What Is Relational Trauma? Understanding the Invisible Wounds That Impact How You Love, Trust, and Relate
Understanding the Invisible Wounds That Impact How You Love, Trust, and Relate
Relational trauma means you’ve experienced emotional wounds within the context of relationships - often with parents, caregivers, romantic partners, friends, or other close bonds. These wounds may be invisible, but their impact shows up in the way you connect, trust, and relate to others… and to yourself.
Trauma is the lasting impact that happens after a stressful event, one that overwhelms the nervous system.
If you've ever wondered whether you're carrying the effects of relational trauma, you're not alone. Here’s how it can show up - and how healing begins.
Examples Of Relational Trauma:
Relational trauma isn’t just about what happened - it's also about what was missing and how safe or unsafe you felt in your connections.
Here are some common experiences that may create relational trauma
Experiencing gaslighting - when someone manipulates your reality, denies your truth, or flips the blame (learn more)
Narcissistic abuse, emotional abuse or highs-lows toxic relationship
Witnessing your parents divorce
Break ups that deeply impacted your sense of self and hold grief
Sexual or physical abuse
Death or loss of a loved one
Abandonment by a parent or caregiver
Witnessing domestic violence or growing up in a high-conflict household
Infidelity or betrayal by a partner
Neglect in your childhood or teen years
Growing up with emotional invalidation or absence
Being chronically guilt tripped or shamed (learn more)
Being bullied
Racism, homophobia, or discrimination of any kind
Parentification - role reversals where you had to emotionally care for a parent (read more here)
Enmeshment trauma (read more here)
A parent struggling with substance use or untreated mental health
Emotionally unpredictable, hypercritical, or reactive caregivers
What Are Attachment Wounds?
Attachment wounds occur when your early emotional needs - for love, security, and consistency - are met with abandonment, inconsistency, or emotional unavailability.
This might look like:
A caregiver who was emotionally absent or reactive
Never knowing how someone would respond to your needs
Being punished or dismissed for having feelings
These early wounds shape your adult relationships. You may feel anxious, crave closeness but fear it, or shut down entirely. This is often where anxious, avoidant, or disorganized attachment patterns come in.
How Unmet Emotional Needs Create Lasting Wounds
Relational trauma often stems from what you didn’t get - not just what was overtly harmful.
You may have grown up without:
Emotional validation
Comfort during fear or sadness
Encouragement or praise
Affection or protection
Consistent attunement
When these needs go unmet over time, we often internalize painful messages:
“I have to earn love.”
“My feelings don’t matter.”
“I’m too much - or not enough.”
This can lead to low self-worth, people-pleasing, over-functioning, and struggling to feel secure - even in healthy relationships.
The Long-Term Effects of Relational Trauma
Trauma experienced in relationships disrupts your development of a secure sense of self. When safety, attunement, or emotional consistency is missing or unpredictable, it can lead to:
✨ Difficulty with self-esteem and an internalized sense of unworthiness
✨ A loud inner critic or harsh negative self-talk
✨ Complex PTSD, anxiety, depression, or chronic functional freeze
✨ Trouble regulating emotions
✨ Feeling responsible for others' feelings or moods
✨ Avoidance, isolation, or fear of vulnerability
✨ People-pleasing and poor boundaries
✨ Perfectionism or the need to prove your worth
✨ Codependent relationships or emotional over-functioning
✨ Hypervigilance in relationships - constantly reading tone, mood, and energy
✨ Difficulty asserting needs or expressing anger
✨ Fear of abandonment
✨ Substance use issues or unhealthy coping behaviors
How Relational Trauma Feels
Relational trauma isn't always obvious at first. It often hides in the everyday ways you relate to people and yourself:
You might…
Feel anxious in close relationships
Fear abandonment or rejection
Crave connection but push it away
Feel "too much" and "not enough" at the same time
Struggle to manage or even identify your emotions
Feel irritable, reactive, overwhelmed, or emotionally shut down
Long for intimacy but fear what it would require of you
Find yourself repeating unhealthy patterns even when you know better
If this sounds familiar - I do want you to know it makes so much sense. These patterns were protective and helped you survive unsafe dynamics. But they don’t have to define how you connect now.
Healing From Relational Trauma
Healing relational trauma takes time, consistency, and safe connection. You don’t have to do it alone.
In therapy, we explore how past experiences shaped your current patterns - and gently untangle the beliefs, behaviors, and nervous system responses that no longer serve you.
Healing includes:
✨ Rebuilding self-trust
✨ Learning to recognize and communicate your needs
✨ Creating boundaries that feel clear, kind, and empowering
✨ Feeling safer in your own body
✨ Developing relationships where you feel seen, heard, and valued
Healing Also Happens Outside the Therapy Room
1. Let people in. Practice vulnerability with trusted loved ones - even when it feels terrifying. Ask for support. Share how you’re really doing. It’s okay to take small steps.
2. Reconnect with yourself. Get to know who you are beneath the trauma. What brings you joy? What soothes your nervous system? What lights you up? Create habits of self-care, rituals of comfort, and moments of self-compassion.
3. Challenge old beliefs. You are not “too much.” Your needs are not a burden. You are allowed to take up space, ask for what you need, and be loved for exactly who you are.
About The Author
Hi! I'm Alyssa! I’m a trauma therapist that specializes in helping women heal from relational trauma, c-ptsd, anxiety,
codependency, perfectionism, and people pleasing patterns. My approach blends holistic, somatic, nervous system care, & EMDR.
✨ I provide online therapy to adults located in New York, New Jersey, Washington, DC, and Maryland.
📩 Email me at alyssakushnerlcsw@gmail.com or schedule a free 15-minute consultation to get started.
💬 Follow me on Instagram for more tips, tools, and inspiration around healing, self-trust, and mental health.
✨Not ready for therapy yet? Stay connected by subscribing to my free monthly newsletter, where I share mental health tips, a free self love mini workbook, journal prompts, and upcoming offerings to support your healing journey.
I also run an online Women’s Relational Trauma, Anxiety, & Self-Trust Support Group. We meet Tuesdays from 4:30-5:45 est and cover topics related to this blog. If you want to learn more on these patterns and how to actually overcome them, if you want to gain the support of others who are struggling with similar challenges, and you want to heal in a community of women - please schedule a free phone consultation to learn more!
Disclaimer
This post is meant for educational purposes only and isn’t a substitute for diagnosis, assessment or treatment of mental conditions. If you need professional help, seek it out.
