When your past still dictates your present
Trauma doesn't always come from one catastrophic event. Often, it develops through repeated experiences that teach your nervous system how to protect you. You may have grown up in an unpredictable home, had your emotional needs dismissed, experienced sexual abuse, neglect, or medical trauma, or spent years feeling like you had to ignore your own needs to stay safe.
Those experiences can continue to shape you after they're over, showing up as anxiety, perfectionism, people-pleasing, burnout, disconnection, or difficulty trusting yourself and others.
If you're feeling stuck, exhausted, tired of living in survival mode, and want to make a change, I'm here to help.
Trauma can affect your life long after it's over
Painful and distressing experiences can change the way you relate to yourself, other people, and the world around you, whether they happened in childhood or adulthood, long ago or recently. You might notice yourself:
- Overthinking every decision
- Feeling responsible for everyone else's emotions
- Struggling to trust yourself and others
- Avoiding conflict or people-pleasing
- Shutting down, numbing, or disconnecting as a way to cope
- Living with constant anxiety, hypervigilance, or perfectionism
- Feeling numb, burned out, or exhausted
- Using work, substances, shopping, food, social media or other distractions to get through the day
- Feeling disconnected from your body and unsure of what you even feel
These responses don't mean you're broken or need to be fixed. They mean your nervous system developed specific ways to protect you. The challenge is that what once helped you get through difficult experiences can eventually make it harder to rest, trust yourself, feel close to other people, or actually enjoy your life.
The good news is that these patterns aren't permanent. With the right trauma-informed support, your nervous system can begin to learn that it doesn't have to work so hard anymore.
When insight isn't enough
Many of the people I work with are thoughtful and incredibly self-aware. They've done a lot of work on themselves and often understand why they struggle, but still feel stuck when it comes to healing and making lasting change.
This is especially true for developmental trauma, sexual abuse, medical trauma, and other experiences that may have left you feeling disconnected from your body or yourself. Sometimes those experiences show up as anxiety, dissociation, chronic stress, difficulty trusting others, or feeling like you're always waiting for something bad to happen. When your body has stored trauma, you may benefit from therapy that goes deeper than traditional talk therapy.
Holistic PTSD and trauma therapy
No single therapy approach works for everyone, so I'll collaborate with you so you feel supported and comfortable with your treatment plan. Depending on your needs, goals, and preferences, sessions may include:
- EMDR and Brainspotting: helping your brain and body reprocess painful memories so they aren't as emotionally intense.
- Somatic and polyvagal tools: body-based techniques to calm and regulate your nervous system.
- Parts work therapy: healing the different parts of yourself that have been carrying pain.
- Mindfulness-based therapy: building awareness so you can respond instead of react.
- Attachment-based therapy: strengthening your relationships with yourself and others.
- Reiki and energy-based practices: supplemental practices that gently support nervous system regulation and strengthen your sense of self.
Some days, we may spend time building resources and helping your nervous system settle and notice what safety feels like. Other days, we may use EMDR or Brainspotting to process experiences that words alone haven't been able to reach.
Rather than following a rigid protocol or cookie-cutter approach, I pay close attention to how you're responding in the moment and adjust our session accordingly. Over time, people often notice they feel more grounded, connected to themselves and their needs, and better able to respond to life's challenges with flexibility.
Healing is a return to yourself
Trauma can change how much of yourself you've had access to. Living in survival mode pulls you away from your intuition, body, creativity, relationships, and parts of yourself.
While my work is grounded in evidence-based trauma therapy, I believe that healing matters on a personal and, for some, a spiritual level.
Helping your nervous system feel safer helps you connect to your sense of self, body, and inner wisdom. In therapy, I'll help you integrate the parts of yourself that had to disconnect to survive, and support you in moving towards wholeness.
Am I the right trauma therapist for you?
My practice is a great fit for people who are ready to understand themselves with more compassion and move beyond simply managing symptoms. Many of the people I work with are:
- Healing from childhood, developmental, sexual, or medical trauma
- Struggling with anxiety, perfectionism, or burnout
- Feeling disconnected from themselves or their bodies
- Late-identified ADHD or autistic adults making sense of years of masking
- Working to break generational trauma patterns
- Recovering from relationships that left lasting emotional wounds
- Living with dissociation, numbness, or feeling disconnected from themselves
- Looking for a deeper approach after reaching the limits of talk therapy
Trauma therapy in Asheville and online in North Carolina
Whether you're looking for trauma therapy after childhood experiences, sexual assault, medical trauma, or years of being stuck in survival mode, I'd be honored to support you. I offer PTSD and trauma therapy in person at my Asheville office on Merrimon Avenue and online for adults throughout North Carolina.
Let's start with a free 15-minute consultation to talk about what you're looking for and see if we're a good fit.
