But not many people actually know the depth of it.
We have all heard the word trauma. And there are so many ways trauma can show up that, sometimes, finally being able to narrow things down and say, “Hey! I think I understand what’s happening here,” feels like finding a missing piece of yourself.
So, what is complex trauma?
Let me make it simple for you folks.
One way to understand it is this: living in survival mode for so long that your mind and body start treating survival as normal.
It is less about one bad event and more about what years of difficult experiences taught your nervous system to expect.
Especially when, somewhere along the way, you learnt that no one was coming to save you.
Constant emotional or physical abuse. Neglect. Unstable caregiving. Domestic violence. Repeated bullying. Coercive relationships. Or simply spending years in an environment where you constantly had to protect yourself.
And those are only some examples.
For children especially, growing up without consistent safety can leave marks that do not magically disappear once they become adults. That does not mean every child who experiences trauma will develop CPTSD. But prolonged trauma can shape the way a person learns to understand safety, relationships and even themselves.
And sometimes, those survival lessons follow us into adulthood.
They can show up in our relationships with ourselves and with other people. In the way we communicate. In the way we attach. In how quickly we notice changes in someone’s behaviour. In how fiercely independent we become.
Sometimes, even in the way we run before someone gets the chance to reject us.
So why am I talking about this?
Because learning about it blew my mind.
I had always taken pride in being able to survive on my own.
At the same time, being on my own used to hurt.
There were periods when I felt like nobody noticed me or cared about me. The bad mouthing, name calling, gossip and rumours sometimes felt like the only way I existed in other people’s conversations.
So I became a generation of my own.
I learnt painful lessons by myself. I learnt how to survive. How to move. How to pick myself up. How to depend on myself.
And I will be honest. I never really questioned why I became that person.
Until one fine day, a social worker friend of mine said:
“Hey Uma, I think you gotta read about complex trauma.”
My friend knew I was still recovering from depression. (I’m clinically diagnosed, don’t come at me.) She took the time to sit with me, talk to me and point me in this direction.
And my perspective changed.
It was honestly my ‘Bazinga’ moment.
Everything suddenly made a little more sense. The independence, the walls, the survival mode, the instinct to protect myself and the way I could walk away and keep moving even when something hurt.
Things started clicking. So naturally, I went down the rabbit hole.
And somewhere along the way, I took a deep breath and made a mental note to myself.
Now, I am writing it here:
“Hey. This isn’t easy. It was never easy. You went through years of not knowing. Now you know a little more. So we move forward.
We focus on the generation that you are.
You will not take shit anymore. You will move forward even when it is hard. You will move if moving means leaving people behind. You will move even when nobody wants to understand you.
And you are allowed to ask for help from people who are kind to you.
Focus on what is within your control. Let go of the rest.
No one owes you. You don’t owe everyone access to you either.
Detach. Move. Live.”
Pretty decent advice, I think.
And somewhere in all that solitude, I built peace. That peace made me realise that for years, my mind had learnt to expect that something would go wrong. That people could hurt me, that I had to notice everything, protect myself, handle things on my own and know when to leave.
Survival mode had done its job. It kept me moving when I did not know what else to do. But surviving for so long can also make safety feel unfamiliar, and that was the part that really stayed with me.
Maybe healing from complex trauma is not about becoming less independent or suddenly trusting everyone. Maybe it is about teaching yourself that not every silence means rejection, not every disagreement means danger and not everyone who comes close is coming to hurt you. It is learning that asking for help does not take away your strength, and that you do not have to spend the rest of your life preparing for the next thing that might go wrong.
I still have my little bubble, and I still protect it fiercely. But now I understand why I built it. It was the safety I did not always have, and perhaps the work now is not to tear those walls down for everyone, but to slowly teach the part of me that spent years surviving that she is allowed to live too.
And this is the part I want to be clear about: complex trauma did not destroy me.
It shaped parts of me. It made me hyper-aware, fiercely independent and protective of my peace. But it did not take away my ability to love, to trust carefully, to laugh, to build a life, to ask for more, or to become whole.
I am not a collection of everything that happened to me.
I am a whole person who happened to survive difficult things.
And healing, for me, has not meant pretending those years did not matter. It has meant understanding what they did to me, deciding what I want to keep, unlearning what no longer serves me and continuing to build a life that feels safe, full and mine.
Complex trauma taught me how to survive. Healing taught me that I am allowed to be more than a survivor.
And apparently, self-awareness means I can no longer blame everything on character development. Very rude.
Anyway, this is Uma, lately.
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