Valerie Holcomb, MS, LPC

When your body keeps responding to danger long after the danger is gone, it can be difficult to understand what is happening.

You may know intellectually that you are safe, yet your body doesn’t seem to agree.

Your heart races. You become hypervigilant. Small changes in someone’s tone can feel enormous. You may shut down during conflict, struggle to trust other people, feel disconnected from yourself, or find yourself exhausted from constantly trying to hold everything together.

For people living with complex post-traumatic stress, these experiences can be especially confusing.

Understanding trauma isn’t only about understanding what happened in the past. It is also about understanding how prolonged stress can shape the ways we respond to the present.

One framework I find useful in clinical work is Polyvagal Theory, developed by neuroscientist Stephen Porges. While Polyvagal Theory remains a subject of scientific debate and some of its specific neurophysiological claims have been challenged, its concepts can offer a useful clinical lens for exploring the relationship between trauma, physiological responses, emotional regulation, and our sense of safety. (PubMed Central (PMC))

What is Complex PTSD?

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder, or C-PTSD, is recognized in the World Health Organization’s ICD-11 as a disorder specifically associated with stress. It includes the core symptoms of PTSD along with additional difficulties involving emotional regulation, self-concept, and relationships. (Iris)

Complex PTSD can develop following prolonged or repeated traumatic experiences, particularly when the person has limited ability to escape the situation.

Unlike a single traumatic event, chronic trauma can create a different kind of challenge.

There may never have been a clear beginning and end.

Instead, the nervous system may have spent years learning:

Pay attention. Something could happen. Don’t let your guard down.

That learning can continue even after circumstances change.

When the Past Shows Up in the Present

One of the most frustrating aspects of complex trauma is that your reactions may seem disproportionate to what is happening right now.

A partner becomes quiet.

A supervisor sends a short email.

Someone seems disappointed.

A friend doesn’t respond to a text.

Nothing objectively dangerous is happening, yet your body reacts as though something important is at stake.

You might experience:

• racing thoughts
• muscle tension
• irritability
• difficulty sleeping
• emotional overwhelm
• panic or anxiety
• difficulty concentrating
• people-pleasing
• difficulty setting boundaries
• emotional numbness
• dissociation or feeling disconnected
• a strong urge to escape, withdraw, or shut down

These responses are not necessarily signs that you are “overreacting.”

They may represent patterns your nervous system learned over time.

A Polyvagal-Informed Way of Understanding Trauma

Polyvagal Theory proposes that our autonomic nervous system is involved in how we respond to cues of safety, threat, and connection. The theory places particular emphasis on autonomic regulation, social engagement, and the ways the body responds to perceived danger. (PubMed)

In clinical conversations, this is sometimes simplified into three broad patterns:

Connection and Regulation

When we feel sufficiently safe, we may have greater access to curiosity, flexibility, connection, communication, and problem-solving.

We can think.

We can pause.

We can consider different perspectives.

We can connect with another person without constantly scanning for danger.

Mobilization

When the nervous system detects threat, the body may mobilize.

This can look like:

fight or flight.

You may feel anxious, restless, angry, impatient, driven, or unable to slow down.

For someone with complex trauma, mobilization can become so familiar that being busy, productive, or constantly “on” feels safer than resting.

Shutdown or Disconnection

When threat feels overwhelming or escape doesn’t seem possible, some people experience a very different response.

Instead of becoming more activated, they may feel:

• numb
• exhausted
• detached
• foggy
• emotionally flat
• disconnected from their body
• unable to speak or respond during conflict

This is sometimes described clinically as a shutdown or immobilization response.

Importantly, these states aren’t simply choices.

They are patterns of physiological and psychological responding that can occur outside conscious awareness.

Your Nervous System Isn’t Broken

This may be one of the most important shifts in understanding complex trauma.

Your nervous system may be doing exactly what it learned to do.

If your environment once required constant vigilance, your brain and body had a reason to become very good at detecting changes.

If relationships were unpredictable, you may have learned to monitor other people’s moods.

