How I Became a Trauma Therapist

The feeling of freedom as you heal from trauma.

Recently, I've been sharing a few more personal stories and reflections, and I thought it might be nice to tell you a little more about how I ended up becoming a trauma therapist.

When I was in high school, I knew I wanted to help people. I didn't have the language for it back then, and I certainly wasn't saying, "I want to become a trauma therapist." But there was something inside me that felt drawn towards supporting others through difficult times.

At the time, I was navigating my own experiences with depression and some challenging life circumstances. Looking back, I probably fit the stereotype of the "wounded healer." My own struggles gave me a deep sense of empathy for what others might be carrying.

Straight after high school, I enrolled in a Bachelor of Youth Work at RMIT University. I absolutely loved it. The work felt meaningful, practical, and deeply connected to the reasons I had chosen the profession in the first place.

After graduating, I found myself working across homelessness services, youth justice crisis centres, youth shelters, and drug detox programs. It was challenging work, but it was also incredibly rewarding. Every day, I had the privilege of walking alongside young people who were facing immense challenges and doing their best to survive circumstances that many people could hardly imagine. I loved their spirit, their humour, and their resilience. I loved advocating for them and helping them navigate systems that often felt overwhelming and unfair.

For a period of time, I also lived and worked in Canada, supporting young people in a local youth shelter. The work was raw, real, and firmly on the frontline. I was sitting with young people in the middle of the storm. Many were sleeping rough, detoxing, escaping violence, or living in a constant state of survival.

I cared deeply about the people I worked with, but over time I began to notice something.

It was incredibly difficult to create lasting change when someone was still living inside active trauma.

When a person's nervous system is focused on survival, there is very little capacity left for healing, reflection, or growth.

You can't process trauma while you're still surviving it.

Without fully realising it at the time, I think I was also absorbing a lot of that survival energy myself.

Eventually, I burnt out.

Like many people working in helping professions, I reached a point where I knew something needed to change. I moved into policy work and community development within local government. The work felt safer, more structured, and less emotionally intense.

Then something unexpected happened.

Part of my role involved working alongside a counselling team. I remember sitting in meetings with these incredible women and feeling something stir inside me.

I want to be where they are.

I want to be doing what they're doing.

There was something about the depth of the work, the reflection, and the opportunity to support genuine healing that drew me in. It felt like reconnecting with something I had known about myself since high school.

When I went on maternity leave ten years ago, I finally gave myself permission to admit it.

I didn't want to keep circling around the healing work.

I wanted to be inside it.

So I enrolled to study counselling.

Over the next four years, life was full. There were two babies, a move across the country, countless assignments, and many cups of coffee. Eventually, my private counselling practice was born.

These days, I'm also completing my Masters, continuing to deepen my understanding of trauma, recovery, and the healing process.

What I Love Most About Trauma Therapy

What I love most about working in the trauma space is that I no longer work in the immediate crisis.

Instead, I work with adults who have survived it.

I work with people who did what they had to do to get through. People who are no longer living in the chaos itself, but who are still carrying the imprint of it.

The work now is different.

It's slower.

It's gentler.

It's about helping a nervous system finally exhale.

It's about healing wounds that may have been formed years, or even decades, ago. It's about helping people discover that peace is allowed. That joy is allowed. That they are not broken, even if life has spent a long time convincing them otherwise.

This work feels like a privilege every single day.

Sometimes I think about that teenage version of myself who simply knew she wanted to help people. She didn't know exactly where the road would lead, but she trusted that instinct anyway.

Looking back, I'm proud she didn't give up on it.

And if you're currently on your own healing journey, learning how to feel safe in your life, your relationships, or within yourself, please know that you're not alone.

This is the work I care most deeply about.

This is why I became a trauma therapist.