Email: Info@thrivebeyondtraumacounseling.com
Call: (248) 392- 3733
Counselling
Counselling
Trauma-Informed Individual Counseling in Farmington Hills
Available in-person and virtually across Michigan.
Deep trauma healing begins with safety, not force.
Many people believe trauma is only about the event. But trauma is actually about the imprint — The internal shifts that happen when your system has to survive more than it could process.
This page will help you understand:
- Why you react the way you do
- How trauma shapes your body and emotions
- Why triggers, shutdown, or overwhelm happen
- The difference between trauma, Post-Traumatic Stress, and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress
- Why talk therapy alone often isn’t enough
- How healing truly works
*Your reactions make sense. Your body has been trying to protect you.*
Trauma is not defined by the event — It is defined by how your nervous system experienced that event.
- Too much
- Too fast
- Too sudden
- Too overwhelming
- Too unsafe
- Too unsupported
It is the internal experience of:
- Shock
- Fear
- Helplessness
- Powerlessness
- Disconnection
- Emotional aloneness
*Trauma is not what happened — It’s what stayed in your body afterward.*
- Emotional overwhelm
- Panic attacks
- Numbness or shutdown
- Anxiety
- Avoidance
- Repetitive relational patterns
- Loss of identity
- Chronic stress
- Self-abandonment
- Hypervigilance
- Fear of intimacy
- Shame and self-blame
- Dissociation
- Body-based memories
*You are not “too much.” You are carrying too much — And you don’t have to carry it alone.*
Trauma is stored in:
- Body
- Subconscious
- Nervous system
- Emotional memory
- Protective parts
- The body feels safe again
- The nervous system can regulate
- Old memories lose their charge
- Emotional parts feel seen and supported
- Somatic
- Relational
- Experiential
- Nervous-system-informed
*Trauma is not cognitive — It is embodied. Healing must be, too.*
When your body senses danger, it activates survival states:
Anger, irritability, frustration
Anxiety, overthinking, restlessness
Numbness, shutdown, dissociation
People-pleasing, self-abandonment
When trauma is unresolved, your nervous system can get stuck in survival mode, even when you are technically “safe.”
Common experiences include:
- Tight chest
- Knots in the stomach
- Chronic pain
- Exhaustion
- Sensory overwhelm
- Avoidance
- Fear of abandonment
- Over-attachment
- Attracting emotionally unsafe partners
- Shame
- Fear
- Rage
- Emotional flashbacks
- Disconnection
- Overthinking
- Feeling “out of body”
- Difficulty concentrating
- Spiraling or mental shutdown
*Your body remembers what your mind had to forget.*
Big “T” Trauma
Overt, recognizable events such as:
- Assault
- Car accidents
- Medical emergencies
- Sudden loss
- Natural disasters
- Acute danger
Little “t” trauma
Subtle, chronic, or relational experiences that shape your identity and self-worth, such as:
- Feeling unseen or unimportant
- Being criticized or compared
- Emotional neglect
- Rejection or abandonment
- Never feeling “good enough”
- Growing up without consistent support
- Betrayal or repeated relational wounding
The body does not distinguish between the two. Both can create emotional patterns, survival strategies, and nervous-system responses that continue long after the moment has passed.
*If it overwhelmed your system, it was trauma — Regardless of how “big” or “small” it looked.*
Not all trauma is the same.
- A single overwhelming event
- A crisis
- A sudden loss
- A medical event
- An accident
- Assault or acute danger
- Childhood emotional neglect
- Unpredictable or unsafe caregivers
- Chronic criticism or shaming
- Abandonment
- Parentification
- Emotional abuse
- Betrayal trauma
- Growing up with an addicted or unstable parent
- Relational trauma across years
Post-Traumatic Stress
Affects
The memory of what happened.
Complex Post-Traumatic Stress
Affects
The beliefs, identity, relationships, and nervous system formed in that environment.
*Post-Traumatic Stress is about the incident.
Complex Post-Traumatic Stress is about the environment.
Both are real, and both are treatable.*
How We Help You Heal From Trauma
*Your trauma has many layers — So your healing deserves many pathways.*
You don’t have to understand everything before taking the first step.
Your nervous system is already asking for relief — And we’re here to respond with compassion, clarity, and expertise.