If expressing your needs resulted in rejection or punishment, you may have learned to suppress them.

If there was no safe way to fight or escape, shutting down may have become adaptive.

Those responses may have helped you survive then.

The problem is that survival strategies can persist long after the original threat is gone.

What was once adaptive can eventually become exhausting.

Why “Just Calm Down” Doesn’t Work

Someone experiencing trauma-related activation is often told to calm down, think rationally, stop worrying, or let it go.

But trauma isn’t simply a problem of having the wrong thoughts.

The body participates in the stress response.

That doesn’t mean every physical sensation is caused by trauma, nor does it mean that the nervous system can be reduced to a simple “three-state” model. The science of autonomic regulation is considerably more complicated than popular versions of Polyvagal Theory sometimes suggest. Recent scientific reviews and critiques have raised important questions about some of the theory’s anatomical and physiological claims. (PubMed)

A polyvagal-informed clinical perspective is therefore best understood as one way of organizing our understanding of trauma and regulation—not as a complete explanation of the human nervous system.

From Surviving to Regulating

Trauma therapy isn’t about forcing yourself to become calm.

It’s about developing a greater capacity to recognize what is happening inside you and respond differently.

That might involve learning to notice:

What am I feeling?

What is happening in my body?

What triggered this response?

Am I responding to what is happening now, or to something my nervous system learned from the past?

What would help me feel a little safer in this moment?

Sometimes regulation begins with something very small.

Taking a breath before responding.

Putting your feet on the floor.

Noticing tension in your shoulders.

Stepping outside.

Slowing down a conversation.

Recognizing that you are becoming overwhelmed before you reach the point of shutdown.

Learning that you can have a strong emotional response without automatically acting on it.

These aren’t about “turning off” your nervous system.

They are about increasing your ability to notice, tolerate, and move through different internal states.

The Role of Relationship

For many people with complex trauma, relationships are both a source of longing and a source of fear.

You may desperately want closeness while simultaneously expecting rejection.

You may want someone to understand you while feeling uncomfortable when they get too close.

You may interpret distance as abandonment or closeness as threatening.

This is one reason the therapeutic relationship can be meaningful in trauma work.

A consistent, respectful therapeutic relationship can provide an opportunity to experience something different: connection without coercion, boundaries without punishment, and emotional expression without having to manage another person’s reactions.

In Polyvagal Theory, this is often discussed in terms of co-regulation—the idea that our physiological and emotional states are influenced by our interactions with other people. While the precise neurophysiological mechanisms proposed by Polyvagal Theory remain debated, the broader importance of supportive relationships in psychological well-being and trauma recovery is well established. (PubMed Central (PMC))

You Don’t Have to Become a Different Person

Healing from complex trauma doesn’t mean becoming someone who never gets anxious, angry, overwhelmed, or triggered.

It doesn’t mean eliminating every stress response.

And it doesn’t mean becoming calm all the time.

The goal is flexibility.

Being able to recognize when you’re activated.

Being able to pause.

Being able to reconnect after withdrawing.

Being able to experience difficult emotions without becoming completely consumed by them.

Being able to distinguish between something that is dangerous and something that is simply uncomfortable.

And perhaps most importantly, learning that the strategies that helped you survive your past don’t necessarily have to dictate your future.

A Final Thought

If you live with complex PTSD, you may have spent years wondering:

“Why am I like this?”

A more compassionate question might be:

“What happened that taught my nervous system to respond this way?”

That question doesn’t excuse harmful behavior or eliminate personal responsibility.

It simply creates room for curiosity instead of shame.

And sometimes healing begins there.

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About Valerie Holcomb, MS, LPC

Valerie Holcomb is a Texas-licensed professional counselor providing private-pay telehealth psychotherapy for high-performing professionals. Her work incorporates trauma-informed, somatic, and Polyvagal-informed perspectives to help clients better understand patterns of stress, emotional regulation, and nervous-system responses.

This article is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for individualized mental health care or diagnosis. Polyvagal Theory is a clinical framework with ongoing scientific debate regarding some of its specific physiological claims.