Trauma does not always look the way we expect it to. Sometimes there is one terrible day you can point to, and sometimes there are a hundred smaller moments that quietly added up over years. Either way, the mind and the body remember, and they keep trying to protect you long after the danger has passed.
If you are living with post-traumatic stress, you may already know the feeling of being on guard in a room where nothing is actually wrong. Or the strange numbness that settles in when you most want to feel present. You are not broken, and you are not overreacting. Your nervous system is doing exactly what it learned to do to keep you safe. My work is to help it learn that the danger is over, gently and at a pace you can tolerate.
I am Wendy Haggerty, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, an AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist and Supervisor, and a clinical sexologist. I see clients in person in Sarasota and online across Florida and Connecticut. This page is about post-traumatic stress in a broad sense, the kind that can grow from accidents, medical events, loss, difficult childhoods, and painful relationships. If your trauma is specifically sexual in nature, you may also want to read about my approach to healing from sexual trauma, which lives alongside this work.
Trauma comes from more places than we admit
When people hear the word trauma, they often picture combat or a single violent event. Those absolutely count. But so do many experiences that get dismissed or minimized, sometimes by the people around us and sometimes by our own inner voice.
A car accident that ended in a moment but replays for months. A frightening medical diagnosis, a hospitalization, or a procedure that left you feeling powerless over your own body. The sudden loss of someone you loved, or a slow loss that no one seemed to notice you grieving. A childhood where safety was unpredictable, where love came with conditions, or where you had to grow up far too soon. A relationship that eroded your sense of self, whether through control, betrayal, or constant walking on eggshells.
These experiences share a common thread. In each one, something overwhelmed your capacity to cope, and your system did not get the chance to fully finish the response it started. The fear, the bracing, the urge to fight or flee or freeze, all of that energy can stay stuck in the body. Understanding this is often the first relief my clients feel. What you are experiencing is not a character flaw. It is an unfinished story that your body is still trying to complete.
How post-traumatic stress shows up
PTSD rarely announces itself clearly. More often it hides inside symptoms that seem unrelated, which is part of why it can go unrecognized for so long.
Hypervigilance is the sense of always scanning for threat. You might feel jumpy, easily startled, or unable to relax even in safe surroundings. Sleep can suffer because the guard never fully comes down.
Numbness and disconnection are the other side of the same coin. When feeling everything becomes too much, the mind sometimes turns the volume down on all of it. You may feel flat, far away, or as though you are watching your own life from behind glass.
Flashbacks and intrusive memories can pull you back into a moment you would give anything to leave behind. These are not just memories. They can arrive with the full physical charge of the original event, which is what makes them so disorienting.
Avoidance is the quiet strategy of steering around anything that might trigger those feelings. Certain places, conversations, people, or even sensations get walled off. Avoidance can feel like it is helping, and in the short term it does. Over time, though, it tends to shrink your world.
Many people carry some mix of all of these, cycling between too much feeling and too little. If that describes you, please know it is a recognizable pattern, not a sign that something is uniquely wrong with you. It sometimes travels alongside anxiety and depression, which I also treat, and the two are often deeply connected.
What trauma does to closeness and trust
This is the part that so often goes unspoken, and it is close to the heart of my work. Trauma does not stay politely contained in the past. It reaches into your relationships, your sense of safety with other people, and your ability to be close.
When your nervous system has learned that closeness once led to harm, or that letting your guard down was dangerous, intimacy can feel genuinely threatening even when you deeply want it. You might notice yourself pulling away from a partner without fully understanding why. Touch that should feel comforting might instead feel activating. Trust, which requires a certain vulnerability, can feel like more than you can risk.
In sexual and romantic relationships, this shows up in many ways. Some people find they disconnect from their bodies during intimate moments. Others feel a wave of anxiety, sadness, or even anger that seems to come from nowhere. Some avoid closeness altogether, and then feel lonely and confused about the distance they helped create. If you have wondered why you cannot simply relax and enjoy connection the way you feel you should, trauma may be part of the answer, and it is a part that can heal.
Because I work at the intersection of trauma and intimacy, I can hold both at once. We do not have to treat your inner life and your relational life as separate projects. They belong together, and that is often where the deepest change happens.
My approach is paced and safety first
The single most important principle in trauma work is this. We do not rush. Healing does not come from forcing yourself to relive the worst moments of your life in vivid detail. It comes from building enough safety, inside and out, that your system can finally begin to settle.
Early on, we spend real time on stabilization. That means helping you find tools to steady yourself when you feel flooded, to come back to the present when the past pulls at you, and to notice the difference between remembering and re-experiencing. These skills are not busywork. They are the foundation that makes everything else possible, and many people feel meaningfully better even in this early stage.
Only when you feel more resourced do we turn toward the harder material, and even then, we do it on your terms. You stay in control of what we discuss and how far we go. If something feels like too much, that is important information, not a failure. We slow down, we regroup, and we build more stability before continuing. This is what I mean by safety first. Your sense of control is not an obstacle to the work. It is the medicine.
Throughout, I keep the relationship warm and human. You are not a case to be managed. You are a person who has carried something heavy, often for a very long time, and you deserve to be met with patience and respect. You can learn more about how I work and who I am if that helps you decide whether we might be a good fit.
Working alongside your other care
I want to be clear about the boundaries of my role, because clarity is part of safety. I am a therapist, not a physician, and I do not prescribe or manage medication. For some people, medication is a genuinely helpful part of recovery, and for others it is not needed at all. That decision belongs to you and a medical provider.
What I can do is coordinate. When it serves your care, and with your permission, I am glad to communicate with your physician, psychiatrist, or other providers so that everyone is working in the same direction. Trauma recovery often goes best when the people supporting you are not operating in isolation. If you are already working with a prescriber or another clinician, that is welcome, not a complication.
If you are looking at a broader picture and are not sure exactly where trauma ends and other concerns begin, my individual therapy work may be a helpful frame. Many people arrive unsure of what to call what they are feeling, and part of our early work is simply making sense of it together.
What healing can look like
I want to be honest with you. Trauma work is not always comfortable, and I will never pretend otherwise. But comfort is not the goal. Freedom is.
Over time, many of my clients describe a loosening of the grip. The hypervigilance quiets, and rest becomes possible again. The numbness thaws, and color returns to ordinary days. Flashbacks lose some of their charge and start to feel more like memories than emergencies. The walls of avoidance come down slowly, and the world grows a little larger again. Closeness, which once felt dangerous, begins to feel like something you can choose.
None of this happens on a schedule, and I will never promise you a timeline. What I can promise is that we will go at a pace your system can handle, and that you will not be alone in it. If you have questions about what to expect, my frequently asked questions page may help, and I am always happy to answer more directly.
An invitation, whenever you are ready
There is no pressure here, and no obligation. If any of this resonated, I would be glad to talk with you. The first consultation is free, confidential, and completely without commitment. It is simply a chance for us to meet, for you to ask anything you like, and for you to get a feel for whether this work feels safe to you.
I see clients in person at MindSpa Integrative Wellness Center at 5632 Bee Ridge Road in Sarasota, and online throughout Florida and Connecticut. You can explore my full range of services or, when you feel ready, schedule your free first consultation. Whatever you decide, I hope you hear this clearly. What happened to you was real, it was not your fault, and healing is possible.
Related support
You can browse all of my services, read more about how I work, find answers on the common questions page, or book a free consultation whenever you feel ready.