Trauma Therapy in Asheville NC
You don’t have to figure it out on your own.
Trauma specialist – Online therapy for adults in NC or TX
Trauma creates changes that you didn’t choose.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Why can’t I get it together?
Why can’t I get over this?
Why is this happening to me?
Painful experiences can leave us feeling as if we have lost control or are “going crazy.” Has something happened to you or around you that you just can’t seem to let go of? Do you find yourself struggling each day and wondering:
That thing that happened keeps rattling around in your brain despite your best efforts to push it away. Your mind is trying to work this thing out using shoulda, coulda, woulda, and if-onlys, but it just keeps looping on the same thoughts. You are so tired of thinking about it and feeling like it must be your fault or you failed or didn’t do enough or somehow deserved it.
Your mind is racing.
You are worried, anxious, and irritable, and you get upset over the smallest things and then feel bad because you snapped at someone you care about. . . again. At other times, you feel so disconnected or numb that you struggle to feel anything good or bad, which can be just as scary.
Your are stressed out.
It’s hard to work or get stuff done when you feel like this.
You jump at sounds and movement you never would have noticed before. You lose track of what you are trying to work on so everything takes so much longer to finish. It’s hard to remember anything and to make decisions, and you’re exhausted because you can’t get a good night’s sleep
You find yourself scanning for potential danger. You are suspicious of others, avoid others being behind or close to you, and find yourself avoiding situations that no longer feel safe. It’s hard to relax and just let go.
Your are hypervigilant.
racing heart hot flashes chills
shaking dry mouth dizziness
trouble breathing sweating
chest pain tension
nausea chest pressure
fear of dying or going crazy
You’re going about your day as best you can and suddenly your body starts reacting to something but you don’t know why. . .
Panic hits you.
You have a sense that something bad is about to happen, and you just want to get out of there and go home where you feel safer.
These changes that you didn’t ask for are wreaking havoc in your relationships and lifestyle.
You can’t do the things you want to do or that you used to enjoy doing because the thought of going out and about is overwhelming, overstimulating, or just plain uninteresting now. Your partner or child wants to go out to do something fun, but you just can’t right now and they don’t understand why. So you find yourself pulling back from family and friends, leaving you feeling even more isolated and alone.
You just aren’t yourself anymore and that voice inside your head won’t shut up about it. . .
Failure Weak
Worthless
Damaged Broken
Insignificant
Unlovable Never good enough
Stupid Inadequate
You didn’t ask for this.
You don’t want to feel this way anymore.
You wonder. . .
Is it possible to feel good again?
Your life doesn’t have to stay the way it is right now.
IMAGINE A LIFE. . .
where you aren’t bombarded by the painful things from your past
where that critic in your head isn’t hounding you
where you are able to go and do the things you want to do without fear
where panic is a thing of the past
where you understand and have greater control over your emotions and reactions.
where both your head and your heart really know at the deepest level that actually you didn’t fail, you did what you could given the circumstances, and you didn’t deserve what happened
Trauma may have created those changes you didn’t ask for, but healing is about creating the changes that you choose. Trauma-focused therapy can help you rebound from even the most difficult life experiences.
If you are willing to do the work, YOU HAVE THE POWER TO DECIDE YOUR FUTURE.
Goodness-Gracious. . .
Many people are surprised to learn that trauma is not about the event itself but rather the way we experience and respond to it. An event doesn’t have to be life-threatening to be traumatic. A reasonable rule-of-thumb is that if it felt traumatic and/or is having lasting negative effects, it was traumatic. For more information on trauma, see the FAQs below.
It is possible to have trauma and not know it. Chronic stress, anxiety, and depression may mean you have unresolved trauma. If what you read above sounds like your struggle, you are likely living with unresolved trauma – an unfortunately common occurrence often at the core of chronic stress, anxiety, and depression.
WHAT WE’LL DO TOGETHER
Evidence-Based Therapy – Customized To Your Needs
The truth is that when we try to bury or ignore the painful things we’ve lived through, it doesn’t work so well, we just end up dragging them with us, and they tend to resurface when we least expect or want them to. It sucks, but it’s true.
