Quote by Deb Dana
Your nervous system is what is responsible for managing danger and threat.
When you have gone through trauma, especially early and/or on-going trauma, this system can get set to always on.
This means that your nervous system may respond to any kind of threat as life or death. This means a threat to your relationship, to your self-image, to your role as a parent may be seen as requiring activation of fight/flight/freeze/collapse response by your brain.
The nervous system is responsible for making determinations of threat and safety and this happens before conscious thought. That is why therapies that are simply based on talking and insight do not work well for trauma.
It is important to engage in therapy services, or self-help that focuses on working with your nervous system, via body-based practices.
These are practices that need to be practiced regularly, as it takes time to retrain your nervous system and no amount of telling yourself that you are safe, is going to accomplish this. It needs to be felt in the body.