27/05/2026
Over time, I’ve learned something important working with trauma survivors:
Sometimes when clients disappear from therapy, it is not resistance, stubbornness, or lack of desire to heal.
Sometimes therapy itself begins to feel unsafe.
I once worked with someone who opened up gradually after years of holding everything in. Sessions were going well on the surface, but suddenly communication stopped. No explanation. No goodbye. Just silence.
Months later, the person eventually returned and admitted that therapy had started bringing up emotions they had spent years trying to outrun. Part of them wanted help deeply. Another part wanted to shut everything down and disappear.
That experience stayed with me.
Trauma often creates an internal conflict between:
“I want connection”
and
“Connection does not feel safe.”
This is why compassion matters so much in therapy work.
People do not always ghost because they do not care.
Sometimes their nervous system is simply overwhelmed and trying to protect them the only way it knows how.
Healing is rarely linear.
And sometimes, one of the most powerful things we can offer people is a safe space to return to without shame.
