What Trauma Does to the Brain: And Why You’re Not Broken ” The Journey from Fragmentation to Wholeness”

Have you ever felt a profound disconnect between the person you know you could be and the person you feel you are? Do you find yourself reacting to situations with an intensity that seems to come from nowhere, or feeling numb in moments that should bring joy? Perhaps you feel a constant hum of anxiety, a critical inner voice, or a sense of being “not quite in your body.”

If this sounds familiar, I want you to hear this first and foremost: What you are experiencing is a normal reaction to abnormal events. You are not broken; your system has adapted to survive.

I know this feeling not just as a trauma-informed travel writer and healing journey facilitator, but because I lived it. For years, I floated in a silent, isolating fog. The most challenging part was the profound loss of language. I simply had no words to explain the storms inside me what I felt, what I needed, or why my emotions seemed to operate on a confusing, chaotic loop. This silence led me to knock on all the wrong doors, seeking answers in places and behaviors that only deepened the wound, making me feel more alienated and convinced that a solution was forever out of reach.

I told myself my experience was “nothing” compared to others. I’d hear stories of survival and think, “What right do I have to struggle? Their pain was so much worse.” I saw people who had “overcome” their trauma and assumed healing was a distant, final destination I was too weak to reach. So, I kept shrinking. I made myself smaller, quieter, and more manageable, until I almost disappeared.

The breakthrough, for me, began here in Turkey. It wasn’t a single moment, but a gradual dawning. I learned a fundamental truth that changed everything:

It is not about how huge the trauma was; it is about how it affected your brain.

So, please, let this be the moment you release the phrase, “What I suffered is nothing compared to others.” This journey is not a competition of pain. I am not here to measure anyone else’s trauma. I am here to tell you that there is no trauma that is too big or too small to deserve healing. This is about you, and only you.

For so long, I thought there was something inherently wrong with my personality that I was too sensitive, too needy, asking for too much. The moment I discovered that what I was experiencing had a name, that it was a physiological and psychological injury a “disease” of the nervous system, if you will , was the moment the self-blame began to crack. Getting that diagnosis, that validation, was like being handed a map after years of wandering in the dark. The weight of thinking I was “defective” lifted, and was replaced with a single, clear mission: to heal.

And healing is not a one-time event. It is a lifelong practice of returning to yourself. Think of it not as a scar you forget, but as a burning mark you learn to live with. You will always carry it, but you learn how to be gentle with it. You learn the art of self-compassion. You become a lifelong student of your own heart, curious to find better methods to uncover the best of you.

Some days, you sanitize the wound. Some days, you cover it with a bandage and rest. And some days, you just look at it, trace its edges, and smile at how far you’ve come. That mark becomes your story. And when people are drawn to your glow, when they feel the peace you now carry, they will ask, “What’s your story?”

And you will realize that this very wound, tended to with love and patience, has become the source of your miracles. It all starts with understanding the map. It all starts with the brain.

Your Brain’s Brilliant, Overworked Security System:

Think of your brain as a magnificent, intricate command center. Its primary job is to keep you safe. When we experience something overwhelming or terrifying—what we call trauma—this command center goes into high alert. It’s not a sign of weakness; it’s a brilliant, evolutionary survival mechanism.

Drawing from the seminal work in Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, we know that trauma isn’t just a story of the past. It gets trapped in our very physiology. Here’s a simplified look at what happens to three key parts of your brain:

1- The Thinking Brain (Prefrontal Cortex) Goes Offline:

• What Happens: This is your CEO—the part responsible for logic, reason, and calming you down. During a traumatic event or a trigger, it can effectively shut down.
• What It Feels Like in Real Life: You’re in a disagreement with your partner, and they use a certain tone of voice. Suddenly, you can’t form a coherent sentence. Your mind goes completely blank. You might stutter, forget your point entirely, or feel like you’re watching the scene from outside your body. Later, when you’re calm, you think of all the perfect things you should have said. That’s your Thinking Brain coming back online.

2- The Alarm System (Amygdala) Becomes Hyper-Active:

• What Happens: This is your internal smoke detector. After trauma, it becomes overly sensitive, constantly scanning for danger.
• What It Feels Like in Real Life: You’re walking down a peaceful street when a car backfires. For everyone else, it’s a brief noise. For you, your heart instantly hammers against your ribs, your muscles tense, and you’re flooded with a wave of sheer terror. There’s no logical threat, but your body is reacting as if your life is in danger. Or, you find yourself snapping angrily at a coworker for a minor mistake, your reaction feeling ten times bigger than the situation warrants.

3- The Memory Library (Hippocampus) Gets Muddled:

• What Happens: This area helps us file memories correctly—placing them in the past with a clear timeline. Trauma disrupts this process, leaving memories as raw, unprocessed sensory experiences.
• What It Feels Like in Real Life: You smell a specific cologne, and you are instantly overwhelmed with a feeling of dread and sadness, but you can’t pinpoint why. Or, a memory of a painful event flashes into your mind with such vivid intensity—the sounds, the sights, the feelings—that it feels like it’s happening right now, not years ago. The past isn’t past; it’s a living, breathing presence in your present.

