Tag Archives: counselling

Surviving Parental Trauma

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Many adults struggle in relationships, with emotions, or with their sense of self without fully understanding why. Often, the missing piece is this: they grew up with a parent who was carrying unresolved trauma. This article is for adult children of trauma-affected parents. It is not about diagnosing parents or assigning blame. Instead, it’s about understanding how growing up around unprocessed trauma can shape a child and how that child, now an adult, can begin to heal. A parent does not need to talk about their trauma for it to affect their child. Trauma lives in the nervous system, and children are exquisitely sensitive to it. They feel it in tone, in mood shifts, in emotional absences, and in reactions that seem bigger than the moment calls for. A trauma-affected parent may feel emotionally unpredictable to a child, sometimes present and loving, other times overwhelmed, withdrawn, anxious, controlling, or unreachable. Even when care and love are present, they may exist alongside fear, confusion, or emotional distance. For a child, this creates a painful contradiction: the same person who provides comfort may also be the source of distress. Over time, the child adapts.

Adaptation as Survival

Children always adapt to their environment. When a parent’s unresolved trauma dominates the emotional landscape, the child learns, often without awareness, what is required to stay connected and safe. Many adult children of trauma-affected parents learned to closely monitor moods, anticipate emotional shifts, stay quiet or helpful, take responsibility for other people’s feelings, or grow up far too quickly. These were not personality traits; they were survival strategies.

Often, these adaptations later become strengths. Empathy, responsibility, sensitivity, and attunement may be highly developed. But what once protected the child can later limit the adult, especially in relationships that require mutuality rather than vigilance.

Body Memory

Trauma is not just remembered; it is encoded in the nervous system. As adults, many people notice that being with their parent, or even thinking about them, triggers strong physical responses. Anxiety, panic, freezing, emotional shutdown, sudden anger, or overwhelming guilt can appear quickly and feel disproportionate. Some people notice that they feel much younger in these moments, as though they are transported back into the emotional world of childhood. These reactions are not signs of weakness or immaturity. They are learned survival responses. The body remembers what it had to do to stay safe long before the adult mind had language or choice.

Invisible Beliefs

Growing up around unresolved trauma often shapes quiet, deeply held beliefs about self and relationships. Many adult children carry an unspoken sense that their needs are too much, that they are responsible for other people’s emotions, or that closeness inevitably leads to danger or loss. These beliefs are rarely conscious, yet they influence boundaries, intimacy, work, and self-worth throughout adulthood. They shape how much space a person feels entitled to take, how safe they feel depending on others, and how easily they experience guilt when prioritising themselves.

Triggers

For many adult children, the parent themselves becomes a trauma trigger, not because the parent intends harm, but because the relationship is linked to years of emotional unpredictability. This can create a deep and painful inner conflict. There may be a longing for closeness alongside a strong sense of unsafety, compassion that exists next to anger or grief, or a tendency to minimize one’s own pain because the parent “had it worse.” Understanding this dynamic can be profoundly relieving. It explains why insight alone does not make these reactions disappear and why healing must involve the nervous system, not just logic or willpower.

One of the most difficult and most healing tasks for adult children is learning to hold two truths at the same time: a parent may have been deeply wounded and doing the best they could, and the child’s emotional needs were still not fully met. Acknowledging impact is not the same as blaming. Your pain does not invalidate your compassion, and your compassion does not erase your pain. Both can exist together.

Healing

Healing from parental trauma is not about fixing the parent or forcing forgiveness. It is about restoring safety, choice, and connection to oneself. This often includes learning to recognise and regulate trauma responses, developing boundaries that protect the nervous system, grieving the parent you needed but did not have, and untangling responsibility from love. Over time, it also means building relationships that feel steadier, more reciprocal, and less activating.

Healing rarely happens all at once. It unfolds gradually, in layers. What matters is not how much you understand, but how much safety you allow yourself to experience in the present.

If you grew up with a trauma-affected parent, your struggles make sense. You adapted to an environment that asked more of you than it should have. You are not broken. You are responding exactly as someone who learned to survive early and often. Healing does not require blame. It requires honesty, compassion, and the permission to care for yourself in ways you never received. You deserved safety then. You are allowed to choose it now.

For one-to-one counselling email me with your name, age and goals for therapy. I offer a free introductory session of 15 minutes. All sessions are online.

info@colletteomahony.com

Collette O’Mahony. February 2026.

