When the Illness Is the Trauma

For a long time, I believed trauma had to look a certain way.

A single catastrophic event.
Something obvious.

Something you could point to and say, that was it.

About a decade ago, I briefly tried EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), a trauma-focused therapy that helps the brain reprocess distressing memories so they lose their emotional intensity with the goal to no longer feel stuck. At the time, I was trying to process my music injury. The one that slowly unraveled my career, identity, future. If I haven’t said it already, the loss seems to be a stuck point for me. The EMDR therapist kept asking me to focus on the most traumatic moment. The highest-impact memory.

But I couldn’t.

Because that injury, and the stress, fear, and overwhelm around it, didn’t happen in one moment. It unfolded over nearly a year and a half. Sure, I have the moment I tried to play the E-flat major scale and couldn’t, all the crying spells in the practice rooms, the lessons I dreaded, the first of two panic attacks. I could focus on those. But the loss, the pain, the uncertainty, watching my life unravel in real time, was ongoing. Not understanding or having answers to what was happening to me WAS the trauma. And no one understood either. They just told me to keep practicing. Keep going. That I was doing great. No one could help me. I was alone.

Honestly, it was all traumatic.

I left those EMDR sessions feeling like trauma work “wasn’t for me.” Like maybe I just didn’t have the right kind of trauma.

Years later, I know better.

What I’m Realizing Now

I’m now years into recovery from severe depression, alcoholism, and a longstanding eating disorder, and working with a new therapist. Of course, I have mixed feelings starting with someone new.

There’s excitement. This is a new phase of life, and I want support that matches who I am now.
And there is deep grief.

My former therapist was in my life for 15 years. I saw her weekly through some of the sickest, darkest periods of my life. Losing that relationship feels like losing a witness. A constant. A safe place.

Starting with someone new means telling the story again.

And I’m in my 40s.
A lot has happened in 42 years.
I struggled for 20 of them. Half my life.

As I tell my story, relive the memories, piece by piece, I feel the anxiety and overwhelm rise in my body each session remembering what I went through. I have to regulate my nervous system as I am driving home. And I’m realizing something I couldn’t fully see before:

Just how sick I was.
How extreme the behaviors were.
How close to death I came—night after night.

And suddenly, it’s clear.

The 20 years I spent sick is also trauma.

An eating disorder that spanned two decades. (Likely longer since I probably had ARFID since I was five years old).
Severe, unrelenting depression.
Chronic, active suicidal ideation.
Alcoholism that escalated quickly and took over as a way to cope.

I now understand this clearly:

That wasn’t just illness.
That was trauma.

Trauma Isn’t Always One Event

We often talk about trauma as something that happens to you.

But what happens when the danger is ongoing? When the danger is inside of you?

When your body is starved for years.
When your nervous system lives on high alert.
When you wake up every day negotiating with thoughts of not wanting to be alive. Of not wanting to live in that level of distress anymore.
When alcohol becomes the only way to numb the relentlessness of it all.

That’s not resilience.
That’s survival mode.

And survival mode leaves a mark.

This Is What Complex Trauma Can Look Like

Complex trauma doesn’t come from one defining moment.
It comes from prolonged exposure to threat, without relief.

When the illness itself becomes the environment you’re living in.

Your body adapts.
Your nervous system rewires.
Hypervigilance, numbness, control, running on adrenaline before eventually collapsing. These things aren’t normal.

They are trauma responses.

And even when behaviors stop, the body doesn’t immediately feel safe.

That’s why recovery can still feel hard.
Why calm and downtime can feel unfamiliar and scary.
Why joy can feel difficult to engage in.

Naming This Matters

Calling long-term mental illness what it is—complex trauma—changes everything. (Side note, I believe EMDR has changed since I tried it and can now work on complex trauma).

It explains why healing isn’t quick.
Why recovery isn’t linear.
Why telling your story again can feel overwhelming.

Recovery allows space to grieve.
Grief for the years lost, the years you spent surviving.
Grief for the suffering your body and mind endured.
Grief for the life that felt paused while you fought to stay alive.

Trauma work, and processing the grief, can be an important part of processing that. Not to relive it, but to gently integrate it. To help the nervous system learn that the danger has passed. To loosen the grip of survival mode so you can fully inhabit the life you’re living now.

Because healing is about creating enough safety to move forward.

For me, this phase of life is about now.
I ask myself: Who I am today?
What do I want my life to look like?
And how do I continue caring for myself as someone who lived through something profound.

I realize I can’t do anything about the past, but I can control what my present and future look like. I try to live my best life now.

The past deserves acknowledgment, but it doesn’t get to define the future.

There Is Life After Survival

If you’re in recovery and beginning to recognize the weight of what you’ve lived through, you’re not wrong for having feelings about it.

Your feelings are valid.

And with that clarity comes the possibility of a different kind of healing. One that makes room for both grief and hope.

While coaching isn’t trauma therapy, working with someone who has lived through long-term illness, addiction, and recovery can be deeply validating. Being supported by someone who understands what survival mode feels like, and what it takes to build a life beyond it, can help bridge the gap between where you’ve been and where you’re going.

You don’t need to rehash every detail to be understood.
You don’t need to prove how bad it was.
And you don’t need to do this part alone.

Your story is valid.

Hope, Grounded in Reality

If you spent years fighting your own mind or body just to stay alive, it makes sense that healing takes time.

But there is life after the eating disorder.
There is meaning beyond the illness.
There is a future worth stepping toward.

Gentle reminder: healing doesn’t just happen though. You aren’t going to wake up one day and think, “Today is the day I recover.” You have to take actional steps of behavioral change to have your life change. Ambivalence is normal. This is where motivation following action comes in. Support, the right support, can help you take those steps.  

Honoring what you endured doesn’t keep you stuck.
It frees you to live: fully, presently, and with intention.

And that future?
It’s still unfolding.

About the Author

Emily Grannemann is a certified recovery coach and peer specialist, and the founder of We Do RecoverED Coaching. Drawing from multiple decades of lived experience with an eating disorder, severe depression, and addiction—and years of sustained recovery—she supports individuals navigating eating disorder and dual-diagnosis recovery through real-life, in-the-moment support. Her work centers on integrating treatment and recovery skills into daily life, offering validation, accountability, and practical guidance for those learning how to live beyond survival mode. Emily’s approach is trauma-informed, recovery-focused, collaborative, and individualized, grounded in the belief that healing is possible, even after long periods of illness.