A reflection on trauma responses people don’t see

Years ago, I had just started a new job — I’d only been there about a week. One day, I went off to a meeting elsewhere in the building. When I came back, the office I usually worked in was completely closed. The lights were off, the door was locked, and no one was there.

I hadn’t expected that.

No one had mentioned anything to me.

It turned out that everyone had gone to work in a different office for the afternoon. For them, this was normal — something that happened occasionally. But I was new. I didn’t know this was something that could happen. And no one realised I didn’t know.

From the outside, it was a small, ordinary oversight.

But inside my body, something much bigger began.

My stomach tightened. My chest grew warm. My mind started racing, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. There was no threat in the room — there wasn’t even anyone in the room — yet my nervous system reacted as though I was suddenly unsafe.

This was a trauma response.

Not to the situation itself, but to what similar situations had meant in my past:

“You’ve been left out.”

“You don’t belong.”

“They didn’t think to include you because you’re not wanted.”

None of those thoughts were based in the present moment —

but they were loud, familiar, and believable.

Because our bodies remember what our minds have long tried to move past.

And in the past, I would have acted from that place.

I would have left the building.

Or shut down.

Or convinced myself I’d made a mistake in ever thinking I belonged there.

I might even have resigned — just to avoid the pain of feeling unwanted.

And from the outside, it would have looked like I was being:

  • overly sensitive,
  • dramatic,
  • childish,
  • or attention-seeking.

Because that’s all you can see if you only see the behaviour.

But inside, it was survival.

This is the part many people never realise:

What Others Saw What I Was Experiencing Internally
A new colleague working quietly A nervous system in full activation
A harmless oversight A perceived threat to belonging and safety
Nothing happening at all A resurfacing of old wounds and memories

We were in the same environment, but we were living completely different realities.

How can two people be in the same moment but living two completely different realities — and neither one is wrong?

That question changed everything.

Because this time, something was different.

I noticed the response as it happened.

I was able to say to myself:

“This feels like rejection, but that doesn’t mean it is rejection.”

The feelings were real.

The fear was real.

The physical response was real.

But the story attached to them was old.

So instead of running, hiding, or shutting down,

I stayed with myself.

I breathed.

I walked slowly.

I let the sensations rise and fall, without making them into a conclusion.

Later, when I rejoined the others, I saw the truth:

There was no tension.

No avoidance.

No shift in tone.

No hidden meaning.

No one was thinking about me at all — and not in a painful way, but in an ordinary way.

They genuinely hadn’t realised.

There was no exclusion.

No judgement.

No rejection.

It was simply a moment I interpreted through the lens of my past.

And in that moment, I saw something essential:

People cannot respond to what they cannot see.

They didn’t know what my nervous system was holding.

And I didn’t need to blame them.

Because the healing didn’t come from others behaving differently.

The healing came from me recognising the story as it emerged — and choosing not to follow it.

Why This Matters

This is why trauma-informed understanding is so important.

Not to analyse each other.

Not to tiptoe around one another.

But to remember:

Behaviour is not the whole story.

A person who goes quiet may not be shutting people out —

they may be holding themselves together.

A person who steps away may not be being rude —

they may be trying not to collapse.

A person who “seems fine” may be fighting an entire internal storm that no one can see.

When we understand this,

we stop asking:

“Why are they acting like that?”

and begin asking:

“I wonder what this moment might feel like for them?”

That is where compassion lives.

That is where connection becomes possible.

That is where belonging begins — not in being included, but in being understood as human.

Professional Insight: What This Teaches Us About Healing

Understanding this experience has shaped how I support others.

When I realised my reaction was a nervous system response rather than a personal failing, my entire perspective shifted. I stopped viewing behaviours like withdrawal, shutdown, emotional overwhelm, or silence as “overreactions” — and started recognising them as the body’s way of trying to stay safe.

This matters, because when someone is triggered:

  • They are not choosing to react.
  • They are not being dramatic.
  • They are not being difficult.
  • They are responding to something that once protected them.

The nervous system remembers experiences long after the mind thinks they have been resolved.

And once we understand that, our role changes:

Before After
Why are they acting like this? What is their nervous system trying to protect them from?
Trying to reason someone out of their feelings Supporting regulation and safety first
Interpreting behaviour personally Understanding behaviour as adaptation
Responding to the story Responding to the state

This insight is foundational to trauma-informed practice:

Regulation comes before reasoning.

Safety comes before insight.

Compassion comes before intervention.

When we meet people at the level of the nervous system, rather than the level of behaviour, we create the conditions for healing instead of shame.

For me, staying in that moment — not running, not abandoning myself — became living proof that healing is possible.

Not because the trigger disappeared, but because I didn’t disappear when it came.

And that is where trauma begins to lose its power.

That is where belonging begins.

Inside the body — not in the behaviour of others.


In Closing

So I return again to this question, because it changed me:

How can two people be in the same moment but living two completely different realities — and neither one is wrong?

We don’t need to agree on the reality.

We only need to remember there may be more than one.

When we hold space for that,

we make room for compassion — for ourselves and each other.

And slowly, gently, we learn to stay.