noise.
Trauma is any overwhelming experience that your nervous system can’t fully process. It isn’t just what happened to you—it’s what happened inside you when you were left alone with the pain. It’s about how you perceived and responded to what happened to you.
That’s why silent treatment and love withdrawal can be so damaging. Being cut off from connection activates the same stress pathways as danger. Your body doesn’t know if you’ve been abandoned, so it shifts into survival mode.
As a child, that can teach you: “If I’m quiet enough, perfect enough, invisible enough… Maybe I won’t lose love.”
As an adult, the patterns resurface. Being shut out by a partner can trigger the same panic or shutdown: the over-pleasing, the walking on eggshells, the dread of disconnection.
The hardest part is there are no bruises, no raised voices—so you end up second-guessing yourself: “Why does this hurt so much? Maybe I’m just too sensitive.”
But this is trauma. Emotional withdrawal overwhelms the nervous system just like louder forms of abuse and it actually feels more life threatening. Nothing is more toxic than the presence of something painful.
And here’s the hope: what disconnection once wired into you, connection can slowly rewire. With the right support, your body can relearn that love and safety belong together.
Healing isn’t instant, but it is possible. Every step toward trusting connection again is real progress.
