Plain-language glossary of trauma terms

Trauma

Plain language: "An experience so overwhelming that your mind and body couldn't process it normally at the time."

Trauma refers to the emotional and psychological response to a deeply distressing event or series of events. It's not the event itself — it's what happens inside you as a result. Trauma can be a single incident (acute) or repeated over time (chronic/complex). Not everyone responds to the same event the same way — what matters is the impact, not the category.

What survivors often say: "I didn't think what happened to me 'counted' as trauma. It wasn't dramatic enough. But the way I've lived my whole life told a different story."

Complex PTSD (C-PTSD)

Plain language: "PTSD from something that happened once. C-PTSD from something that happened over and over — especially in childhood."

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder develops from prolonged, repeated trauma — particularly when there was no way to escape, as in childhood abuse or neglect. Unlike PTSD, C-PTSD includes additional symptoms: difficulty regulating emotions, deeply negative self-perception, problems with relationships, and dissociation. It's extremely common in survivors of childhood trauma and is often misdiagnosed as depression, BPD, or anxiety.

What survivors often say: "I spent years being told I was too sensitive, too angry, too much. Turns out I had C-PTSD. That word changed everything."

Dissociation

Plain language: "When your mind leaves the room to protect you from something it can't handle right now."

Dissociation is a disconnection from thoughts, feelings, surroundings, or identity. It's a spectrum — from mild (zoning out, feeling foggy) to severe (losing time, feeling like you're watching yourself from outside your body). In trauma survivors, dissociation is almost always a protective response the nervous system developed. It was a survival tool. The goal isn't to shame it — it's to gently build safer alternatives.

What survivors often say: "I could be in a conversation and suddenly I wasn't there. It terrified me until I understood it was my brain protecting me the only way it knew how."

Trigger / Being Triggered

Plain language: "When something in the present reminds your nervous system of something in the past — and your body reacts as if it's happening again right now."

A trigger is any stimulus — a sound, smell, word, situation, or feeling — that activates a trauma response. The brain hasn't fully processed the original trauma, so it treats the reminder as the same threat. Triggers are not weakness or oversensitivity. They are the nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do — protect you from danger.

What survivors often say: "I couldn't explain why a certain tone of voice made me want to disappear. Now I know — it wasn't about the person. It was about who used that voice on me when I was seven."

Hypervigilance

Plain language: "Always watching for the thing that's about to go wrong — even when everything is fine."

Hypervigilance is a state of heightened alertness where the nervous system is constantly scanning for danger. In trauma survivors who grew up in unsafe environments, this becomes the default setting. It causes exhaustion, difficulty relaxing, sleep problems, and relationship difficulties — because the body never gets to fully rest.

What survivors often say: "I thought everyone felt this way — always tense, always listening for footsteps. I didn't know there was a name for it, or that not everyone lived like this."

Inner Child

Plain language: "The part of you that still carries what the child version of you experienced — and never got to fully heal from."

The inner child is a psychological concept referring to the emotional experiences, beliefs, and unmet needs formed in childhood that continue to influence adult behaviour. When a child experiences trauma without adequate support, those emotional wounds don't automatically heal with age — they become patterns.

What survivors often say: "I thought healing meant forgetting about what happened to that little kid. It actually meant going back and sitting with him — and telling him it wasn't his fault."

Fight, Flight, Freeze & Fawn — The Four Trauma Responses

Plain language: "The four ways your nervous system automatically tries to protect you when it senses danger — responses you learned long before you had words for them."

FIGHT — The nervous system responds by pushing back — anger, aggression, confrontation. In adult survivors this often shows up as rage, defensiveness, or conflict in relationships.

You might recognize this as: explosive anger, irritability, needing to be right, difficulty tolerating criticism.

FLIGHT — The nervous system responds by running — physically or emotionally. Shows up as workaholism, constant busyness, anxiety, avoidance, or leaving situations that feel unsafe before anything bad happens.

You might recognize this as: restlessness, always being busy, avoiding conflict, leaving relationships before they end.

FREEZE — When fight and flight aren't available, the nervous system shuts down. Freezing is not consent. It is not weakness. It is the nervous system doing the only thing left available to it.

You might recognize this as: going blank, inability to speak or move, shutting down emotionally, dissociation, numbness.

FAWN — The nervous system tries to neutralize the threat by becoming whatever the threat needs you to be. The fourth response — and the least talked about.

You might recognize this as: people-pleasing, over-apologising, inability to say no, putting everyone else first always.

Important: Most survivors don't have just one response — they have a combination, and different situations can trigger different ones. None of these are character flaws. They are patterns your nervous system learned to keep you safe.

What survivors often say: "I thought freezing meant I consented. I thought fawning meant I was weak. Understanding these as automatic nervous system responses — things that happened to me, not choices I made — changed everything."

Fawn Response (People-Pleasing)

Plain language: "When you learned to keep yourself safe by making sure everyone around you was okay — even at the cost of yourself."

The fawn response is the fourth trauma response alongside fight, flight, and freeze. It involves appeasing others to avoid conflict or danger — often developed by children who learned that their safety depended on managing an unpredictable adult's emotions.

What survivors often say: "I was so good at reading the room. At making everyone comfortable. I didn't realize until I was an adult that I'd learned it to survive."

Window of Tolerance

Plain language: "The zone where you're activated enough to function but calm enough to think — and why trauma makes that zone so much smaller."

Developed by Dr. Dan Siegel, the window of tolerance describes the optimal zone of arousal for processing emotions. Trauma narrows this window — survivors often swing between hyperarousal (anxiety, rage, panic) and hypoarousal (numbness, shutdown, dissociation). Healing involves gradually widening that window.

What survivors often say: "I was either completely overwhelmed or completely numb. I didn't know there was supposed to be a middle ground."

Attachment Styles

Plain language: "The pattern your nervous system learned for how to be close to people — based on how closeness felt when you were small."

The four main attachment styles: Secure (safe, trusting), Anxious/preoccupied (fear of abandonment), Avoidant/dismissive (discomfort with closeness), Disorganized/fearful (wanting closeness but being terrified of it). Attachment styles are not fixed — they can change with safe relationships and therapy.

What survivors often say: "I kept pushing people away when they got close, or clinging so hard I scared them off. Understanding attachment was like finally reading the instruction manual for myself."

Gaslighting

Plain language: "When someone made you question your own memory, perception, or sanity — usually to avoid accountability."

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person is made to question their own reality. Common phrases include 'that never happened,' 'you're too sensitive,' 'you're imagining things.' In childhood trauma, gaslighting by caregivers is particularly damaging because children rely on adults to help them make sense of reality.

What survivors often say: "I spent decades wondering if I'd made it all up. I hadn't. But the doubt they planted took almost as long to undo as the harm itself."