How Hormones Shape Women’s Mood: What Every Woman Should Know

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Hormones influence nearly every system in the body; metabolism, sleep, energy, and especially mood. For many women, emotional shifts can feel sudden or seem to come out of nowhere. In fact, they often reflect real, predictable biological patterns. Understanding these patterns can help women reduce self-blame, communicate their needs more clearly, and recognise when psychological support or medical evaluation may be useful. As therapists, we see how often women pathologize themselves for what is, in part, normal hormonal variability. This article highlights the main hormonal influences on mood and how they interact with stress, trauma, and daily life.

The Menstrual Cycle: A Monthly Emotional Landscape

Oestrogen

  • Typically rises in the first half of the cycle (follicular phase).
  • Often associated with improved mood, motivation, and mental clarity.
  • Can enhance serotonin and dopamine activity, which contributes to feelings of well-being.

Progesterone

  • Rises in the second half of the cycle (luteal phase).
  • Has a calming effect for some women, but for others contributes to irritability, low mood, or emotional sensitivity.
  • Sudden drops in progesterone and oestrogen before menstruation can contribute to PMS or, in some cases, more severe PMDD, which includes intense mood swings, depression, and anxiety.

Tracking cycle-related mood patterns can help identify when emotional shifts are hormonally influenced rather than signs of failure or instability.

2. Hormones and Stress: The Cortisol Connection

Cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone, interacts with reproductive hormones in ways that can amplify emotional experiences.

  • Chronic stress can disrupt the menstrual cycle and intensify mood symptoms.
  • Many women report of feeling more anxious, overwhelmed, or fatigued during times of hormonal fluctuation when stress levels are also high.
  • From a therapeutic perspective: Supporting self-regulation, boundary-setting, and stress reduction can significantly ease hormone-related emotional shifts.

3. Mood Changes Across Reproductive Life Stages

Adolescence

Hormonal surges paired with identity formation and social pressures can make teens especially sensitive to emotional dysregulation.

Pregnancy

Oestrogen and progesterone soar, leading to:

  • Heightened emotional responsiveness
  • Increased need for rest and support
  • Potential vulnerability to perinatal anxiety or depression, especially in those with a history of mood disorders

Postpartum

Rapid hormonal drops combined with sleep disruption and new-parent stress can contribute to:

  • Maternity blues (common and short-lived)
  • Postpartum depression or anxiety (more persistent, requiring attention)

Perimenopause

This transition often brings:

  • Unpredictable hormone fluctuations
  • Mood swings
  • Irritability
  • Increased anxiety
    Women frequently describe feeling “not like myself,” which can be deeply unsettling without proper understanding.

Menopause

While hormone levels are lower overall, emotional steadiness often returns once fluctuations settle.

4. Hormones Don’t Act Alone

Hormones influence mood, but they don’t determine it. Psychological factors intertwine with biology:

  • History of trauma can increase sensitivity to hormonal shifts.
  • Internalised expectations (e.g., “I should be on top of things”) intensify distress.
  • Relationship dynamics often become flashpoints during hormonally sensitive times.
  • Sleep, nutrition, exercise, and social support all modify hormonal effects.

This means that therapy and lifestyle changes often significantly reduce hormone-related symptoms, even when biology is part of the picture.

5. How Therapy Can Support Clients

1. Self-Compassion Over Self-Criticism

Reframing hormonal mood changes as biological patterns, not personal flaws to reduce feelings of shame.

2. Emotional Regulation Strategies

Mindfulness, grounding techniques, and cognitive reframing can be especially helpful during hormonally vulnerable phases.

3. Tracking Patterns

Encouraging clients to track mood, sleep, and cycle patterns can empower them to anticipate shifts and plan accordingly.

4. Communication Skills

Helping women articulate their needs to others, during sensitive times in their cycle, can transform relationship dynamics.

5. When to Seek Medical Input

If mood symptoms are severe, disruptive, or cyclical, a medical evaluation for PMDD, thyroid issues, or perimenopause-related changes may be appropriate.

Conclusion

Hormones play a significant role in women’s emotional experiences, but they are just one piece of a larger mind-body system. When women understand the predictable patterns behind their emotional shifts, they can respond with insight and self-care rather than self-blame. Therapists can support this awareness, helping women move toward greater emotional stability and empowerment.

Collette O’Mahony (Dip.Psy.C)

To book a free introductory session (15 minutes) contact me: info@colletteomahony.com

The Self-Deception Trap: How We Create False Narratives to Outrun Emotional Pain

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History is generally written by the victor; seldom do we hear the true voice of the oppressed. And so, it is within each of us, we celebrate our best achievements and we consign our fears and failures to the annals of our emotional wasteland. We are all the authors of our own inner histories, changing the narrative to craft a curated self-image for the outer world until at some point we too come to believe the edited version.

