How PTSD Affects Your Life and Relationships?

by Olga Barrows, MA, CCC

January 2026

PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, can be a deeply seated factor affecting our quality of life, our relationships, friendships, and career. Trauma plays a significant role in how we ultimately respond to interactions, events and stresses in life.

Carrying unprocessed trauma within ourselves does not come for free. We pay for the unaddressed pain - with our own reactions that feel out of control, overwhelming or sometimes scary. As a result of carrying trauma responses within our body, we also often carry guilt and shame for our own reactions. Often, we also carry shame even for things we did not choose to happen - for things that happened to us and for traumas that we carry. This is how trauma works - it shapes our reactions and opinions of self and the world without ever asking for our consent.

There are many shapes that trauma can take. Here are some examples of the types of psychological trauma:

- Early years developmental trauma. This relates to experiences that we have endured when we were little, including events and conflicts that occurred in the family, critical events or harmful ways in which our caregivers responded to us.

- Acute trauma. This includes reactions and experiences that we undergo in the aftermath of an accident or a crisis.

- Complex trauma, or C-PTSD. This happens when there have been multiple traumatic events throughout years, including early years, that conditioned our responses and our way of thinking and being.

- Attachment trauma. This type of trauma includes disruptions in ways that we were cared for in early years and this type of trauma affects how we understand relationships, how we engage in connections with other people and how we respond to other people when they get close.

Trauma lives in our body and takes control of how we behave, think, feel and communicate. The intensity and specific ways in which trauma manifests can also vary. Triggered PTSD responses can feel like a derailment. Flashbacks can feel scary, intrusive or violent. Deeply rooted attachment trauma can feel like an ongoing feeling of inadequacy, shame or self-hate.

The bitter irony of trauma is the price we pay for it. We pay an emotional price for what we didn’t choose to “buy”. Carrying the weight and the impact of the events we did not choose can be very taxing and exhausting. Healing from trauma is ultimately a journey of liberation. When healing, we are ultimately freeing ourselves from conditioned, negative or unpredictable reactions and responses we didn’t choose to have. Trauma recovery means being able to choose how we react, behave and show up in relationships. Trauma work is ultimately a gentle “undoing” of the emotional damage that we incurred over the years from things we did not choose.

Here are a few symptoms of how trauma manifests in relationships. Several of them together might suggest that trauma response might be present in at least one of the partners:

1. Uncontrollable anger. We experience challenges with controlling and expressing anger when having an argument with a partner. Anger feels like a flood that sweeps us away.

2. Repeating pattern. Our arguments always follow the same pattern when one partner withdraws for days or ignores the other partner.

3. Difficulty communicating. We experience not only an ongoing anger but also what feels like an inability to calmly express our feelings and needs in the relationship. When we try to talk about what we need, we start crying or start feeling angry towards the other person. It feels like without an outburst, we won’t be heard.

4. Shame. Often after an argument with a partner we may experience a feeling of self-hate, deep shame, or a desire to “just run away” when the argument occurs. We feel overwhelmed and unable to cope, we feel intense fear that our partner will leave us because we are not good enough for them.

5. Feeling alone. Despite being in a relationship, we might live with a heavy feeling of hopelessness, deep loneliness or emotional isolation. We might feel alone despite being close to another person. Some people describe this feeling as “being behind the glass”. We are together, but we don’t feel connected.

Just like trauma is not a choice, so are our responses.

These trauma-informed responses in relationships don’t happen to us by choice - they unfold on their own, in disrupting or violating patterns. Very often one of the partners says: “I don’t know what came over me. I just had this very strong feeling that I wanted to run away (yell, scream, cry, slam the door, etc.)”. Let’s remember that trauma can take many shapes but it is always the same at the core - it is a conditioned way of our mind, body and psyche to react to stress or perceived threat. Often and inevitably, these reactions flare up in our relationships or during arguments. This is how trauma lets us know that it is present - it responds to external triggers and these responses feel uncontrollable.

There is a lot of meaning and healing in identifying trauma responses in our relationships - and addressing and gently transforming them into a lighter, healthier and more genuine ways of connecting. Trauma therapy helps us take control of our emotions and find safety in our connections. It helps us override stress and fear response - it teaches us that we can experience safety in human connections. Through trauma healing, we are able to learn and experience safety again - something that many of us have not necessarily experienced enough before. And safety is key to healing, survival and positive human interactions.

Overall, trauma therapy is a gentle yet powerful process. It is also a very unique healing journey. Reach out to me and we can talk about how trauma, PTSD and complex PTSD treatment can help you in your unique journey and transform how you feel in relationships and about yourself. Find emotional freedom from the reactions you did not choose.

As a certified counsellor, I offer clinical counselling and focus on trauma treatment in Coquitlam, BC and online.

Let’s connect today and together we can find ways to feel safer, lighter and more like yourself again.

(c) Olga Barrows, MA, CCC

January 2026