How Trauma Affects Our Relationships and How to Regain Control of Your Life

A Therapist’s Guide to Understanding Trauma’s Impact on Relationships—and the Proven Path to Healing, Accountability, and Lasting Change

By Keith York, LMFT Couples Therapist in Orinda, CA

Let me talk straight with you.

If you’ve been struggling in your relationships—fighting, shutting down, losing yourself, exploding at your partner, or feeling chronically misunderstood—there’s a reason. And the reason isn’t that you’re “broken.”

It’s that trauma trained you into ways of being that once kept you safe… and now keep you stuck.

Trauma wires us into two directions: one-down shame or one-up grandiosity.

Most people only talk about the shame. Very few people talk about the grandiosity.

I’m going to talk about both—because both wreck relationships. And both are learnable, which means both are changeable.

The Truth About Trauma: It Doesn’t Just Make You Hurt — It Shapes Who You Become

Most trauma work focuses on the wounded child: the shame, the fear, the abandonment. And yes, those wounds matter. If you grew up disempowered—criticized, dismissed, hit, neglected—of course you carry shame.

But here’s what most trauma theories leave out:

Trauma also creates grandiosity.

Not just low self-esteem, but inflated self-esteem. Not just feelings of “I’m not enough,” but behaviors of “I’m better than you.”

Some people don’t retreat into shame; they launch into superiority.

They become controlling. They dominate. They attack, fix, preach, or steamroll. They escalate from feeling abandoned to becoming omnipotent.

And here’s the kicker:

Grandiosity isn’t always a reaction to trauma. Sometimes it’s an inheritance.

Maybe you were raised by a parent who raged. Or a parent who never set limits. Or a family who said, “We’re better than those people.”

That’s called false empowerment, and it’s as damaging as shame.

Two Forms of Trauma: Shame and False Empowerment

The late Pia Mellody, a pioneer in the field of trauma, nailed this: There are two kinds of abuse:

1. Disempowering abuse → shame, collapse, one-down

2. False empowerment → entitlement, grandiosity, one-up

   
   

Most people only recognize the first.

But the second is everywhere.

False empowerment sounds like: “We’re special.” “We don’t do things like that.” “You’re too smart for those people.” “You’re above the rules.”

That kind of upbringing sets you up to become reactive, boundaryless, self-centered, or contemptuous—and you don’t even know it’s happening.

You didn’t ask for this. But now you’re living with its consequences.

Grandiosity Won’t Disappear Just by Healing Your Wounds

There’s a popular idea in therapy: “If we just heal the wounded inner child, the destructive behaviors will fade.”

No. It doesn’t work that way.

You can love up the wounded child all day long. You can do beautiful trauma processing. You can understand exactly where it all came from.

But the obnoxious, rageful, defensive, selfish, avoidant, or dominating behaviors won’t magically stop.

You have to deal with the grandiosity directly.

You must name it. You must bring it into the room. And you must join with what I call your wise adult mind to confront old, mostly unconscious ways of reacting to the world.

The knee-jerk reactions that are ruining your relationship.

I'll often say to a client: "Come on my friend. That's not what you want to be doing, right? Will you let me show you a better way?"

That’s how we help you rescue yourself and your relationship at East Bay Relational Recovery in Orinda, CA.:

Loving.

Direct.

Accountable.

Transformational.

How Trauma Replays Itself in Adult Relationships

Every one of us repeats what we learned growing up—not because we like it, but because it’s familiar.

• If you were shamed, you collapse.

• If you were falsely empowered, you dominate.

• If you were neglected, you stop caring for yourself.

• If you were over-responsible, you over-function for everyone else.

• If you grew up in chaos, you recreate chaos.

• If you grew up around contempt, you speak in contempt.

Your early relational patterns run your relationships… even when it’s destroying them.

Healing means stepping out of that role—and stepping out of the world your family lived in.

And that brings grief.

Progress Always Brings Grief (And That’s a Good Sign)

When you stop living the way your trauma trained you, you leave the world you grew up in.

• The world of rage.

• The world of people-pleasing.

• The world of martyrdom.

• The world of entitlement.

• The world of addiction.

• The world of disconnection.

You become, in author and therapist Terry Real’s words, an immigrant to health.

And that means grieving what you didn’t get—and grieving the years you lost repeating the same patterns.

But grief is not a sign you’re failing.

It’s a sign you’re waking up.

How to Regain Control of Your Life (The Relational Way)

Here’s how real change happens—not through shame, insight alone, or endless “talking it out,” but through loving accountability:

1. Name the adaptive survival strategies you learned as a child

Call out the part of you that rages, shuts down, lies, withdraws, controls, or accommodates.

2. Join with your wise adult

The part of you that knows better and wants better.

3. Face the truth with love

“This is not the best of who you are. Come on—let’s do better.”

4. Break loyalty to the dysfunctional family culture

Stop keeping your parents’ emotional world alive inside you.

5. Practice new relational behaviors

Boundaries. Repair. Humility. Attunement. Accountability.

6. Expect discomfort

Healthy intimacy is unfamiliar, not wrong.

7. Keep going

Every step toward relational health is a step toward reclaiming your life.

You Deserve a Life Beyond Your Trauma — Let’s Get You There

You were set up. Not your fault.

But healing? That’s your responsibility—and your opportunity.

You don’t have to keep repeating your childhood.

You don’t have to stay loyal to suffering.

You don’t have to keep hurting the people you love—or yourself.

You can grow beyond your childhood adaptions.

You can step into your wise adult.

You can build a relationship—and a life—rooted in connection, not trauma.

If you’re ready for help that’s both loving and direct…If you’re tired of insight without change…

If you want someone who will tell you the truth and stand with you while you grow…

Reach out.

We at East Bay Relational Recovery in Orinda, CA would love to help you take your life back.

Contact us today to schedule a free 15 minute consultation

Written by Keith York, LMFT, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Orinda, California, serving Orinda, Lafayette, Moraga, and the greater east bay area of San Francisco. Keith specializes in couples therapy with a focus in Gottman Method Therapy and Relational Life Therapy.

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About Keith York, LMFT