Rumination After Loss and Trauma: Why You Keep Replaying It "Why did it happen?" "What if I'd left earlier?" "Why me?" "Why can't I get over this?" After a loss or a traumatic experience, many people find their mind circling the same questions over and over. It can go on for hours, especially at night. It feels important, as if the answer is just one more thought away. But the answer never quite arrives, and each round leaves you more exhausted than before. This is rumination

If I could point to one pattern that keeps trauma, grief and depression going, it would be avoidance. Not because people who avoid are doing something wrong. Avoidance is one of the most natural, human responses to pain there is. It's what the mind is designed to do: move away from what hurts. The trouble is that what protects us in the short term often keeps us stuck in the long term. The short answer Avoidance means steering away from painful thoughts, feelings, memories, p

Self-compassion isn't weakness or self-pity. A psychologist explains why it helps with grief, trauma and depression, why it can feel hard, and how to start.

You walk into a room and can't remember why. You lose words mid-sentence. You miss appointments you would never have forgotten before. Or, more unsettling, there are whole periods of your life you can barely recall. Memory problems are one of the most frightening and least discussed effects of grief, trauma and depression. For some people, ADHD is part of the picture too, sometimes undiagnosed until adulthood. Each affects memory in its own way, and they often overlap. The sh

Can't sleep since a loss or trauma? A psychologist explains why grief, trauma and depression disrupt sleep, and the evidence-based steps that help you rest.

"I should have seen it coming." "I should have been there." "Why am I still here when they aren't?" "I don't deserve to feel better." Guilt is one of the heaviest things people carry after loss and trauma, and one of the least talked about. It can be quiet and constant, or it can arrive at 3am with a list of everything you did wrong. In depression, it can spread until it feels like proof that you are fundamentally bad. Guilt shows up differently in grief, trauma and depressio

After a loss, many people quietly wonder whether what they're feeling is still grief or something more. They're tired all the time. They've stopped seeing friends. They cry without warning, or can't cry at all. Is this normal grief? Or has it become depression? It's a fair question, and not always an easy one to answer. Grief and depression share many symptoms, and they can exist at the same time. But they are different experiences, and knowing the difference can help you und

Some people come to therapy for depression and discover, over time, that trauma sits underneath it. Others come because of a traumatic experience and realise that the heaviness they've been carrying for years has a name. Trauma and depression are separate conditions, but they are close companions. Each can lead to the other, and each can keep the other going. Understanding how they interact is often the first step towards breaking the cycle. The short answer Trauma can lead t

"I should be feeling something." People say this to me after a funeral where they didn't cry. After an assault they describe as if it happened to someone else. After months of depression where nothing, not even the things they used to love, seems to reach them. Emotional numbness can be frightening. It can make you feel cold, broken or disconnected from your own life. But numbness is rarely the absence of feeling. More often, it's a sign that your mind is protecting you from

Choosing a psychologist is a personal decision. Before you book, it helps to know how someone works, who they work with, and what sessions will actually feel like. This page explains my approach, so you can decide whether it feels like the right fit for you. Who I work with I work with adults who are living with the effects of trauma, depression and complicated grief. Often, people come to me with more than one of these at once: a loss that was also a shock, a depression that

When people are struggling, they tend to ask two questions. The first is, "What do I do with these thoughts?" The second, usually later and more quietly, is, "How do I stop them running my life?" Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is very good at answering the first question. Mindfulness is very good at answering the second. For most people living with trauma, depression or grief, both questions matter, which is why bringing the two approaches together can be so effective. T

Most of us expect grief to hurt. What we don't expect is for it to frighten us. Yet many people describe the weeks after a death not as sadness but as shock. The heart pounds every time the phone rings. The same moment replays over and over. Sleep comes in broken pieces. Then, months later, the fear quietens and something heavier moves in: a flatness, a sense that nothing will ever feel right again. This isn't a random collection of reactions. It's a recognisable path, from l