Your brain and body have to work through and integrate the things you live through. Most of the time, this happens organically because your brain is are hard-wired to do this job, but sometimes when life happens in a way that is too much, too fast, or too soon, this process gets blocked and we are unable to integrate and recover from what happened. Trauma therapy targets this problem.
Information, Skills, & Rebuilding
As a part of this process, I will answer all your questions about what is happening to you and why, and how we can begin to change it. We will review life skills designed to help you manage triggers, stressors, and big emotions, and we will make a plan to tackle other goals that are part of your wish list as you find relief and build a better tomorrow.
EMDR Therapy
It may feel impossible to you now, but please know that you can heal from trauma. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR) is a powerful tool that provides lasting results by addressing the root of the problem not just your current symptoms. Using EMDR, we can tap into the power of your brain’s own healing mechanism to reprocess past experiences and current triggers that continue to control and limit your life. As this happens, you move through old experiences, release unhelpful stories you tell yourself about what happened and who you are, and let go of reactions and patterns that no longer serve you. To learn more, click here.
Take the ‘gut punch’ out of painful experiences & stop the endless reliving of them in the daytime and in your dreams
Find release from the endless shoulda/coulda/wouldas, self-blame, and self-loathing
Get out and about and do life without so much anxiety, overwhelm, or anger
Reconnect to family, friends, and activities that you want in your life
Find more joy, amusement, and serenity
Wake up feeling rested and ready to face the day
Trauma Therapy can help you:
I specialize in trauma therapy for:
Medical professional and other frontline worker experiences
Accidents (e.g., car, motorcycle, work, training, medical…)
Traumatic breakups
Medical trauma
Childhood trauma
Near death experiences
Traumatic grief and loss
Non-consensual sexual experiences and sexual harassment
Physical assault
Crime victims
Natural disasters
First Responder experiences
Military-connected trauma
Anxiety symptoms today related to past upsetting life events
"When a young tree is injured it grows around that injury. As the tree continues to develop, the wound becomes relatively small in proportion to the size of the tree. Gnarls, burls and misshapen limbs speak of injuries and obstacles encountered through time and overcome. The way a tree grows around its past contributes to its exquisite individuality, character, and beauty.”
-Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma
"Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending--to rise strong, recognize our story, and rumble with the truth until we get to a place where we think, Yes. This is what happened. This is my truth. And I will chose how the story ends."
-Brene’ Brown
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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Trauma is not an event itself but rather the way a person experiences and responds emotionally to an event. Trauma doesn’t have to be life-threatening and can include experiences that are painful, disturbing, or overwhelming. Trauma can occur in response to something a person experiences personally or witnesses happening to others (and sometimes even only hears about). It can be a single event or a series of similar events, and what is traumatic for one person may not be experienced as traumatic for someone else.
It is possible to be struggling with unresolved trauma and not even know it. In fact, it is not unusual for people to discount their experiences as “not big enough” or “not serious enough” to qualify as trauma. A reasonable rule-of-thumb is that if it felt traumatic and/or is having lasting negative effects, it was traumatic. Also, if you struggle with chronic anxiety, depression, or stress, it is likely that you are struggling with unresolved underlying trauma.
