Safety After Trauma

When You Can't Trust Your Own Alarm System

Recently, I put up a question box on Instagram, and was intrigued when I got 3-4 variations of the same question.

In short, more than one person asked:

"I know my own history of trauma impacts how I see my partner. It's difficult for me to tell what is bad behavior and what is me, being hypervigilant or highly reactive because of my past."

I appreciate this question so much, because it shows true self-awareness. It's not just that smoke doesn't always mean fire (although that's real). It's that an overactive smoke alarm will react to stuff that is not even smoke—dust, steam, heat from the vacuum—and your body will get the exact same rush of adrenaline when you respond as if there's real flames.

I worry that a lot of relationship content misses this nuance. Not all hurts indicate harm. And if you assume that when you feel hurt, your partner has done something terribly wrong, you're likely to approach them with strategies that will cause them to wall off, and then you're left without the care you wanted in the first place.

Today, I'm writing about ways to establish relational safety when you know your internal barometer is a little wonky.

We'll discuss:

• how to assess whether your smoke detector is overactive, underactive, or both,
• strategies to ground yourself and reality check,
• and how to get care when there has been no harm, but you're still hurting.