What If Your Symptoms Are Trying To Help You with Donna Donahue

You can do the therapy, read the books, explain your past perfectly and still feel your body brace like the danger never left. That confusing gap between understanding and safety is where a lot of real trauma recovery lives, and it often takes longer than anyone warns you.

I’m joined by psychotherapist and survivor Donna Donahue, who brings both clinical skill and 35 years of lived healing from childhood complex trauma. We talk about why trauma isn’t a neat, linear project you “finish,” how it can resurface in different seasons of life, and why setbacks can actually be the doorway to deeper progress. Donna also breaks down a key idea that changes everything: the survival brain stores trauma differently than normal memories, so flashbacks can be emotional or physical without any clear pictures at all, leaving you thinking you’re overreacting when you’re not.

We get practical about what trauma can look like in ordinary moments like meetings, texting, or watching a video, and what to do when your nervous system gears up. Donna shares how Internal Family Systems (IFS) and EMDR can support deep healing, plus three concrete “toolboxes” you can build: self soothing, kinder self talk that replaces the inner critic, and grounding skills for triggers including breathwork and cold therapy. If you’ve been carrying shame, self blame, or the fear that you’ll never be done, this conversation offers clarity, hope, and next steps.

Subscribe for more conversations on trauma healing, nervous system regulation, and mental health, then share this episode with someone who needs it and leave a review with the tool that helps you most when you feel activated.

Transcript

Why Insight Still Feels Unsafe

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Dear listeners, there is a quiet thing that happens to a lot of people. Yeah. I mean, they do they do the work, they go to the sessions, they read the books, they say the right words about their past. And still, some part of them keeps living as if the danger never left the room. We don't talk about enough about the gap and this gap. The space between understanding one what happened to you and actually feeling safe in your own body again. That's where the real recovery leaves. And it takes longer than anyone tells you. Right? So, hey dear listeners, welcome back to another powerful episode of Mind Meets Machine. I'm your host, Avik, and today we are sitting with the trauma recovery, not the textbook version, but the lived one. The version where healing is not a finish line, it's a relationship that you keep turning to and returning to. So if you have ever wondered like why the work feels slow or why parts of you still flinch along after you thought you did heal, then this conversation is for you. And today we have a very lovely guest with us who knows this Terren from both the sides of the chair. So please welcome Donna Donnaho. So welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Thank you. It's such a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Amazing, amazing. Thank you so much for joining us today. And dear listeners, before we get into the discussion, I'd quickly love to introduce you with Donna. So she's a psychotherapist who specializes in trauma recovery and a survivor of childhood complex trauma who has spent 35 years inside her own healing and 20 years studying the path for others. So not take much of a time, dear listeners. Let's just start and work up the show again, Donna.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

So Donna, like uh I have to start with something I think people get wrong, and I say that gently because I think I have uh I have gotten it wrong too. Like a lot of us treat trauma recovery as kind of a small project. Like you identify the thing, you process the thing, you close the file. But from where you sit, both

Trauma As A Soul Wound

SPEAKER_01 2:25

as a therapist and as someone who has lived it, what is the part of recovery that people most misunderstand before they begin?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

