What Makes It Traumatic? (It’s Not Always the Thing You Think)

Someone said to me recently, “I don’t know why this thing feels like such a big deal when I’ve lived through way worse.”
And yeah—welcome to the wild world of trauma.

You can survive absolute chaos, walk out with a few metaphorical bruises and a weird story to tell at dinner,
and then totally fall apart over a conversation that didn’t even seem that intense.

What gives?

Here’s what we realized, sitting together in that quiet moment of What the hell is happening inside me?:

Sometimes it’s not about what happened.
It’s about what you made it mean about you.

You get in a car crash? Scary. Awful. But maybe it’s just… a car crash.
You have a breakup? And suddenly your whole nervous system is like,
You’re unlovable and you ruin everything.

Guess which one lingers?

It’s not about logic.
It’s about shame.

That breakup didn’t wreck you because of what the other person did.
It wrecked you because it whispered something you already feared might be true.
That you were too much. Or not enough. Or both somehow, which is rude.

The pain gets sharp when your identity gets involved.

The moment you start thinking this wouldn’t have happened if I were different,
the trauma doesn’t just live in the past.
It starts living inside you.

And that’s what sticks.
That’s what loops.
That’s what makes healing so maddening—because we’re not just grieving what happened.
We’re untangling who we thought we were because of it.

So maybe the question isn’t always
“What happened to me?”
Maybe it’s also
“What did I decide that meant about me?”

And if that part’s not actually true…
maybe that’s where the healing starts.

Even if it still hurts.
Even if your brain wants to argue.
Even if your shame throws a tantrum and says, “But I should’ve known better.”

You didn’t.
You couldn’t.
And it doesn’t mean anything about who you are now.

Which, honestly, is kind of great news.
Because it means you don’t have to go back and rewrite the story.
You just get to stop making it all about you.

(Even if your shame really, really wants it to be.)

Embracing Shadows, Illuminating Hope,
Chelsey Fjeldheim, LCSW
Empowering Souls on the Path of Healing

Copyright © 2025 Chelsey Fjeldheim, Courage Speaks Counseling