Regret as a Trauma Response: When You Finally See What You Allowed

Regret has a way of sneaking in once the chaos of survival mode ends. When you're no longer just trying to survive, you finally have the space to look back—and sometimes, what you see is extremely hard to sit with.

You start to notice how long you stayed in something that was hurting you—most often a relationship, but sometimes a toxic job or one-sided friendship that mirrored the same emotional patterns. The boundaries you didn’t hold. The behavior you tolerated. The way you silenced yourself, abandoned your needs, ignored your gut. And maybe worst of all, the person you had to become just to get through it.

This is where many people think healing is supposed to feel better. But for a lot of people, this is the part that hits the hardest. Because when the dust settles, the shame surfaces.

You might ask yourself: How did I let that happen? Why didn’t I leave sooner? How could I not see it? What does that say about me? These questions may feel uncomfortable, but they don’t mean you’re irreparably broken or defective. They often show up when your system finally has enough safety to begin making sense of what you went through.

Regret is often the mind trying to make sense of choices that were never made from clarity in the first place. They were made in survival. You weren’t ignoring red flags because you didn’t care—you were wired to scan for danger, manage outcomes, and keep the peace. You weren’t “choosing badly.” You were choosing what felt familiar, what felt safest at the time, what helped you survive the day.

When you're in survival mode, your goal is not alignment. It's not joy. It’s not even peace. It's endurance.

That version of you—the one you may now judge—was operating from a nervous system that didn’t know rest, safety, or emotional stability. That version wasn’t in a place to make decisions rooted in self-worth or clarity. That version was making decisions in a fog of cortisol, conditioning, and exhaustion.

But the fact that you’re now able to reflect at all—that you’re noticing, questioning, feeling—is a sign that something has shifted. It means you’re no longer stuck in the same cycle. Regret might be loud, but it’s often just the first voice to speak when real awareness begins.

So when regret starts to show up during healing, the most important thing you can do is interrupt the urge to shame yourself for what you didn’t know yet. You weren’t blind or weak. You were doing what you had the capacity to do at the time.

This doesn’t mean bypassing accountability. It doesn’t mean denying pain. But it means acknowledging the hard truths with compassion. It means recognizing that survival isn’t the same as consent. Tolerating something doesn’t mean you were okay with it—it means you were adapting. And adaptation is not the same as agreement.

Regret can also be a sign of growth. It shows your standards have shifted and that you're no longer comfortable with the things you used to justify. It signals you're beginning to recognize what you deserve, and that kind of clarity isn’t something to resent—it’s something you move forward with.

You may never feel completely at peace with what you went through—or with how long you stayed. And you don’t have to. Some things won’t ever sit right, no matter how much healing you do. But you can still decide what it revealed to you. You can take what you’ve learned and use it to move forward. And you can meet the version of yourself who lived through it with understanding, not judgment. That shift changes everything.

You’re allowed to grieve who you were in those years. You’re allowed to feel heartbroken over what you allowed. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to wish it had gone differently.

But you're not required to carry that pain forever as punishment or as proof of what you survived.

The most honest way forward isn’t pretending it didn’t happen—it’s refusing to let it define you and choosing not to live as the version of you that was shaped by pain.

You are not what you tolerated. You are not the version of you that survived. You are who you’re choosing to be now that you finally have the space to choose at all. 

Further Reading: These resources offer deeper insight into trauma, emotional processing, and the path to clarity after survival.

• The Difference Between Shame and Accountability by Kristen Fuller, M.D. – Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happiness-is-state-mind/202102/the-difference-between-shame-and-accountability

• When Trauma Gets Stuck in the Body by Beth Shaw – Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-the-body/201910/when-trauma-gets-stuck-in-the-body

• Feeling Stuck in Trauma? 4 Steps to Get Free by Beth Moore – Moore Wellness: https://moorewellness.life/trauma-feel-stuck-4-steps-unstuck/
  
  

About the Author: Yolanda Trevino, PLC, HHP, HWC
Founder of Evolutionary Body System | Author | Entrepreneur

Yolanda Trevino is the founder of Evolutionary Body System™. Her expertise in holistic wellness has led to the creation of transformative programs and tools, including the Holistic Growth Reset, aimed at building resilience and personal growth. Yolanda is a multi-published author, with works including her latest book, "The Evolutionary Plate: From Taste to Transformation™." She is also known for "Lessons Learned at 40,” among others. As an entrepreneur, she founded Microhair Aesthetics, focusing on hair and skin wellness. Join her on a journey to holistic well-being and discover the transformative power of integrating body, mind, and spirit.