There's a few things. First of all, it's I don't consider it a mental illness. They're told it's a mental illness, like I call it a soul wound, and wounds can heal. So it's helpful for survivors to know that it's possible, that there's hope, that they really can come to the other side of it. It's not a a life sentence label of a mental disorder. What you were mentioning earlier is a very important aspect that it really is a journey. It's not an event as far as I went to a therapist for you know six months and I did some EMDR and I'm all done. It tends to show up in so many different ways throughout someone's life, depending on what season there they are in their life, such as when I had my first child that really woke up my PTSD that had been hidden and woke up the trauma. And then later on in life, there would be other events that might get it going again. So it's something to revisit over time. And the more that a survivor accepts what has happened to them and that they have uh they have some healing work to do, and the more they can show up for themselves in a loving, compassionate way, the s the more graceful, the softer the journey gets. And it becomes manageable. So in my crisis phase of remembering from 43 years old to 45, that was a very intense period where I had to take a lot of time off and had to be really aggressive with my healing work because that's what was needed. We need to show up for ourselves. And because of that showing up, after those two years, I had a very deep understanding of what was happening, like when I was getting triggered. A lot of people don't realize that there's different forms of flashbacks that people get, survivors. So they may, let's say today they get in a car accident and they get really scared. The reptilian brain, the primitive brain, stores trauma memories completely differently than normal memories. And there's no space or time. So that means if one trauma is happening, they're all coming up at the same time, which is extremely overwhelming. It will appear that the survivor is overreacting when they're really not, and they get judged, which is sad. But they uh the reptilian brain recognizes a degree of fear and says, oh, that matches something from a traumatized time. And the person starts having a flashback where they're feeling feelings from the past. They're not getting any picture memories, they may not be getting any distinct physical sensations, so they have no idea that's what's happening. You you can have physical flashbacks where just the body is remembering and having a response to something. Usually I'll know something's going on when a reaction of any kind does not match the situation. It's exaggerated, it's at an eight or ten rather than you might think it would be at a five. So that I always tell a client something old is infecting the present moment. Let's explore and see if we can figure out what the connection is here and help you move through it. So the idea coming back to it takes time, we also have to acknowledge that a lot of survivors aren't working on their trauma immediately. It's sitting within us, manifesting and compounding over time into physical and emotional symptoms. So it takes a while to get there, it takes a while to come out of it. Another aspect of that is that the beliefs that are created when, especially if you're a child being repeatedly traumatized, they're very uh black and white, egocentric thoughts and beliefs. I'm at fault, I did something wrong, I shouldn't have let this happen, you know, that are not accurate. And so those beliefs are held for many, many years. So it takes time to reach those younger parts of self, build a loving, trusting relationship. This is inner child work or internal family systems work, and then help them understand that what they were thinking wasn't true. They were just a kid being a kid, and the whoever was abusing them was committing crimes, was taking advantage of an innocent child and choosing to hurt. The child wasn't choosing the hurt, the abuse, the perpetrator, the person doing it was choosing it. And so therefore, it's not their fault. But something they did choose that is super important, I've decided they chose to live, to survive. You know, and that is critical. I've thanked my younger selves many times. Thank you so much for hanging in there, little Donna. Thank you for finding ways to live and cope, even though they were maladaptive, like starting to drink and smoke at nine years old, and engaging with substances and food issues. But it kept my child's self going and functioning. So there was a reason for it. And then when I was an adult and could remember and understand something happened, then I gave myself permission to actually work on these things and change them to healthy behaviors. So there's a lot of things that are are misunderstood. I think one other one is that uh a lot of survivors feel like they're being tormented, tortured by their symptoms, like flashbacks, nightmares, uh, emotional dysregulation. Really, those symptoms are here to get our attention. They're like knocking on the door. Hey, something's going on. I need you to look at this. And the last part of the things that people seem to misunderstand, bigger part, is the self-blame that I started to talk about, how that leads to shame. This is my fault. I it keeps happening to me. I'm defective, so that's the seat of shame. And then the shame turns into a deep-seated self-hatred. Many survivors like myself don't even didn't even know it was there until I really started diting. And then I came upon it and was shocked at how much I blamed body parts, blamed myself, hated myself. And so that journey of learning to uh correct the misbeliefs and show up for myself with love has been tremendously healing so that now, excuse me, I can have more peace and a higher level of well-being. And that's what I want for your listeners and my clients.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Amazing. Amazing, really. So, yeah, definitely. And uh if I have to ask, like when someone realizes uh, when someone realizes it's not going to be clean, linear thing,

Flashbacks Without Visual Memories

SPEAKER_01 10:14

what tends to come up for them in that moment? What do you say?

