Things that helped you survive may be costing you now.
Hi, I’m Micah Fleitman, LPC. I offer online therapy across Virginia for adults carrying complex trauma, chronic shame, and survival patterns that no longer feel like a choice. My approach is shaped by helping people understand the patterns that came to define how they see themselves, and loosen their grip.
Complex trauma doesn’t usually announce itself. It shows up in subtler ways. In how quickly you make yourself small when someone seems upset. In the way you monitor the room before you say anything real. How long does it take to trust that something good will last? In the particular exhaustion of always trying to figure out who you need to be.
It tends to come from prolonged experiences rather than single events. Growing up in an environment where safety was conditional, love was inconsistent, or you had to earn your place by being useful, agreeable, or invisible. Over time, the roles you learned to play became the way you understood yourself. The people-pleasing. The hypervigilance. The sense that your needs are too much. The feeling that you are, at some fundamental level, different from other people.
The things that once protected you aren’t failures. They made complete sense. And they may not be what you need anymore.
Many people who carry complex trauma don’t identify with the word trauma at all. They just feel like this is who they are. Some signs it may be more than that:
The goal isn't to become someone new. It's to stop losing yourself.
Complex trauma therapy is not primarily about revisiting what happened. It is about understanding how what happened shaped the way you learned to relate to yourself. The disconnection from your own emotions that started as protection. The patterns of self-protection that feel like personality. The confusion about what you actually need, after years of not being in a position to ask.
We work slowly and carefully, because this kind of work requires trust, and trust takes time to build. Some of what we do will involve understanding where these roles came from. Some of it will involve helping you notice, in real time, when they are running. Some will involve learning that it is safe to have needs, to express them, and to stay in connection with people without disappearing.
What I offer:
A free consultation is where we begin. We’ll talk about what you’re carrying, what you’ve tried, and whether the way I work feels like the right fit. No pressure. Just an honest conversation.
Let's create a space where you can feel safe being yourself.
For a long time, I managed my pain by working harder, doing more, being better. I didn’t know how to let people care for me, or how to ask for what I needed. It wasn’t until I started listening to the parts of myself I’d been taught to hide, and learning to accept all of them, that anything actually shifted.
I’m a licensed professional counselor with a Master’s in Counseling from the University of William and Mary and training in EMDR, IFS, somatic therapy, and psychodynamic approaches. What I bring to this work isn’t just training. It’s a genuine understanding of what happens when survival starts to feel like who you are, and how different life can feel when it doesn’t have to anymore.
This kind of history tends to organize itself around identity rather than memory. It shapes not just what you remember, but what you believe about yourself, what you expect from others, and how much space you allow yourself to take up. Here are some of the most common ways it presents.
Many people with complex trauma describe a persistent sense of being somehow wrong at a level they can’t name. Not just different. Defective. If I’m the problem, then at least I have some control. That’s often the quiet logic underneath it. Like everyone else received something in childhood that they missed, and the only way to make sense of that gap was to decide the gap was you.
What was once a way of making sense of confusing or painful experiences becomes, over time, an identity. One of the things I find most meaningful in this work is watching people discover that the story isn’t actually true.
There is a version of people-pleasing that developed because your emotional safety depended on other people staying calm, pleased, or not upset with you. You learned to read the room. You became skilled at sensing what others needed and providing it before anyone asked. This can look like generosity. It can be generosity. But it can also be fear wearing the clothes of kindness.
The difficulty is that this strategy often works. People respond well to it. Which means you get reinforced for disappearing. Over time, you may lose track of what you actually want, because wanting things started to feel dangerous long before it became unconscious.
Many people with this kind of history find that being busy feels safer than being still. Slowing down can bring up restlessness, guilt, or a vague sense that something is wrong. If your worth was tied to being useful, productive, or low-maintenance, rest can start to feel like a risk rather than a relief.
This usually isn’t about not wanting to rest. It’s about what rest exposes. Feelings that were never welcome. Needs that were never safe to have. A stillness that gives old patterns room to surface. Learning that you can rest without earning it first is often a quiet but significant part of this work.
