Childhood Trauma: What Happens When Early Wounds Live in the Body

Childhood trauma doesn’t just live in memory or thought. It often lives in the nervous system, changing how we respond to stress, relationships, and even our own internal sensations. Understanding this can help make sense of reactions that otherwise feel confusing or frustrating, and it creates a more compassionate framework for healing.

Many people come to somatic therapy because something in their day-to-day life feels off, even if they can’t fully explain why. It might look like chronic anxiety, low mood, emotional overwhelm, feeling shut down or disconnected, difficulty resting, tension or pain in the body, or patterns in relationships that feel hard to change. Often, these experiences aren’t happening because something is wrong in the present moment; they’re connected to how the body learned to survive earlier in life.

What Is Childhood Trauma?

The word “trauma” is used more and more. On top of that, “trauma-informed” has been pinned to many practitioners’ titles, but what does that really mean? Childhood trauma refers to experiences in early life that overwhelmed our ability to cope, process, or feel safe. These experiences can be obvious, such as abuse, loss, medical trauma, or witnessing violence, but they can also be subtle and ongoing, like emotional neglect, chronic stress, inconsistent caregiving, or growing up in an environment where we didn’t feel seen, protected, or supported.

What’s important to understand is that trauma isn’t defined only by what happened, but by how the nervous system experienced it. Children depend on caregivers and their environment to help regulate stress. When support is missing or unpredictable, the body adapts. 

Why Childhood Experiences Matter More Than We Realize

During development, the brain and body are learning what safety feels like, how to recover from stress, and how to connect with others. These early experiences become the blueprint for emotional regulation, stress response, and relationship patterns later in life.

If a child’s environment is consistently overwhelming or unsafe, the nervous system may stay organized around protection (putting up walls) rather than regulation (relaxing and recovering). Over time, these patterns can feel automatic and deeply ingrained, not because someone is doing something wrong, but because their body only learned one way to survive. 

The Nervous System in Daily Life

(Survival Responses and How They Persist)

When a child experiences trauma, the autonomic nervous system often shifts into survival mode. These responses are meant to protect the body in the moment, but when we haven’t fully given them space to resolve, they can continue to shape adult behavior, emotions, and physical health.

Fight

What it is: The fight response mobilizes energy to confront a perceived threat. It’s associated with anger, tension, and a readiness to act.

What I see in Clients: In adulthood, this can look like irritability, chronic frustration, defensiveness, difficulty relaxing, jaw tension (“TMJ”), headaches, or feeling easily “set off.” Emotionally, it may show up as anger that feels disproportionate or hard to control, even in relatively safe situations.

Flight

What it is: Flight prepares the body to escape danger by increasing alertness and movement.

What I see in Clients: Anxiety, restlessness, overthinking, difficulty slowing down, perfectionism, or staying constantly busy. Physically, it may include racing thoughts, digestive issues, shallow breathing, or trouble sleeping. Many people in flight feel uneasy when things are calm.

Freeze

What it is: Freeze occurs when the nervous system perceives that fighting or fleeing isn’t possible. The body reduces movement and sensation to conserve energy.

What I see in Clients: Numbness, dissociation, brain fog, low motivation, or feeling “stuck.” Depression, fatigue, difficulty initiating tasks, and a sense of disconnection from emotions or the body are common. This state is often misunderstood as laziness or lack of willpower, when it is actually a protective shutdown.

Fawn

What it is: Fawn is a survival response that involves appeasing others to maintain safety and connection.

What I see in Clients: This can look like people-pleasing, difficulty setting boundaries, prioritizing others’ needs over one’s own, or fear of conflict. Emotionally, it may include chronic guilt or anxiety about disappointing others. Over time, this pattern can lead to burnout, resentment, or a loss of connection to one’s own needs.

These responses are not personality traits or character flaws. They are learned nervous system strategies that once served a protective purpose.

How the Body Stores Memory Without Words

Not all memory is stored as a story we can consciously recall. Especially in childhood, experiences are often encoded as implicit memory, held in sensations, muscle tone, posture, and physiological responses rather than language.

This is why someone may intellectually understand that they are safe, yet still feel anxious, tense, or shut down. The body responds first, based on past experience, before the thinking mind has a chance to catch up. These reactions are not irrational; they are the nervous system doing what it learned to do.

Tracking Sensation Instead of Re-Telling the Story

Somatic experiencing focuses on present-moment bodily experience rather than repeatedly revisiting past events. Instead of asking someone to relive or analyze trauma, the work involves noticing sensations, breath, movement, and subtle shifts in the body.

By tracking these sensations gently and at a manageable pace, the nervous system can begin to update its understanding of safety. This helps reduce overwhelm and allows regulation to build gradually, without forcing change or retraumatization.

Healing as Relearning Safety, Not Fixing What’s Broken

From a somatic perspective, trauma responses are not signs that something is wrong with a person. They are evidence of how intelligent the body is in adapting to difficult circumstances.

Healing involves helping the nervous system experience safety in small, consistent ways. Over time, people often notice more emotional flexibility, improved ability to rest, clearer boundaries, and a greater sense of choice in how they respond to stress. These changes tend to be subtle but meaningful.

A Closing Reflection on Self-Compassion and Pace

Working with childhood trauma is not about pushing through or “getting over” the past. The nervous system changes through patience, repetition, and safety. Progress may look like feeling slightly more grounded, reacting a little less intensely, or recovering more quickly after stress.

Approaching this process with curiosity and self-compassion allows the body to soften at its own pace. While early experiences leave an imprint, the nervous system also retains the capacity to reorganize, adapt, and heal when given the right conditions.

While it may take time, I can promise you that it’s worth it.