The worst part of my story is not the harm done to me at the hands of caregivers throughout my life, or the institutional betrayal when organizations protect the abuser. It is how many other people have similar experiences. Every day in my Trauma Aware America Facebook community, I hear from people who have been treated horribly when they needed help.
Children abused and abandoned by caregivers, teachers, doctors, priests, scoutmasters, and family members. Core biological needs are chronically unmet. Then ignored or blamed as if the child was the problem.
Those children grow up shaped by such adverse conditions. They do not receive the relational and physiological input required for integration, stable regulation, or secure attachment.
In adulthood, they try to build lives, but they keep crashing because their nervous system developed under strain. The world continues to add demands on that same system without improving the conditions. Stress levels go up and functionality goes down.
Chronically stressed nervous systems and those with unresolved trauma are more vulnerable to addiction, chronic illness, criminalization, unemployment, homelessness, and so-called mental illness.
And if survivors reach for help believing they might finally receive it, they are often harmed again by the systems they turn to for help. It’s more of the same: institutional betrayal trauma upon betrayal trauma.
This is how mainstream Western culture treats trauma survivors.
The way forward is in learning how to support ourselves and one another where the system fails. We can help ourselves by understanding our nervous systems, noticing when we are triggered, and creating conditions that allow our bodies to settle: predictable routines, attuned relationships, and safe spaces for rest and reflection. We can help each other by offering consistent presence, listening without judgment, validating experiences, and building networks that reinforce safety rather than shame. Recovery and stability emerge not from fixing ourselves or “pushing through,” but from creating environments—both internal and relational—that finally allow our nervous systems to rest, integrate, and thrive.