SPEAKER_00 10:17

So I found personally the steps back were really brutal. I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, that this was never gonna end. I really believed that I was gonna be tormented the rest of my life. My therapist kept showing up and saying, Donna, I promise you you are not staying here because you're working on it. You will you are moving and growing, and your steps back are precursors to bigger steps forward. It's a new aspect of something you might have looked at, but a new aspect of it that you're working through because we have to feel it to heal it. We have to accept it, be with it, like witness it, feel it, show up with love, and then we can move forward with it. And she kept saying, I'll hold the hope for you. I know you can't. And at some point I was able to little bits and pieces, then for longer periods of time, and now I really it's solid. Like I hold hope for me, for all my clients, for survivors throughout the world. I know it's possible for us to heal.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

I totally agree. And I mean, I have to say that there's something in what you just said is about the never quite closing that I definitely want to sit with. I I I think a lot of people listening right now have privately wondered if something's wrong with them because the work is not done yet, and what you are offering instead instead is that maybe nothing's wrong, maybe that's just the honest shape of it. Right, so that is that is much important. And definitely I'd love to ask you on a very uh genuine part where my curiosity is all about the everyday life, right? Or kind of daily version of it. So someone's standing in their kitchen or in meeting or texting a friend back, and something quietly activates. For the listeners who can't always name what's happening to them, what does trauma actually look like in our ordinary and daily life?

SPEAKER_00 12:35

It can show up in many different ways and very uniquely for survivors. However, there are many parallels regardless of the context of the trauma, such as whether it was physical, sexual, emotional, medical trauma, etc. You have different types of trauma, but you're gonna see a lot of parallels in the ways it plays out. It it has an insidious nature, such as it comes out in so many different ways, and some of them are quite vague, so people have trouble putting their finger on it. But say, for example, I'm in a meeting and some some video is being shown for some purpose, and there's something in there that my primitive brain identifies, like a person hovering over someone, or a tone of voice, a stance, that all of a sudden I will notice that I start gearing up. Like it's like the fight or flight is kicking in, the adrenaline starts pumping. I might, if it's if it's heavy enough or severe enough, I might start trembling, I might get uh numb in the hands and feet, I'll have trouble focusing what's happening, I'll notice my vision will really like zoom in. Like there'll be these different somatic body type things happening and some emotional. Because of working on myself, I know that the answer in that moment is to go in. So there's a famous mindfulness monk who's past now, named Tik Nathan, who teach taught mindfulness, and he said the way out is in. So always go in first. So, how can I do this in this moment? Can I excuse myself? Or can I just sit quietly and bring my awareness inward and say, breathe, Donna. Look around, pick something to look at, look where you are. There's an I'm I'm internally, I'm self-talking inside my head. I'm safe. Look at the people's faces. There's no one threatening here. It's okay. Take another breath. I got you. And I always add something for I call it my internal family, like baby, toddler, preschool, etc., ages of myself. Everybody in my internal family, just remember I'm an adult now, and I got this. I got your back. You don't have to be here. And I'll ask them if they want to go in our safe house that I created in my mind, where they all have a space that's very comforting for them. And my deceased grandparents and parents guard the safe house, and they can invite them in for comfort. So no one in my family hurt me, so I that was a safe thing for me. So that showing up for myself first, not putting the meeting first, not putting someone else's needs first. I have to come first, reground, take care of myself, midwife myself through the moment, and then I can show up for the world, the

Trauma In Ordinary Daily Moments

SPEAKER_00 15:44

people around me, the experience from a place of strength.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Yeah. So, like, and those small moments, what's the kindiest thing a person can do for themselves right then before they can even understand it?

