Trauma
The generational patterns of emotional disconnection and "powering through" have now taken a toll, and your body is keeping score with chronic pain and exhaustion that no amount of sleep can fix.
Your nervous system is stuck in permanent overdrive from decades of crisis management, leaving you jumpy at unexpected phone calls and unable to enjoy quiet moments without waiting for the other shoe to drop. The childhood wounds of emotional neglect and having to grow up too fast have shaped you into someone who gives until empty but doesn't know how to receive care.
It's the moment your teenage daughter looks at you with the same disappointment you once felt toward your own mother, and you realize you've become everything you swore you wouldn't be. The trauma hits when you're screaming at your family over burnt dinner while your dad calls for the third time today, and you hear your mother's voice coming out of your mouth. It's that gut-punch moment when your son asks why you're always angry, and you realize your children are experiencing the same walking-on-eggshells childhood you had with stressed-out parents. Being free from trauma feels like your body finally remembering it's safe—no more flinching at unexpected sounds, no more scanning every room for exits, just the profound relief of existing without armor. You remember who you were before survival mode became your default setting.
"When you hesitate to call what happened to you 'trauma' because you weren't in a war zone or natural disaster, I immediately recognize that classic Gen X minimizing—we were raised to think trauma only counted if it made the evening news. I know how our generation was conditioned to believe that pain only counted if it was catastrophic, as if emotional neglect, parentification, and childhood chaos aren't themselves trauma. I see the moment of validation in your eyes when I explain that growing up with emotional neglect, constant criticism, and parentification because your parents were too (busy surviving their own struggles) absolutely qualifies as trauma, even if nobody talked about it back then.
Together, we'll unpack how your hypervigilance and people-pleasing aren't personality quirks—they're brilliant adaptations your nervous system developed to keep you safe in an unpredictable world. The breakthrough comes when you finally understand that healing doesn't mean forgetting or forgiving everything, but learning to trust your own perceptions.
Growing up as a Generation Xer, therapy was stigmatized, and "just suck it up" was considered sound mental health advice. I know we were taught to gaslight ourselves before we even knew what gaslighting meant. Growing up in households where love felt conditional and emotions were dismissed absolutely shaped the Gen X nervous system.
​
We will challenge the belief that you have to earn the right to heal, because our generation was raised to think seeking help was weakness rather than wisdom. You'll finally have permission to grieve what you didn't get instead of constantly defending what you did survive.
​
In our work together, we'll explore how your tendency to shut down during conflict or your inability to relax even when things are going well aren't character flaws, It's the courage to be vulnerable in conversations without immediately calculating the potential for emotional devastation. It's discovering that your shoulders can actually rest below your ears, (remember that clenched jaw we spoke about earlier) and feeling your nervous system downshift from hypervigilance to something that resembles the peace you vaguely remember before everything got complicated.
Generation X, being free from trauma, creates those quiet bathroom mirror moments when you look into your own eyes without flinching, seeing someone worthy of kindness and grace instead of cataloging flaws or bracing for self-criticism. It's that Tuesday afternoon when you're grocery shopping and realize you've been jamming to the store's soundtrack the entire time, your body moving through the world with ease instead of that old familiar tension, like you're finally comfortable in your own skin for the first time in decades.
Liberation from trauma feels like finally peeling off that invisible armor you've been wearing since the '80s—suddenly hugs don't require mental preparation and compliments land without triggering your internal fraud alert system. It's walking into social situations without automatically cataloging exit strategies or scanning faces for signs of judgment, your authentic self emerging from decades of protective camouflage. It’s being able to isolate present-day disagreements instead of defaulting to reflexes rooted in past experiences. It's the revelation that you can experience conflict without your nervous system launching into full-scale war mode.
You've been carrying heavy stuff for decades, telling yourself it wasn't 'that bad' or that you should just 'get over it' because that's what Gen Xers were taught - to be tough, independent, and never admit when something actually rocked us. You've spent years perfecting the art of dark humor and emotional distance to cope with things that should never have happened to you, and I won't ask you to drop those defenses until you're ready because I know they kept you alive. I get that trusting someone with your deepest pain feels terrifying when you've learned that the people who were supposed to protect you sometimes didn't - or worse, were the ones who hurt you. We'll work through your trauma using approaches that honor your strength and resilience while acknowledging that even the toughest Gen Xer deserves to heal and feel safe in their own skin. Our sessions will be like finally having someone witness your story without trying to fix you, minimize your experience, or tell you how you should feel - just real, honest work to help you transform from enduring each day to actually creating a life you don't need to escape from.
Before we even knew what gaslighting meant. Growing up in households where love felt conditional and emotions were dismissed absolutely shaped the Gen X nervous system.
We will challenge the belief that you have to earn the right to heal, because our generation was raised to think seeking help was weakness rather than wisdom. You'll finally have permission to grieve what you didn't get instead of constantly defending what you did survive.
Book a consultation now!