Some examples of events that may be traumatizing include:
•Unmet developmental needs during a critical period
•Parental loss in childhood
•Hateful or hurtful behavior by caregivers
•Physical, emotional, and sexual abuse
•Unpredictable or scary childhood
•Being raised by impaired or depressed caregivers
•Emotional neglect in childhood
•Traumatic labor and deliver
•Rejection by family when ‘coming out’
•Scary or life-threatening medical or dental procedures
•Sudden death of someone close to you
•Living in a dangerous environment
•A life-threatening illness
•Life-threatening events
•Being bullied
•Violence within close relationships / “domestic violence”
•Non-consensual sexual experiences
•Sexual harassment
•Serious accidents
•Witnessing violence
•Military combat
•Witnessing a suicide, abuse, or neglect
•Death or suicide of a loved one
•Social injustices, racism or other discrimination
•Natural disasters
•Terrorism
•Physical assault
•Auto accidents
•Death of a loved pet
•Discovering a partner’s infidelity
•A humiliating experience
•Work-related disturbing events (e.g., first responders, medical professionals, witnessing or experience life-threatening events at work)
•Vicarious trauma in helping professionals
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Trauma results from painful, overwhelming, disturbing, or distressing experiences. There is no ‘bar’ an event must reach in order to qualify as trauma. Rather, what matters is your subjective emotional experience of and response to the event. The effects of trauma can show up in many different ways such as:
•Chronic stress, anger, anxiety, and depression
•Upsetting memories and emotions that won’t go away
•Strong emotional and physical reactions to things that remind you of what happened
•Trying to avoid thinking or talking about what happened
•Avoiding people, places, and situations that feel unsafe or remind you of what happened
•Trying to stay busy to avoid the memories or reminders of what happened
•Inability to do the things you want to do because of fear, anxiety, or panic
•Nightmares or flashbacks tied to a painful experience
•Being unable to relax or in a constant state of alertness
•Problems getting to sleep or staying sleeping
•Reactions to events that are out-of-proportion to the event
•Feeling numb or disconnected from yourself or what’s happening around you
•Use of substances or risky behaviors to ‘numb the pain’
•Lack of interest in things you previously enjoyed
•Thinking no one understands and having difficulties trusting others
•Withdrawing or feeling detached from family and friends
•Intense guilt or shame
•Frequent fatigue, headaches, gastro-intestinal symptoms, or body pain without a known medical cause
If you see yourself in the list above and things aren’t getting better, please seek professional assistance. There are effective therapies that can help.
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The short answer is ‘it depends.’ Length of treatment varies widely and will depend upon a client’s unique history, needs, and goals. At times, recovery can occur within a few sessions (e.g., single incident car accident in adulthood) but in other instances it could take a year or more (e.g., complex childhood trauma).
Some factors that impact how long trauma therapy takes include:
•Client’s goals for therapy: Some people focus on reduction of daily symptoms so their day-to-day life gets easier or they are able to function in a job or relationship. Others seek deeper healing of symptoms and patterns that no longer serve them as well as personal growth.
•Type, timing, and severity of traumatic events. Single event traumas in adulthood tend to move toward recovery more quickly and easily than childhood trauma or chronic/repeated trauma. Trauma therapy tends to take longer if you experienced multiple instances of maltreatment or were particularly vulnerable at the time of the event(s). Also, if the harm was done by someone who was supposed to take care of you or someone you trusted, the injury will likely be deeper and require additional attention to repair. Recovery can also be impacted by whether a person was able to successfully “escape” or “fight back” during the experience and whether the experience violated a person’s moral code. That all being said, sometimes the absence of things that were supposed to be there (i.e., emotional neglect during childhood) can take even longer to recover from.
•History of other trauma. Unresolved other trauma in our past can slow recovery and may need attention too.
•Support systems. Lack of support after a traumatic experience or currently can impact symptom onset and severity and can complicate recovery.
•Lifestyle and coping skills. Good self-care (sleep, eat, exercise, healthy coping skills, etc…) can impact duration of trauma treatment.
•Co-occurring conditions. The presence of other medical and emotional conditions (e.g., depression, certain personality styles, substance use disorders, etc…) may require longer treatment.
So this means that it isn’t possible to give you a definitive answer to the question of how long trauma treatment takes, but you may have some sense of ‘longer vs shorter’ duration given how your history and experiences match up to the information provided above.
My goal is to help you recover as quickly as possible. As a part of this, we will have ongoing discussions about estimated treatment length, and we will regularly review changes you are noticing between sessions and progress you’ve made toward your therapy goals.
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It is important that you feel in control of your therapy process so I will not ask you to share anything you don’t want to. While it can be helpful to share details of what you experienced, it is not necessary with EMDR. During the processing of traumatic memories, EMDR taps into the hard-wired mechanism in your brain that already knows how to work through the pieces of your experience, allowing self-healing. As your guide, I simply have to know that the process is still moving, and you aren’t stuck.
You are in control the entire time so you get to choose what you share.