Trauma Therapy in Seattle Explains: How Childhood Trauma Erodes Trust in Yourself—and How To Rebuild It
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One of the quietest and most painful impacts of childhood trauma is the loss of trust in yourself.
Many people begin trauma therapy in Seattle because this erosion of self-trust shows up as anxiety, burnout, or chronic self-doubt. Not just trust in others—but the ability to trust your own thoughts, emotions, instincts, and decisions. Many adults seek therapy because they feel stuck, anxious, or disconnected, without realizing that at the core of their struggle is a fractured relationship with themselves.
If you grew up in an environment where your feelings were dismissed, your needs were inconsistently met, or feeling safe with your parents or caregivers was unpredictable, self-trust may not have had the chance to develop.
Instead, you may have learned to second-guess yourself, override your instincts, or look outward for validation.
Hi, I’m Diane Dempcy, a trauma therapist in Seattle, and a certified EMDR therapist. Along with trauma, I also specialize in anxiety and support for parents of children experiencing a mental health crisis.
This blog explores how childhood trauma disrupts self-trust, how to recognize when it’s been lost, and how trauma therapy can help you build the valuable resource of trust in yourself.
What Does It Mean to Trust Yourself?
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Self-trust is the ability to rely on your internal experience—to believe that your emotions make sense, your perceptions are valid, and your body’s signals are worth listening to. It allows you to make decisions without excessive self-doubt and to recover more easily when things don’t go as planned.
Healthy self-trust develops in childhood through consistent caregiving, emotional attunement, and repair after rupture.
When caregivers respond reliably, children learn, “I can trust what I feel and need.”
When that response is missing or unpredictable, the child adapts—but often at the cost of their inner authority. Adapting means that a child changes how they think, feel, or behave to stay safe, connected, or accepted in their environment.
Adaptation is not a conscious choice—it is the nervous system doing what it needs to do to survive emotionally and relationally.
For example: If a child learns that expressing sadness is ignored or criticized, they may adapt by minimizing their feelings or telling themselves they are “too sensitive.” This helps them avoid rejection or conflict in the moment. Over time, however, the child may stop trusting their own emotional signals altogether, relying instead on external cues to decide how they should feel. That loss of trust in their own internal experience is what’s meant by losing their inner authority.
You might notice adaptation showing up as frequent questioning of whether your reactions are “too much” or “not enough,” looking to others to tell you how you should feel or decide, or ignoring your body’s signals until you feel overwhelmed or exhausted.
These are not personal flaws. They are adaptations.
How Childhood Trauma Undermines Self-Trust
Childhood trauma doesn’t have to involve overt abuse to erode self-trust. Emotional neglect, chronic criticism, becoming a parentified child, or growing up in a highly anxious or unpredictable household can all disrupt a child’s developing sense of internal safety.
When a child’s emotions are minimized or punished, the child learns to doubt them. When caregivers are inconsistent or unsafe, the child learns to scan the environment rather than listen inward. Over time, self-protection replaces self-trust.
Childhood trauma erodes self-trust in several common ways:
Being told you are overreacting or misremembering events teaches you to doubt your perception.
Having to manage adult emotions at a young age pulls attention outward instead of inward. Experiencing love or attention as conditional makes your needs feel risky
Living in chronic stress without emotional support teaches your nervous system to stay vigilant rather than attuned to itself.
In these environments, trusting yourself could feel dangerous. So, it makes a lot of sense that you learned not to.
Signs That Trust in Yourself Has Been Lost
Losing trust in yourself is not a failure—it is often the cost of growing up without consistent emotional safety.
Adults who struggle with self-trust often describe feeling “stuck,” indecisive, or disconnected from their intuition. These concerns are common starting points for trauma therapy in Seattle, even when people don’t initially name their experiences as traumatic. You may intellectualize decisions while feeling uncertain afterward, or oscillate between self-blame and self-doubt.
Common signs of lost self-trust include chronic second-guessing or reassurance-seeking, difficulty identifying what you want or need, and a sense of disconnection from your body or emotions. You may find yourself overriding exhaustion, hunger, or stress signals, or feeling shame after asserting reasonable boundaries.
You might notice that you often override your first instinct, trust yourself more in crises than in everyday life, or hear someone else’s voice—rather than your own—when self-doubt shows up.
These patterns are often what bring people into trauma therapy, even when they don’t initially identify their experiences as traumatic.
Anna: When Self-Trust Was Learned to Be Unsafe
“Anna,” is a successful professional in her forties who entered trauma therapy for anxiety and burnout. She described herself as capable at work but paralyzed in personal decisions. Growing up, Anna was praised for being “easy” and “self-sufficient,” while her emotional needs were largely ignored.
Self-doubt often protects you from old relational pain—even when it no longer serves you.
As a child, Anna learned that expressing needs led to dismissal. As an adult, she learned to ignore her internal signals until they became impossible to avoid. In therapy, it became clear that her anxiety was not a lack of confidence, but a nervous system that did not trust her internal cues to be safe or reliable.
Through trauma therapy, Anna began learning to notice her body’s responses without immediately overriding them. Slowly, her system learned that listening inward no longer resulted in rejection or harm.
How Trauma Therapy In Seattle Helps
Rebuild Trust in Yourself
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Rebuilding self-trust does not happen through positive thinking or self-discipline alone. In therapy, the focus is on creating lived experiences of safety and choice rather than forcing confidence. It happens through repeated experiences of safety, choice, and regulation. Trauma therapy in Seattle often focuses first on stabilization—helping your nervous system feel grounded enough to notice internal experiences without becoming overwhelmed.
Your therapist won’t tell you what to feel or decide. Instead, they help you slow down, track patterns, and gently test new ways of responding. Modalities such as EMDR, somatic therapy, and parts-based approaches allow healing to occur without forcing insight or emotional exposure.
Trust begins to rebuild when your internal signals are taken seriously, when you are supported in setting boundaries without shame, and when therapy moves at a pace your nervous system can tolerate rather than endure.
Over time, self-trust becomes less about certainty and more about confidence in your ability to respond.
Reclaiming Self-Trust Is a Gradual Process
Learning to trust yourself again can feel unfamiliar—and even uncomfortable at first. You may notice grief for what you didn’t receive or fear about what might happen if you listen inward. These responses are expected and worked with carefully in trauma therapy.
Rebuilding trust in yourself is not about becoming fearless—it’s about learning you can handle what comes up.
As therapy progresses, reflective questions may arise. You might wonder what would change if you trusted your body’s signals, what self-doubt protected you from in the past, or what it might be like to make decisions with support instead of pressure.
Trauma therapy does not rush these questions. It creates space for them.
For a deeper exploration of how fear, safety, and trust are addressed in trauma therapy, see the
A Trauma Therapist’s Guide to Trauma Therapy in Seattle’s, which outlines why going slowly is not avoidance—it is a clinical strength.
Wrapping It Up
If childhood trauma disrupted your relationship with yourself, healing is possible. With thoughtful pacing and the right support, trauma therapy in Seattle can help you rebuild trust in yourself in a way that feels steady and real. With the right pacing and support, trauma therapy in Seattle can help you rebuild a sense of inner trust that feels steady rather than forced.
She provides compassionate and evidence based trauma therapy in Seattle. Through approaches like EMDR, DBT, and mindfulness based psychotherapy, she helps clients break free from shame, reclaim their self worth, and create meaningful connections. Diane’s clients experience her as direct, empowering, warm, and accepting.
Explore her specialties, Trauma Therapy, EMDR Therapy, Anxiety Therapy. Learn more on her About page.