The Events That Leave a Mark:

So, what kinds of experiences can cause this profound shift in your nervous system? It’s vital to understand that trauma is not defined by the event itself, but by your nervous system’s response to it. It’s any experience that was too much, too fast, or too soon for your system to process and integrate.

We often talk about trauma in two categories to help us understand its sources:

• “Big-T” Traumas are the single, shattering events we typically recognize: a serious accident, a natural disaster, or physical violence.
• “Small-t” traumas are the chronic, accumulating wounds: growing up with a critical parent, enduring years of bullying, or the profound loneliness of emotional neglect.

Here is the most important part: categorizing the event as “big” or “small” does not dictate the size of your reaction.

This is a critical misunderstanding. We might imagine a “small-t” event should lead to a “medium” reaction, but your nervous system doesn’t work that way. Think of it not as a linear scale, but as a glass filling with water.

Why the “Small-t” reaction can sometimes feel even MORE confusing:

A “Big-T” trauma is like a sledgehammer that shatters the glass in one blow. “Small-t” traumas are a constant drip, drip, drip that slowly fill the glass over years. In both cases, the result is the same: the glass overflows. The overflow—your anxiety, numbness, panic, or hypervigilance—is just as real and overwhelming, regardless of what caused it.

If you find yourself thinking, “But my ‘small-t’ experiences are nothing compared to what others endure,” please hear this: Your nervous system does not have a ranking system. It only knows overwhelm. The child who felt chronically unseen and the soldier who witnessed combat may have different stories, but their brains and bodies can respond with identical biological survival mechanisms. The feeling of being utterly alone and unsafe is the common thread.

Your experience is valid. Your symptoms are not a sign of weakness, but a testament to your body’s incredible, enduring will to protect you. Recognizing this is the first step toward teaching it that the danger has passed.

The Legacy of an Overwhelmed System

When this brain pattern persists, it creates the symptoms so many of us struggle with. These aren’t character flaws; they are survival strategies.

Hypervigilance: 

The exhausting feeling of being constantly “on guard.”

In Your Life: You can’t relax in a cafe without sitting with your back to the wall, watching the door. You feel tense in crowded places, constantly scanning faces for a threat. It’s the feeling of being a guard on a watchtower, long after the war is over.

Emotional Numbness or Dysregulation: 

Feeling too much, or feeling nothing at all.

In Your Life:

• Numbness: Your friend shares wonderful news, and you know you should feel happy for them, but you just feel… nothing. It’s like a glass wall separates you from your own emotions. You go through the motions of life without feeling truly connected to it.

• Dysregulation: A small inconvenience, like spilling coffee, sends you into a tailspin of rage or despair that feels impossible to control. It’s as if your emotional volume knob is broken, stuck on either zero or ten.

A Shattered Sense of Self: 

You might feel fragmented, as if there are different “parts” of you. This is a natural phenomenon beautifully explained by the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model.

In Your Life: You notice a “part” of you that is a terrified child who just wants to hide. Another “part” is a fierce, angry protector who pushes people away. Another is a people-pleaser who ensures you’re never a burden. These aren’t multiple personalities; they are protective segments of your psyche that formed to manage an overwhelming world.

The Body Says “No” :

As Gabor Maté so powerfully illustrates, the stress of unresolved trauma can manifest physically.

• In Your Life: Unexplained migraines, a tight jaw (TMJ), a constant knot in your stomach, fibromyalgia, or a weakened immune system that has you catching every cold. Your body is literally holding the score of pain your mind can’t process.

The Hope: Your Brain Can Heal :

This is the most important part. Neuroplasticity the brain’s ability to reorganize and form new neural connections throughout life is the key to your healing. The pathways forged by trauma are strong, but they are not permanent.

Your journey back to yourself, to discovering the vibrant soul that lives inside you, is about gently teaching your brain and nervous system that the danger has passed. It’s about bringing the “thinking brain” back online, calming the “alarm system,” and helping the “memory library” correctly file the past.

In my own experience, the profound peace I found in the landscapes and healing spaces of Turkey provided the container my nervous system needed to begin this repatterning. It was here that I learned to listen to my body, as Peter Levine guides in Waking the Tiger, and to practice the mindful presence championed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in Wherever You Go, There You Are.

Healing is not about erasing the past. It is about integrating your experiences, befriending your protective parts, and building the resilience—what Dan Siegel calls “integration” in The Developing Mind—to live fully in the present. It is, as James Clear outlines in Atomic Habits, a series of small, consistent steps that rewire your system for safety and connection.

You have already taken the first, bravest step by seeking understanding. Your feelings are valid. Your symptoms are real. And your capacity to feel whole, safe, and alive again is not only possible it is your birthright.

In the next post, we’ll explore how to start listening to the wisdom of your body, the first step in calming the storm and coming home to yourself.

With warmth and solidarity,