SPEAKER_00 15:59

The the psychoeducation piece is really important. So, like for me, first I had to know something happened. Because my traumas were 100% repressed, it was an amnesia. It was gone even after many years of therapy. Not until 43. The first drop to the floor flashback was the first memory, right? But a lot of people do know something has happened to them. So once we any survivor knows something has happened to them, I just want to remind them all that our minds make us minimize. So you're most likely telling yourself, wasn't that bad? Other people have experienced worse things. Come on, suck it up, get going. That does not work. I can tell you that with 100% confidence. So understanding you're probably minimizing. And if you know something happened, start getting some psychoeduc, like podcasts, a wonderful way to learn about trauma. Books. Something like my book, Wit uh Witness Awakening, Finding Peace and Healing in the Midst of Child to Trauma, talks about how I healed. So I it's one survivor to another saying, This is what I did, this is how I talked to my inner child self, and it has a lot of psychoeducation about trauma triggers, how to recover from them, codependence, people-pleasing behaviors, like all these types of things, this myriad of symptoms that we see with complex trauma survivors. The uh Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine and The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Vendelko talk about how it's stored in the body. So they're learning about, oh, that's why I noticed this. I mean, I was literally putting a puzzle together as I was learning this information, and it was tremendously helpful to me because it helped me wrap my brain around what was going on. And it taught me that there are other people this has happened to. I'm not insane. This is a wounding, not insanity, and there's ways to heal. So that's a really important step. Getting somebody in your life that can be a witness because the telling process is so critically important to get it spoken and outside of the survivor so it can shine the light on it with love and compassion and walk with them. I don't I don't believe any of us are supposed to do this alone. We get, I believe we get spiritual help, and we also need people in the physical world to stand with us, a dear friend, a professional who's trauma-informed, and and then spending time for themselves to learn how to calm their nervous system, which may very well be stuck indefinitely in fight or flight, and how to learn about coping toolboxes.

Stop Minimising And Get Support

SPEAKER_00 19:19

So those are some some things to have uh survivors be aware of to start learning about their experiences.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Exactly. So okay, and and definitely I want to ask one more part is like I think this is a part people most need. Like over 35 years of your own healing and 20 of guiding others, you have worse a lot of approaches come and go. Not the hack, not a quick fix, but an actual way of moving through this, right? So if you had to point someone towards one way of being with their recovery, then what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 20:02

It would definitely be internal family systems work that's working with the younger parts of self that literally believe, even though it's 2026, if I hadn't done this work, all my younger parts think they are st it's still the year in the 1960s and 70s, and that they are going through it still. So, but I found a really powerful combination if they can find, if a survivor can find a practitioner that knows EMDR, the eye movement desensitization approach, and IFS, it's a really powerful combination. And the eyes are so important because they're the only part of the body that's attached to both sides of the brain. So they help move the processing from the reptilian brain to the frontal cortex, which is our rational brain, and that's where we want it so that we can work with it. And then they're combining that with us going in, and I call it spiritually reparenting the child parts, helping them learn that they're safe, they're loved, they're they matter, they have value, I care about them, and giving them a safe place to be. So if they could find someone who does that, or either one, that could be extremely helpful because I believe IFS was the key piece that brought me to the other side so that I could live a life that I didn't think was possible, you know, with feeling so good. Very true.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Very, very true, yeah. Yeah. And so one more thing is like if today you have to give one advice for the listeners, what advice will you give?

SPEAKER_00 21:51

I would uh really recommend that survivors work on t three types of toolboxes, starting with the self soothing. Maybe they might have to do that in combination with more of a cognitive self-talk. So the self-talk, shifting it from the inner critic that tends to be extremely harsh for complex trauma survivors, cruel, in fact, abusive, to a loving voice. That was really big for my recovery. I used to be so mean to myself that I would never speak to another person like that and did it to myself on a regular basis. Now I make a mistake. I got you, Donna. It's just a mistake. This is an opportunity for growth. What can we learn? So different than you're a blah, blah, blah. You know, you nothing you I helped me in there with being a critic. It never helped. It just made it worse and it made me get more stuck where I was at. Where the the kindness tend to be like a bridge helping me get out of the pain and get some clarity as to how what to do next. So learning how to show up, talk to yourself kindly, like a toolbox around that cognitive work, and a toolbox around

