Understanding Choice and Our Own Limitations Working To Heal Childhood Trauma

Trauma does not simply disappear. It reorganises itself inside the psyche. What begins as a way of surviving something overwhelming can later feel intrusive, even hostile. Thoughts, memories, and emotions can appear as if they are working against us, when in fact they were formed to protect us at a time when there were no other options.

I am writing this to explain how these forces, what depth psychology sometimes calls the daimonic, continue to affect us in adulthood.

In this context, the word daimonic refers to parts of the psyche that are powerful, independent, and sometimes overwhelming. These are the forces that can take over when the conscious mind is unable to act, often formed in response to trauma or extreme stress. They are not evil or supernatural, but protective psychic patterns. When trauma occurs, these daimonic forces can feel like they are running the show. Memories, emotions, and reactions that feel foreign or unmanageable are often the daimonic at work. Healing involves meeting them, recognising them, and gradually integrating them, turning what was once chaotic or controlling into something that serves life rather than governs it.

The difficulty is that what once protected does not always know how to stop. It continues, even when the original situation is no longer present. And so the person is left not only with the memory of what happened, but with an internal world that can feel pressurised, reactive, or difficult to settle.

The instinct is often to try to get rid of it. To silence it, override it, or move past it as quickly as possible. But this does not work. What is pushed away tends to return, often with more force.

The task then is not elimination. It is something far more difficult. It is to remain in relationship with what has formed, without collapsing into it and without turning away.

The Core Mechanism

The child brain is wired to stay attached to the caregiver, even when the caregiver is unsafe. Because survival depends on the caregiver, the psyche keeps the attachment bond active, even if the relationship is harmful.

As an adult, you can understand what happened intellectually, but the attachment system is older than reasoning. The psyche can remain emotionally tied to the parent in several ways: continuing to look for acknowledgement, continuing to react strongly to reminders, continuing to feel anger or unfinished business. Not because you want the relationship, but because the attachment bond was never resolved.

The attachment system wants one of two endings: repair or clear separation. If repair never happens, the psyche eventually has to create its own separation internally. The shift usually happens when the mind stops orienting toward the parent at all. Not forgiving, not reconciling, not explaining. Simply removing them as a psychological reference point. In practical terms the internal position becomes: “They are part of my history, but they are not part of my psychological present.” That is usually when the emotional intensity finally starts to reduce.

I have experienced this in my own life. I cannot make the past change, but I am slowly creating distance in how it governs me. The anger is still there, valid and alive, but it is no longer the only position I have.

Melancholy, Fantasy, and the Black Sun

Julia Kristeva calls this state the “Black Sun.” It is an inner presence that is really an absence, a light without representation, a sadness that becomes the sole object of attachment. Patients with early trauma often live with a melancholic self-soothing that leaves them unembodied, crying and holding themselves at the same time, unable to share that sorrow with anyone else.

I can see how this applied to me in my past. I was not able to mourn what I lost, or the care that was never given, because of the situation and the shocking behaviour of my birth parents. And yet, I have been able to express it, to name it, to meet it, even in my frustration and anger. That recognition itself is a milestone.

Sacrifice and Choice

The word sacrifice can be misunderstood, especially in the context of trauma. It can sound like something demanded of the person who has already endured way too much. That is not what is meant here.

Sacrifice is the gradual giving up of what could not be. The mind naturally returns to what should have happened: protection, recognition, care. But when those things were not present, the psyche can remain oriented toward them for decades.

I can see this in my own life. Not only in what happened, but in how many years were spent trying to understand it, to place it, to make sense of something that did not make sense at the time.

Sacrifice begins when this is seen clearly. Not as an idea, but as a reality. It is the recognition that no amount of reworking can change what took place, or create the response that was not given. This does not remove the anger or the grief. If anything, it brings them more sharply into focus. But it does begin to shift the direction of energy.

What is given up is not the truth of what happened, but the expectation that it can be undone. There is a particular kind of anger in this, not only at what was done, but at how much life has been taken up in the aftermath.

Choice begins to emerge later. It shows up in small, practical ways. Where attention goes, what is engaged with and what is stepped back from, what is built in the present. It is not about overriding the past or pretending it has no impact. It is about not allowing it to be the only organising force in one’s life.

This is where the transformation begins. The same energy that once remained locked in repetition, in memory, in emotional intensity, starts to shift its direction. Not because it has been forced to, but because it is being met, recognised, and gradually integrated. What once felt overwhelming begins to take on a different quality. Not gone, not erased, but changed.

The task is not to become untouched. That is not possible. The task is to no longer be entirely governed by what happened.

Closing Thought

The hardest part of childhood trauma is not only what happened, but how many years of life are spent trying to understand and survive it. But even in that struggle, transformation is possible. Even the daimonic, the protective but intrusive parts of the psyche, can be met and integrated. From there, life becomes something you can engage with on your own terms, step by step, choice by choice.

Penelope Ryder is a hypnotherapist, astrologer, mentor, peer supporter and writer completing a book on trauma and survival. She writes about psychology, astrology and the inner life at Substack www.peneloperyder.com