When your early environment required you to orient around other people’s needs rather than your own, identifying your own needs can become genuinely difficult. Not because you don’t have them. But because paying attention to them may have felt unsafe. Inconvenient to others. Selfish. Something to manage rather than express.
This shows up in small ways that add up. Difficulty choosing. Deferring to what others want before you’ve checked with yourself. Feeling anxious or guilty when someone asks what you’d like. A sense that you should be fine with whatever happens. Learning that your needs are not too much is often a central part of complex trauma recovery.
When connection has historically required you to be a certain kind of person, intimacy can start to feel less like being known and more like a test you’re always at risk of failing. You show the version of yourself you believe is acceptable. You hold back the parts you’re ashamed of. You watch for signs of disappointment and adjust before anyone has to ask.
The exhaustion in this isn’t just relational. It’s the exhaustion of never quite being yourself with another person. Complex trauma therapy doesn’t promise that relationships stop being complicated. It works toward a place where you can be in them without losing yourself.
These patterns require a different kind of attention than single-incident trauma. The work isn’t primarily about processing a specific memory. It’s about understanding how prolonged experiences shaped your sense of self, your relationships, and the strategies you still use today. The approaches I draw from each address a different part of that picture.
With this kind of history, IFS is often the most important approach in the room. The parts of you that people-please, self-criticize, shut down, or stay hypervigilant didn’t develop randomly. They were doing something. They were keeping you safe in an environment where safety had conditions. IFS helps you approach those parts with curiosity rather than frustration, understand what they were protecting you from, and begin to permit them to stand down.
This isn’t just symptom work. It’s identity work. The goal is a different relationship with yourself, one where old survival strategies no longer have to run everything.
EMDR for complex trauma tends to move more slowly than it does for single-incident PTSD. There is usually more stabilization work first. But it can be profoundly effective for addressing the specific experiences and beliefs that are still running. The moment you learned that needing help wasn’t an option. The times closeness felt unsafe, even when you wanted it. The early experiences taught you that your emotions were too much for the people around you.
EMDR helps those experiences lose their charge. Not their meaning, but the weight of them. So they can become part of your history without continuing to organize your present.
Psychodynamic therapy is particularly well-suited for complex trauma because it works with the relational patterns that formed early and still operate underneath awareness. The way you relate to me in the room often reflects the way you learned to relate to important people in your history. Understanding those patterns, rather than just reacting to them, creates room to respond differently.
This approach is slower and more exploratory than protocol-based treatments. That can feel unfamiliar if you’re used to fixing things efficiently. But what you went through often needs exactly this kind of space: relational, gradual, and grounded in what is actually happening between two people.
Trauma-focused CBT helps address the specific beliefs that formed around complex trauma. “I am responsible for how others feel.” “I have to earn my place.” “My needs are a burden.” These aren’t character flaws. Their conclusions are drawn from experience. CBT helps examine them carefully and create more accurate, less punishing ways of understanding yourself and your relationships.
You don't have to arrive with your story organized.
We don’t start by digging into everything that happened. The first sessions are about getting a clear picture of what you’re carrying, what has and hasn’t helped before, and whether the way I work feels like a fit. You don’t need to have everything figured out or be able to articulate what happened.
There is no pressure to go anywhere you’re not ready to go. This kind of work goes best when the pace is honest.
Complex trauma, also called C-PTSD, develops from prolonged or repeated traumatic experiences rather than a single event. It typically involves circumstances where escape was difficult or impossible: childhood abuse or neglect, chronic emotional invalidation, growing up with a caregiver who was frightening, unpredictable, or absent. The trauma isn’t just in the events themselves. It’s in what those experiences taught you about yourself, about safety, and about whether your needs matter.
C-PTSD is recognized as distinct from PTSD because its effects reach deeper into identity and relationship patterns, not just memory and fear responses.
PTSD is often organized around specific memories. Complex trauma tends to organize itself around identity, relationships, and the strategies you developed to stay safe. It often looks less like a traumatic history and more like a personality.
People with C-PTSD often struggle with chronic shame, difficulty knowing what they feel or need, a pervasive sense of being different or defective, and great difficulties in close relationships. These aren’t symptoms in the traditional sense. They feel like who you are. That’s part of what makes complex trauma so hard to recognize and so important to treat.
