Trauma isn't just what happens to you - it's what happened inside as a result of what happened to you

Essay by Nina Madden EMDR therapist, NLP Coach and trainer. London and globally. 

13 May 2026 

London. 

Trauma isn't just what happened to you. It is what happened inside of you as a result of the thing that happened to you.

Trauma isn’t always car accidents, war, abuse, crimes and violent attacks. Trauma can take many forms, perhaps you were hurt, or you hurt someone and you can’t get over it. Perhaps you suffer with guilt, anxiety, or inner pain.

Trauma are experiences that destabilise our worldview, or view of humanity, of ourselves, of our place in the world, the risk it is to be human. Trauma is a shock to the system; intolerable cruelty by someone who is meant to protect you, lack of care from someone who is supposed to care, and sometimes it can be our own actions.

The impact of a trauma doesn’t always look like flashbacks or nightmares. 

Sometimes it runs like an undercurrent throughout our lives.

A sense that no matter our achievements - we're going to be found out, to be exposed, to be shown not to live up to expectations.

No matter how much effort we put into our looks, we’re never going to be skinny enough, beautiful enough - someone else is always skinnier, more beautiful, more desirable.

This undercurrent can run silently for years and decades.

We’re never able to put the finger on what is wrong with us, but we sense it nonetheless. That feeling that something is wrong with us.

We just can't say exactly what it is.

Most of the time “T” goes incognito.

You don’t identify with any trauma or idea of trauma. You read about it but you had a happy childhood, your parents tried their best, you have “forgiven” them.

You think okay, they were not perfect but they had their challenges, their upbringing. They had it worse than you.

So many of my clients are well adjusted, successful, with full lives, ambitious careers at various stages, relationships that seem full.

Even so, they can’t shake that feeling, an emptiness, and that something not right.  

No matter how many accolades, how many successes, how skinny you become, or how many adoring friends you have.

This is because it doesn’t look like trauma, 

The original events are long forgotten. But the feeling still remains:

Never good enough, successful enough, never having achieved enough. Someone is always better, more successful, skinnier.

The solution becomes we build careers, successful companies, higher positions, busy seemingly full lives, to compensate for an emptiness.

And that’s okay surely? That’s life. It’s to be enjoyed, lived, maximised.

And you’ve forgiven those who hurt you, you rationalise, even minimise. Or perhaps you tap into psycho-spiritual narratives of sending love, sending compassion.

You are under pressure to forgive (because that is what a good and enlightened person does) but then a partner looks at you in a certain way, a certain email drops into your inbox, a parent says something off hand, and you feel the rage rising up. Or the tears, or the loneliness.

You’ve been to therapy, you’ve talked about it, but it doesn’t change the feelings, the reactions in the moment.

It hasn’t helped you heal.

The slightest touch It still hurts.

This is because trauma isn’t what happened.

It’s the imprint of what happened.

The thing that happened inside of you as a result of that thing that happened to you.

The imprint on your identity.

On how you feel about yourself.

About who you feel you are.

About your self-concept.

The trauma is the imprint on who you believe yourself to be.

Sometimes if feels like shame.

We want to sink and hide.

We receive a critical email, we get rejected, we say something and then wonder if what we said was stupid. Shame washes over us, and we sink to hid.

And if shame is too hard a feeling to feel, we cover it with rage.

Rage hits in the heat, the flash the moment – takes us over, and the outburst has happened before we even realise.

Sometimes it feels like we’re going to die.

We’ve been left – abandoned. And that feels like we are going to die.

These emotions are not rational, they’re not cognitive.

They don’t discriminate between rich or poor, enlightened or not, educated or not.

Taking therapy doesn't touch the sides.

CBT creates more internal conflict.

It's hidden pain that never went away

Like an open wound – the slightest touch is unbearable, the small comment, the snide remark and the match is lit. Your anger flares up, or your shame hits you like a punch in the stomach. 

This isn’t because you’re broken, or because you’re bad. This doesn’t mean you’re scarred. Or that you haven’t done enough of your CBT exercises.

It means it still hurts.

Not because you’re broken or you haven’t tried hard enough, but because you were hurt. And you haven’t yet found the place or method, or space, or person to truly heal.

What we call irrational behaviours, flying off the handle, getting tearful, or a constant churning of anxiety or irritation, a desire to flee, to fight, or to turn yourself into a pretzel to please (fawning) are all signs of hidden pain.

This is what I do in EMDR therapy with my clients. I hold the space to heal that hurt at the very core.

This being human is a guesthouse – every morning a new arrival; a shame a meanness, a depression; invite them all. (Rumi)

Hold each one of them as your wounded self – because that is what they are.

When I found a compassionate metaphor of Rumi’s poem the Guesthouse I knew this was the space to hold, hear and heal these wounds with EMDR at the very core.

I think probably this is a good place to disclose that I also went through two years of EMDR therapy, during which I faced the darkest demons within my soul. Memories I had tried to bury in the basement of my mind; wounds I believed I would carry with me to my grave. 

It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t fun, but it was healing.

Through that meeting with all those wounds within my own guesthouse – holding, hearing and healing – I found a love and compassion for the darkest corners of my soul.  

I learn from those two years of EMDR that through compassionate guidance to the very core of the issue we have the capacity to heal any past.

After all the coaching and NLP I had done (starting back in 2007) I had built a fun, meaningful and fulfilling life. That life was a life I was proud to lead, one of purpose; but had not warmed the rock of pain that still lived in my heart.

The question: What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you? Was an invitation to healing at the deepest level.

At that moment I made a choice. To stay silent, or to go there and by going there I found that I survived and that I was capable of healing.

The only way out is through. 

But those of you who know, who have experiences that words cannot capture the horror, so I spoke in broken sentences, fragmented words, pain in bits, words I had not shared with a soul for 40+ years.

And I watched the dot on the screen…

Today that memory and those memories are part of my story. I can talk about it - if I choose to and only whom I choose to - without collapsing. I can find the words. I can tell the story.

Those things happened to me, not because of me. I know I was not at fault.  

And that death is part of life.

Healing Happens in the Meeting With Self 

Healing happens in the compassionate meeting and witnessing of the self in those moments. And when someone holds you there long enough to see, long enough for the mud to clear, the darkness of the dark night to give way to dawn you can begin to see it for what it truly is.

Objectively, real. From a slight distance. But with compassion and love. 

You discover yourself exactly as you are, as you were.

You see the truth. You were never bad, never broken.

It sounds simple but is in fact ground breaking. 

You knew it but never felt it. 

The truth.

You were just a kid.

Like any other kid, doing their best, trying to get by.

With Love by Nina 

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Technical Note: EMDR uses bilateral stimulation with therapeutic protocols to heal the issues at the imprint level, beneath conscious cognition,. The result is integrating the healing with the conscious mind to create a new powerful understanding of yourself and your story and your place in the world.

Note - the quote that trauma isn't what happens to you it's what happens inside of you was popularised by Gabor M but well written about in the major trauma literature.

Note– before becoming a coach and EMDR therapist Nina Madden wrote her MA dissertation on language, poetry and trauma.