PTSD Counseling NYC: Why It’s So Hard to Feel Safe & Get Close

Trauma survivors, particularly those suffering from PTSD, aren’t exempt from the desire to be connected, affirmed, and supported. It’s human to want to belong. It’s natural to seek out love and closeness. Yet, a traumatic experience like abuse, an assault, a neglectful caregiver, or a betraying partner can seriously impact your relationships with people. Unaddressed, trauma can significantly alter your natural drive to seek or maintain attachments to others in a healthy, fulfilling way.

Please know that you aren’t alone if you feel this disquieting tension between social connection and withdrawal. The internal defenses you live with are not abnormal. After all, who doesn’t want to keep themselves safe from harm? On the other hand, who doesn’t want to be reassured that they are seen, heard, and deserving of love and comfort? 

The after-effects of trauma simply pull you in two directions. You are wired to love and belong but learned to fear relationships and intimacy. So how do you find relief?

PTSD Counseling NYC: Understanding Your Inner Defenses

Untreated PTSD Distracts and Discourages

Attention to trauma in recent decades has informed more of us now about Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. However, it’s crucial to recognize how trauma prevents trauma survivors from leaning into relationships. In your case, do unwanted memories or flashbacks/nightmares may keep you isolated? Does your tendency to startle easily or react physically worry or embarrass you and prompt you to keep people at a distance? 

You aren’t alone. Unresolved trauma can keep you in a state of fear and discomfort. You may find this distracts you from people and getting to know them or discourages you from letting your guard down. Either way, your trauma and trauma responses may feel too disturbing to relax in relationships, no matter how beneficial. Letting go and moving forward may feel nearly impossible as your mind and body cycle through trauma responses like fight, flight, freezing, or fawning long after your initial experiences (s) are over. 

Trauma Responses Interfere with Ongoing Engagement and Closeness

Here are a few of the most common symptoms of PTSD: 

  • Intense or vivid flashbacks 
  • Recurring nightmares 
  • Disassociation or feeling detached 
  • Depression and anxiety 
  • Edginess, irritability
  • Jumpiness

As you can see, the type of connection that leads to intimacy and closeness is greatly compromised when you live with trauma triggers and reactivity. You want to be close but push people away (sometimes without realizing it). You want love to find you but find yourself becoming controlling or guarded when it does.

Still, there is nothing wrong with you as a person. You simply need help resolving the terrible experience that hijacked your mind and body. Reprocessing your perspective and the response of your nervous system can help you accurately assess threats, regulate your emotions, and see healthy people and situations where they exist. 

How do you do that? Don’t do it alone. Reach out.

PTSD Counseling NYC: Start Your Healing

Your relationships can feel safe again. There are safe people and safe places where you can feel empowered and grow stronger. It simply takes time to get there. 

Why seek help? Healing from trauma often requires guidance and support to get to the roots of your pain. It’s important to understand how your survival tactics may no longer serve you well. It’s empowering to learn new tools to cope and thrive.  

You are not broken or sentenced to a life defined by your trauma. PTSD counseling offers a path toward the necessary self-compassion, patience, and mental reprocessing that can help you recover and live the life you deserve and desire. 

The Relationship Suite

Are you ready to deal with your traumatic experience productively and move forward? Please reach out, we’re a group of skilled therapists ready when you are. We have the experience to support trauma sufferers. Please read more about PTSD therapy and contact us for support soon. You can feel better and live well.

To learn more about our Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment services, click here. 

If you’re struggling, call 917-273-8836 or Contact us for a complimentary consultation to learn more about counseling in NYC and how we can help you.

We are a group of skilled therapists specializing in individual and couples counseling. Since Covid, we have been working with couples via Online Counseling in New York, New York City including Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island, Westchester, Long Island, Port Washington, Roslyn, Manhasset, South Hampton, East Hampton, Montauk. To schedule a complimentary consultation, click HERE.

We also provide Virtual Counseling in New Jersey, Hoboken, Jersey City, Princeton, Chatham, Morris, Westfield, Union, Bergen County, Colts Neck, Tenafly. Schedule a complimentary consultation by clicking HERE.