During our formative years we rarely understand how to navigate our emotional landscape. Painful feelings are often bottled up, rejected and forgotten. While the mind may in time learn to repress painful memories, our bodies do not. Unprocessed emotions are the building blocks of ego. Emotional gaps are replaced by bricks of fiction, false narratives about the past. These thoughts are whispered and repeatedly told to the self. “This did not hurt as much as we think it did,” or “It was my choice to break-up with them”.  This inner dialogue is not designed to deceive others, but to help us survive the emotional hurt.

What is the true, eventual cost of these building blocks? A defensive fortress is constructed from our unresolved pain trapping the emotions inside. We may gain an immediate reprieve from difficult feelings, but we lose access to reality, trading present comfort for prolonged internal exile. When we use fiction to numb pain, we ensure the core emotional lesson is never absorbed. If the narrative claims that the difficulty was entirely someone else’s fault, we are avoiding accountability. This leaves us open to repeating the same dynamic again and again until it becomes a maladaptive behaviour pattern. This behaviour patten continues in a continuous loop until we set free the original emotion trapped behind the false narrative.

The false narrative is a house of cards. It requires constant, vigilant upkeep and cannot withstand the inevitable, sudden wind of a new, painful event. When life inevitably challenges the lie (e.g. a new rejection that mirrors an old heartbreak), the entire scaffolding collapses. The pain is not just felt; it is experienced with the added, terrifying force of the shame of the deception. We reel, not from this current setback, but from many layers of false narrative and illusion.

The role of therapy is not to brutally shatter the false narrative; that act of violence would only deepen the trauma. The work of healing is a process of gentle, persistent illumination of concealed emotions where our rejected truth resides. Psychotherapy provides a safe platform for this courageous act. The first step in dismantling the false narrative is to slow down the unconscious loop of maladaptive behaviour cycles. By doing so, we can gain access to the precise feeling the narrative was designed to evade leading to inner balance within and without.

For one-to-one counselling, please click on my counselling page: www.colletteomahony.com/counselling.

For a free introductory call (20 minutes) to discuss goals for therapy – Email: info@colletteomahony.com

All sessions are on Zoom. All time zones considered.

I look forward to hearing from you. Collette.

Energy Sources

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Finding inner-balance

A key to achieving emotional balance is in understanding the sources of our energy. Is it renewable energy, grounded in mindfulness, self-awareness, and intrinsic motivation? Or are we relying on a secondary energy source, which is often external and unsustainable, such as seeking validation, praise, or status?

Renewable energy is internal, arising from practices that foster emotional and mental well-being. This kind of energy comes from a place of mindfulness, self-awareness, and an authentic connection to oneself. When we draw from this energy, we are more likely to experience emotional resilience because we are not dependent on outside circumstances or external validation. We are grounded in our inner self-worth, capable of staying calm in the face of adversity, and able to make thoughtful decisions rather than reacting impulsively to fear or stress. Renewable energy is self-sustaining. Mindfulness practices, such as meditation, journaling, or spending time in nature, help cultivate this energy. It is also nurtured by an ongoing practice of self-compassion, where we approach challenges with curiosity and patience rather than self-judgment.

This energy allows us to face both optimism and pessimism without getting lost in extremes, because it fosters emotional flexibility—the ability to respond appropriately to whatever arises.

Secondary energy sources are externally driven, often coming from a need for praise, validation, status, or attention. These sources of energy are less stable and can be fleeting, which makes them unreliable when facing emotional challenges. If our emotional well-being is tied to how others perceive us, we become vulnerable to external fluctuations. For example, if we rely on praise to feel good about ourselves, it can lead to a pattern of people pleasing and co-dependency. On the other hand, when we don’t receive the validation we seek, it can trigger pessimism and feelings of worthlessness. Relying on external energy sources creates a cycle where our emotional state is dictated by circumstances beyond our control. This can leave us feeling emotionally depleted, causing us to oscillate between extremes of behaviour, from excessive optimism when things go well to deep pessimism when they don’t.

Just as we learn unhelpful habits, such as relying on external sources of energy, we can also unlearn them. Firstly, we need to recognise patterns of behaviour. Behavioural Therapies such as CBT helps us chart our maladaptive behaviour patterns and to recognise triggers that lead to these spirals.

For online one-to-one therapy sessions please get in touch with me at: info@colletteomahony.com.

This is an extract from by book ‘A Compass for Change’. Available on Amazon.

Collette O’Mahony.

Defence Mechanisms

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Excuses, excuses.

