Risking Exposure: The First Step in Trauma Recovery

Why vulnerability is the threshold of healing

Healing from relational trauma, you know….the kind that shapes Complex PTSD, is both tender and terrifying. When the people who were supposed to protect you were also the ones who hurt you, your nervous system learns to live in contradiction. Love feels dangerous. Safety feels unfamiliar. Trust feels like a risk you can’t afford.

CPTSD is not only about what happened then instead it’s about how those wounds echo now. Hypervigilance. Shame that sticks to your bones. The constant scanning for rejection, abandonment, betrayal. The old survival strategies that kept you alive now press against the edges of the life you long to live.

Healing asks you to risk exposure. To be seen where you once hid. To grieve what never was and reclaim what still can be.

And so,
the fear of healing into your true self is harsh.
It is the trembling ache of stepping out of old skins,
the grief of laying down identities
that once kept you safe but now keep you small.

Healing asks you to stand bare…
to risk the loss of what no longer fits,
to risk being seen in the fullness
you once hid for survival.

Yes, it feels like exposure.
Yes, it feels like too much.
But it is also the doorway
to freedom, to connection, to the kind of joy
that only truth can hold.

-Peace & Light