What Your Nervous System Does After Betrayal and How to Calm It
When trust is broke through infidelity, deception, or another form of betrayal, the impact goes far beyond than just hurt feelings. Betrayal disrupts your entire nervous system, often leaving the betrayed feeling unsafe in their own bodies long after the event. Many of my clients describe the experience like they “living on the edge” or that they no longer feel like themselves. These reactions are not overreactions. They are survival responses! Understanding what your nervous system does in the aftermath of betrayal can help you begin to make sense of your response and how to take steps towards healing.
Feyre, Nesta, and the Spectrum of Trauma Responses: An ACOTAR Deep Dive
If you’ve read the A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas series, you understand that the emotions in these stories runs deep: love, grief, rage, sisterhood, family, and the weight of survival. Beneath the battles and mates, there is something all of us can relate to on a human level: how trauma shows up. And as the story tells, Feyre, Nesta, and Elain all experience their trauma in a different kind of way.