My client Saundra had a child-mother, a younger sister, and a revolving cast of stepfathers. She was the grown-up –– trying to teach her mom, to protect her sister, and to run her own life. She knew she was on her own.

What she avoided knowing was how terrified and lonely she was. This was the slow-drip kind of trauma, day after day, minute after minute, in the Forever of childhood.

Today, as she's trying to figure out how to take better care of herself (instead of living in tension and rage), we considered two questions, and the second was better.

The first was: "How bad was it?" Answering that question would at least respect how hard all those years had been for her. But it ran the risk of throwing her back into the energy field and re-traumatizing her.

The second was: "What did it cost me?" This respected what she'd been through but also implied the trauma was over, which kept her grounded and safe today.

Her answer to "What did it cost me?" wasn't unusual for trauma survivors. She was exhausted. Eighty-to-90% of her attention had been applied to surviving, which meant she'd had only 10-20% of her powers available for herself. She'd been spending Herculean efforts to figure things out, and to not go under from terror and loneliness. She could see the huge hole where safety and fun should have been.

Respecting what she'd been through, and how she'd coped, was crucial. Trauma involves isolation as well as helplessness. Her acknowledgment was the first, in her entire life. If her suffering mattered (historically), then SHE mattered. And she felt better.