IFS And EMDR For Deep Healing

SPEAKER_00 23:14

soothing. Like I learned early on, I needed a lot of rest while I was working through my trauma. It was profound exhaustion. So I previously wouldn't give myself permission to do that. I would just keep pushing, pushing, pushing. Now I start to feel exhaustion or tired. Okay, I want to lie down with lots of pillows, get really comfortable. Some people, it's a book, a bath, a cup of tea, a walk. Figuring out what resonates for you personally that feels comforting. Stuffed animals. I always have this big stuffed turtle that I like to hug. Um, and giving myself permission to take care of me in a loving way with self-soothing tools in my toolbox. The third toolbox is more of a grounding for help for when we're triggered. If they can learn some things like I would stomp my feet, look down at my feet, I'm Donna Donahue, I'm so-and-so age, I will use my senses to really get my body present, my breath to make sure my mind was connected to my body. I might go outside if it's cold out and walk barefoot because any kind of cold therapy is wonderful for grounding. For it what it does is it shuts down the fight or flight nervous system and it brings the calming parasympathetic nervous system online. So you could put your hands in ice water, splash cold water on your face, end each shower with a few seconds of cold water. During my worst worst point when I had exhausted my toolbox, I a healer that was working with me told me to sit in a cold bath for 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

That was my last resort because it's not fun. But the first moments was more of a gear up, and then all of a sudden it was like a switch would turn. And I would come out of the bath in a completely different state than when I went in. So cold therapy and breath work are wonderful, especially together, to bring yourself out of a trauma or just a highly emotionally activated state. It doesn't have to be a trauma, but having that grounding toolbox, some things that they're aware of that can be their go-to. And I want to add how important it is to practice tools when you're not activated. Because you want to build the skill, help your mind remember it, and become more effective. So I would set my timer for an hour on a light chime, and every hour I hit repeat, I practice for a few seconds, go right back, or I can't write now, I'll wait till next hour. Or post-its. I had lots of post-its with the word breathe on it all over the house. But it worked because the more consistently we show up for ourselves, the more we can manage our symptoms and make them not ruin our day, ruin a moment, or have us show up as our child self in an adult situation because we've been acting our child self's been triggered. Instead, we can bring our adult self back online and show up in a way that we want to.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Exactly true.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Wow. And if listeners wants to connect with you, what would be the great medium to connect?

SPEAKER_00 26:53

I wanted to just say one more thing before I tell you that to remind survivors that working on themselves is the most selfless work they can do. Do not buy into that they're you're being selfish by taking time for yourself. Because when you take care of yourself and show up, you show up for you and everybody else in a more positive way. The ways to sh that uh listeners can contact me is I have an email, uh, witnessawakening at gmail.com. I'll ask um Vic to display in the text portion a link for my book on Amazon. It does say it's by Marie McCarthy. That's a pseudo name, and a link if if it's okay for the author Central and Psychology Today is another place where listeners

Three Toolboxes For Self Regulation

SPEAKER_00 27:51

can reach out if they'd like to.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Amazing. So as Donna said, it will be there. So we'll put all the links and details, everything into the show notes to your listeners, so that it could be much easier for you to reach out to her. And yeah, thank you so much for being here with us today, Donna. And the kind of honesty is definitely rare, I have to say, and it gives other people permission to be honest with themselves. So to you who are listening right now, if any part of this landed quietly somewhere in you, then sit with it today, and you don't have to fix everything, anything. You don't have to be further along than you are. Just notice what's here and be a little gentler with yourself than you were yesterday. That's enough. That's the work. So, with this, hope this is your host a weekend. This is Mind Meets Machine. I'll see you next time on Mind Meets Machine. Thank you so much.