Your Feelings are Valid and You Matter
Therapy for relational trauma healing, C-PTSD and complex attachment wounds in Ann Arbor and all throughout Michigan.
I help you heal from childhood trauma so you can have happiness and success in your adult relationships.
Does it ever feel like you don’t matter or that you are annoying to the person you love?
Do you keep ending up in relationships where you feel like you don’t matter?
Maybe this latest relationship was the final straw. Another partner who seemed promising at first, only to leave you feeling unseen, unimportant, or emotionally alone.
Or maybe there wasn't one big moment. Just a growing realization. Different person. Same pattern.
You keep finding yourself giving more, caring more and trying harder. Yet somehow you're still left wondering why your needs never seem to carry the same weight as everyone else's.
Sound familiar?
You may struggle to set boundaries. To speak up. To ask for what you need without guilt. Maybe you second guess yourself constantly and replay conversations in your head long after they're over.
Or perhaps you've gotten really good at putting yourself last. Really good. So good that you've lost touch with what you actually want.
Here's the frustrating part.
You're intelligent. Self aware. Successful in many areas of life. People probably come to you for advice.
Yet when it comes to relationships, you find yourself stuck in the same painful dynamics over and over again.
You wonder why. You wonder what's wrong. You wonder why relationships seem so much harder than they should be.
The truth?
Relational trauma has a way of following you into adulthood. Into dating. Into friendships. Into family relationships. Into the way you see yourself.
Until those patterns are understood and healed, they tend to keep showing up.
Different faces. Same wounds.
Together, we can get to the bottom of why relationships keep you feeling hurt, confused, and like you're the one doing all the heavy lifting.
Then we can start changing the pattern. That’s the real goal!
We don’t want to become better at tolerating relationships that drain you.
We want to create relationships that actually feel good to you.
The kind where you can speak up, ask for what you need, trust yourself, and stop wondering whether you're asking for too much.
Figure out where the "I don't matter" and "I'm not enough" messages came from and why they still show up in your relationships today.
Stop walking on eggshells, overexplaining yourself, and second guessing every feeling, boundary, request, or decision.
Enjoy relationships that feel mutual, secure, and emotionally safe so you're no longer carrying the relationship by yourself.
Childhood Trauma is Often Triggered in 2 ways
Feeling like you don’t matter and that you are insignificant
Feeling like you are not good enough and can never do anything right
Spoiler Alert and Warning:
Working with me will have you believing 100% that you do matter and you are more than enough!
Tale As Old as Time (Cue Beauty & the Beast)
“It was great in the beginning...”
You know the story. How many times have you started this conversation by saying, “But, it was great in the beginning”?
Things were amazing in the beginning. You felt seen. Chosen. Important. Maybe even understood in a way you've never experienced before.
Then something shifts.
A few months later. A year later. After moving in together. After getting married.
And suddenly you're asking yourself the same question you've asked before.
WTF happened?
What happened to the person who couldn't wait to talk to you? The person who made you feel special? The person who seemed to care so much?
You wonder what happened to that loving, sweet and fun person you first met. Where is the person you fell in love with who treated you like you were their sun, moon and stars?
Different relationship. Same confusion.
If you've experienced relational trauma, there's usually a reason these patterns keep showing up.
Maybe you keep ending up in relationships where you feel overlooked, unimportant, and like your needs come last.
Or maybe no matter how much you give, how hard you try, or how much you accomplish, you still walk away feeling like you're not enough.
Here's why that matters. Those wounds didn't start in your current relationship. They started long before that.
The good news? You can heal them.
You can stop repeating the same painful relationship patterns. You can trust yourself more, communicate what you need with confidence, and build relationships that feel emotionally safe, secure, and fulfilling.
I will help you get there.