Excuses can be seen as a way to mitigate personal responsibility or as a subtle form of apology. We often use them in hopes of softening the frustration of someone we have let down, yet consistently relying on excuses can reveal a conscious or unconscious attempt to manipulate other people’s emotions, seeking either pity or control. It’s important to differentiate between someone making an excuse to spare another’s feelings and someone doing so to avoid accountability.

We employ all kinds of excuses to justify poor behaviour. These excuses spring from our belief system and are fertilised by unconscious guilt, shame or denial. Admitting we are wrong deflates the ego, while using an excuse neutralises the effect on our self-esteem. Using excuses like being distracted or overwhelmed with work is less damaging to our ego than admitting we are negligent or forgetful. Excusing our behaviour shifts responsibility to external factors, allowing us to avoid accountability. In so doing, we do not have to feel or process any guilt associated with our behaviour.

When we continually use excuses to mask our behaviour, we are signalling to the world that we have no control over our actions. Our energy conveys that we are not mature enough to take responsibility for our choices and their consequences. Excuses and denial are weeds that choke the seeds of potential. Every excuse we make to avoid facing our emotions stunts our growth, and the harm we inflict on our authentic self is mirrored back to us by the outer world.

Energy Signals

Feelings, such as shame and guilt, are less desirable than dignity or pride, and call for humility. It is the value judgment we attach to an emotion that characterises the feeling as right or wrong, good or bad. These labels are often subjective and are shaped by past experiences and beliefs. The key to releasing an emotion is to allow it to exist without assigning a value to it. This form of acceptance is transformational.

Emotions are energy signals from our body informing us of certain behaviours that are out of alignment with our authentic self. If we’ve wronged someone, they serve as a prompt to address the situation. If we avoid the prompt, the energy from the emotion is projected in the mind and becomes distorted by value judgements. For instance, a man cuts ahead of people queueing at a coffee takeout. He becomes aware of an energy signal that indicates he is out of sync with the people around him (our collective energy comes from the same source). Instead of apologising or stepping back in line, he ignores the emotion, and it triggers a feeling response such as ‘I’m justified because I am in a hurry’, or, ‘I am a regular customer and deserve to be served first’.

An objectified emotion becomes a feeling. Continuing to ignore energy signals lead to further projection of hurt and pain onto the world around us, which can manifest in disagreements at work, or arguments at home. If not addressed, these situations escalate into conflict and drama.

We may automatically use avoidance as the best option to numb our feelings by binging on TV, food or drink. Regardless of the avoidance strategy we use, we are letting our unresolved conflicts dictate our behaviour instead of confronting the issue. When we deny a feeling within us, we consign the energy to the unconscious where it causes behavioural defects. When we avoid necessary conversations to resolve conflicts, it often stems from a fear of the outcome. We may have witnessed or participated in conflicts that led to irreparable breakdowns, which have shaped our coping strategies. We might either avoid disputes altogether to preserve a relationship, or end a relationship to steer clear of conflict. This is the foundation of maladaptive behaviour, where we link every tense argument to a potentially explosive situation based on our history.

Releasing Emotions

We need intention and self-awareness to follow our behaviour back to its origin. We also require determination. We have magpie minds that alight on glitter rather than mining for real treasure. Once we recognise disturbing thoughts and behaviours, we may feel compelled to struggle against them. We falsely believe that by fighting them, we can eliminate unwanted inclinations. However, our role is simply to be an observer. When we observe difficult thoughts, we must also experience the emotions that accompany them. Avoiding our feelings can result in mental wrestling, leading to a chaotic spiral of thoughts. Notice an emotion in your body that is triggered by a thought or feeling. (Remember, a feeling is an emotion embellished with value judgements; an emotion is a sensation stripped of thought.) Allow the emotion to be as it is, whether it is a tingling or heavy sensation; just observe it without resistance or judgement. With this continued practice, the energy will release and it can no longer fuel difficult thoughts and maladaptive behaviour.

When we become aware of maladaptive behaviours and their source, they cease to have an unconscious hold over us. Instead of an automatic reactive response in a triggering situation, we have a conscious choice of how we act, or react to the emotional stressor. Avoidance is a maladaptive behavioural response to excessive fear and anxiety. Avoiding challenging situations may provide temporary relief, but it can hinder personal growth and fulfilment over time. Avoidance as a coping mechanism leads to dependence, and it undermines our confidence.

We must push through limiting attitudes if we are to germinate and grow. A seed needs darkness to germinate and light to grow. When we are immersed in darkness, we are in germination; we must keep pushing through until we reach the light of a new consciousness, a higher level of understanding. Life is cyclical, seasons come and go, and we are perennial, cosmic flowers having a human experience. 

Taken from A Compass for Change

Collette O’Mahony

June 2025