Complex trauma symptoms often don’t look like symptoms. They look like daily life. Second-guessing yourself before you’ve even finished a thought. Going numb in moments that should feel meaningful. Saying yes automatically, then feeling resentful later without knowing why. Wanting closeness and also feeling unsafe the moment you get it. Coming home from time with people you love and feeling completely drained.
Many people with complex trauma also struggle with depression, anxiety, and difficulties in relationships. What makes C-PTSD distinct is that these experiences tend to be pervasive and connected to a deep sense of self-doubt rather than discrete episodes or specific triggers.
For many people with complex trauma, staying busy or alert feels safer than being still. If your early environment required you to monitor for danger, manage other people, or stay useful to feel secure, your system may have learned that relaxing is when things go wrong. Stillness can bring up restlessness, guilt, or a sense that you’re forgetting something important, even when you’re not.
This isn’t a character flaw or poor time management. It’s a survival pattern that made sense for a long time. Part of this work is helping your system learn that it’s actually safe to stop, even when nothing is demanding your attention.
Complex trauma is caused by prolonged, repeated traumatic experiences, particularly those involving relationships. The most common sources include childhood emotional, physical, or sexual abuse; chronic neglect; growing up with a caregiver who was frightening, unpredictable, or emotionally unavailable; witnessing domestic violence over time; and prolonged exposure to environments where safety was conditional on performance, compliance, or invisibility.
The duration and relational nature of the trauma are what make it complex. When the source of danger is also the source of care, the impact goes beyond fear. It shapes how you understand yourself and what you believe you deserve.
Yes. Childhood trauma therapy is closely related to complex trauma work because childhood is when the nervous system is most shaped by relational experiences. When the environment is consistently unsafe, emotionally unpredictable, or requires you to suppress your own needs to maintain connection, the adaptations you develop become deeply embedded.
Many adults who seek complex trauma therapy are processing experiences that began in childhood and were never named or addressed. The fact that it started long ago doesn’t make it less present or less treatable.
Because complex trauma usually develops in relationships. When the people who were supposed to keep you safe were the source of fear or pain, or when love felt conditional, or when you had to earn connection by being useful or agreeable, those patterns don’t stay in the past. They come into every relationship you have afterward.
You may find yourself working hard to please people before they’ve asked for anything. Withdrawing when someone gets too close. Reading every pause in a conversation as a potential rejection. Feeling responsible for how others feel. These aren’t character flaws. They’re strategies that were developed for good reasons. Understanding where they came from is part of how they change.
This is one of the most common features of complex trauma, and it usually developed because someone’s emotional state actually affected your safety. When a parent’s mood determined whether the household was okay, you learned to track it, manage it, and adapt yourself to it. That skill kept you safe. And it probably became so automatic that you don’t experience it as a strategy anymore. It just feels like who you are.
In therapy, one of the most significant shifts people describe is the gradual recognition that other people’s emotions are not their responsibility to manage. That recognition doesn’t come from being told it. It comes from slowly experiencing relationships where it’s actually true.
Often, yes. Therapy for grief and loss is frequently part of complex trauma work, because healing often involves grieving what you didn’t have. The childhood you deserved and didn’t get. The parent who should have been there. The version of yourself that might have developed differently in a different environment. That grief is real, and it matters.
People sometimes skip past this part because it can feel self-pitying or pointless to grieve something that can’t be changed. But acknowledging what was lost is often part of what allows people to stop waiting for it to eventually arrive.
This kind of work tends to take longer than treatment for single-incident trauma. That’s not a failure of the approach. It reflects the depth of what is being worked on. When the effects of these experiences have organized themselves into identity, relationships, and core beliefs about self-worth, the work of understanding and shifting those patterns takes time.
Most people begin to notice real movement within months. bigger changes, particularly in how they relate to themselves and others, often emerge over a year or more. I don’t work to a fixed timeline. The pace is determined by what you can trust and what the work actually needs.
Yes. All of my sessions are conducted online through secure video. I offer complex trauma therapy and C-PTSD support to adults throughout Virginia. Online therapy works well for this kind of work. Many people find that the privacy and physical distance actually make it easier to go to harder places.
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