Even if it feels impossible now, therapy for relational trauma can help you define and break free from the relationship patterns that keep hurting you…
Be with someone who actually makes you a priority. Stop begging for basic attention or feeling like you're the only one keeping the relationship alive. No more waking up a year in asking WTF happened? We find exactly why you keep ending up with people who make you feel invisible and we change that pattern.
Reclaim your time, energy and sanity. Stop spending your entire day completely consumed by anxiety. No more obsessing over every text or hyper-focusing on if they still love you or whether they are about to leave you. You finally get to enjoy your life and have your brain back.
Quit walking on eggshells. You stop driving yourself crazy trying to keep them happy while you feel unloved, unwanted and unsupported.
Stop being attracted to toxic people. You break the loop of chasing people who ghost, play mind games, and leave you feeling completely alone. You rewire what feels attractive so you actually want a secure partner who treats you like you matter.
Feel completely safe, seen, and wanted. You stop putting yourself dead last and tolerating relationships that drain you. You can know 100% that you are significant, you are worth choosing, and you deserve a love where you don't have to carry the whole relationship by yourself.
Frequently Asked Questions about Relational Trauma Therapy
FAQs
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Relational trauma is trauma experienced in childhood standing in the way of your current happiness and success as an adult.
Childhood trauma includes various forms of neglect and abuse (emotional, verbal, physical, spiritual, religious, etc) from parents or religious influences.
Relational trauma can also show up in messy endings of relationships through breakup or divorce as well as betrayal and infidelity.
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I am trained in and offer a personalized combination of the following for you.
Internal Family Systems (IFS). Look at the different parts of you like the fierce protector or the wounded inner child and figure out why they keep hijacking your adult relationships.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). We use eye movements to take the raw, painful sting out of old memories so your brain stops reacting to present-day triggers as if they are active emergencies.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). You get concrete, no-nonsense skills to stop emotional storms from blowing up your life and crashing your relationships when panic hits.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). You learn to stop exhausting yourself fighting or running from hard feelings, and instead choose actions that align with the person you actually want to be.
Schema Therapy. We restructure the deeply rooted, invisible traps you have been stuck in since childhood so you can finally stop rewriting the same painful script with new partners.
Somatic Therapy. We tap into your body's physical responses to release the stored, vibrating trauma responses that keep your nervous system trapped in a state of high alarm.
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Whooo, if I was a writer, I could write a book on Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and the overlaps with C-PTSD (Complex Trauma). Instead, I regularly get on my soapbox to stand up for all the sensitive souls with BPD parts who have been gaslit, minimized, invalidated and misunderstood throughout life.
Personally, I would rename BPD as ‘You experienced massive childhood trauma and now relationships are hard AF and preventing crash outs is tough when you’re triggered….disorder.”
At the very least, the DSM5 could change it to '“Emotional Regulation Disorder” as that is a step in a much more validating and respectful direction.
BPD is ridiculously and unfairly stigmatized in our society and as I say, it’s the “unfair crap (not gift) that keeps on giving”.
Luckily, it is not all doom and gloom. My clients overcome borderline traits and behaviors through our therapy work together and you can too.
Even if other people have shamed you for having borderline parts, you will not experience that with me. You’re safe here. I see you. I understand you and am here to support you. You are not too much.
With BPD, it is often helpful to meet 2-3 times per week. I am ready and able to accommodate this so you get the support you need!
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Some of my clients experience traits associated with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) like intense emotional ups and downs, a fear of abandonment, or experiencing the “I hate you, don’t leave me” whiplash of emotions.
From a trauma-informed perspective, I view these borderline parts not as a permanent personality defect, but as highly active, protective parts of your nervous system caused by childhood relational trauma and chronic attachment wounds.
Because I have advanced training in DBT (the gold standard for emotional regulation) alongside deep trauma models like IFS, EMDR, Schema Therapy, and Somatic Therapy our work goes beyond basic symptom management.
We can explore tools to stabilize intense emotions while safely processing the underlying childhood triggers associated with the roller coaster reactions.