Part 1 of 3 – Awareness: Why Your Trauma Makes You Think You Don’t Have Trauma

Tomas Alenskas
Apr 10
4 min read

When ‘Normal’ Isn’t Normal (And Never Was)

Maybe someone looked shocked when you casually shared something from your childhood, and you were confused as to why it seemed like such a big deal to them.

After all, you turned out fine. Right?

This 3 part series is about the kind of trauma that doesn’t always feel like trauma. The stuff that shaped us so early, or so subtly, that we never thought to question it. We adapted to it, worked around it, normalised it. And because we survived it, we assumed it wasn’t that serious.

But survival isn’t the same as healing. And just because something became your “normal” doesn’t mean it was ever okay.

When you drop some heavy story from your past and follow it up with, ‘but that’s just the tip of the iceberg’... this one’s for you.

This article is Part 1 of a 3-Part Series We’re unpacking a big, often invisible topic: how trauma hides in plain sight, and why so many of us don’t even realise we’ve been carrying it. Here’s what you can expect across the series: Part 1 – Awareness, (you’re here) Part 2 – Patterns, Part 3 – Healing. Each part stands on its own, so you can start anywhere, but together, they form a clearer picture. If something in this post hits home, there’s more ahead that might help you make sense of things in a way you never have before.

Why Your Trauma Makes You Think You Don’t Have Trauma: Part 1 of 3 – Awareness

What Even Is Trauma, Really?

When most people hear the word trauma, they picture car crashes, war zones, or something you’d see on the news. But trauma isn’t always loud or obvious. Sometimes, it’s the quiet absence of safety. The lack of emotional connection. The feeling of never being seen, heard, or cared for properly.

In psychology, trauma is less about the event and more about its impact. It’s what happens inside you when something overwhelms your ability to cope, especially if that overwhelm goes unsupported or unacknowledged.

This means trauma can look like:

Growing up with an emotionally unavailable parent.
Being made to feel like your feelings were “too much.”
Always having to be the responsible one, even as a child.
Feeling chronically unsafe, even if nothing dramatic “happened.”

Researchers have even coined the term “little-t trauma” for the kind that builds up over time, micro-abandonments, chronic stress and subtle but persistent emotional neglect. These experiences don’t always leave visible scars, but they can shape your nervous system, your worldview, and your sense of self in profound ways.

Why We Don’t See Trauma in Ourselves

Here’s the tricky part: if something has always been part of your life, it won’t stand out as unusual. If you grew up walking on eggshells, you might think it’s expected to monitor people’s moods. If no one comforted you when you were upset, you might believe your emotions are a burden.

It’s not uncommon for people to say things like:

“They never hit me or anything...”
“It wasn’t abuse, I just had to grow up fast.”
“That’s just how it was back then.”

These are all ways we minimise what we’ve been through, not out of denial, but out of adaptation. If we acknowledged how painful something truly was while we were still living in it, it might have broken us. So instead, we shrink it. We rationalise. We compare our pain to others. We tell ourselves we’re being dramatic.

And over time, we forget that we ever needed to shrink it in the first place.

The Cost of Carrying Trauma Unseen

The thing about unacknowledged trauma is it doesn’t just disappear. It finds other ways to show up.

Maybe you:

Apologise constantly, even when you’ve done nothing wrong.
Struggle to trust people, even the ones who love you.
Feel numb or disconnected, but you can’t explain why.
Push yourself to exhaustion, just to feel “enough.”

These aren’t personality flaws. They’re coping strategies that once kept you safe.

But if you're still carrying them now, if you're still living in survival mode long after the danger has passed, those same strategies might be quietly draining you. And the worst part? You might not even realise it, because it's just how you’ve always been.

You’re Not Broken: You’re Conditioned

If any of this is resonating, please know: It doesn’t mean you’re broken.

It means you adapted. You learned what you had to do to stay afloat in the environment you were given. That takes strength. And also, it takes a toll.

Becoming aware of this isn’t about blaming your parents, your past, or yourself. It’s about creating space for the truth. Because when we name what hurt us, we stop making ourselves wrong for still feeling it.

And when we stop pretending we're fine, we open the door to actually becoming well.

Where Help Comes In

The truth is, that trauma hides best when you’ve had to survive it. It convinces you that everything is fine, you’re just too sensitive, you’re overthinking, it’s all in your head.

But you don’t have to keep surviving. You’re allowed to start living.

If this post stirred something in you, if you're starting to connect dots you hadn’t before, you don’t have to figure it all out on your own.

We offer online counselling that’s affordable, accessible, and designed for exactly this. We don’t need your trauma to be dramatic. We don’t need your story to be tidy. We just meet you where you are.

No pressure. Just support.