I carry a trauma that never happened
I never lived through trauma—and still, my body acts like it did. A personal reflection on inherited fear and silent symptomsh
— Jutta
An inner field report from the edge of inherited fear
The story I can’t tell – but feel every day
I’ve never experienced a major trauma.
Not in the way most people would define it.
No war. No sexual violence. No prison, no torture.
Just an ordinary childhood.
Nothing to write a book about.
And still, my body acts like it went through hell.
Anxiety. Freeze. Hyper-alertness.
Chronic tension in places I can’t name.
A constant sense of danger. Without danger.
I keep running. But there’s no one chasing me.
This is not a story of survival.
It’s the story of a system that never learned it was safe.
Why I read about trauma even though nothing happened
If you opened my e-reader, you’d find a quiet obsession.
Book after book about trauma, nervous systems, survival patterns.
I don’t even read them front to back.
I land somewhere mid-page—
as if my body knows exactly where to go.
Like it’s searching for something it never experienced,
but still remembers.
Darwin’s quote that stopped me in my tracks
And then yesterday, I stumble across this quote.
By Charles Darwin, of all people:
“Escape and avoidance behavior has clearly evolved to ensure survival.
But if prolonged inappropriately, it becomes a disadvantage—
since survival of the species depends on feeding, shelter, and mating,
all of which are the opposites of escape and avoidance.”
I read it.
And suddenly, something inside me stops running. Just for a second.
Because:
I’ve been living like an animal in flight.
But nothing ever attacked me.
How fear travels across generations
I was born in 1965, in post-war Germany.
My parents were toddlers when the war ended.
One buried under rubble. One fleeing across a broken land with three siblings.
They survived.
But survival didn’t end with the war.
They never told me what they saw.
They didn’t need to.
They passed it on—
in their voice, their silence, their rules.
In the way they parented. Or didn’t.
My father was strict. Cold. Demanding.
Not because he didn’t love us—
but because he thought that’s how life works.
That softness is weakness.
That children must be prepared. For a world that breaks you.
When your body reacts without a reason
I thought: This is just who I am.
Tense. Fast. Always “on.”
Too sensitive. Too tired. Too much.
I moved countries. Built a life on the road.
Raised three children on three continents.
Mexico. Romania. China. Japan.
I am not afraid to move. I am not afraid to begin.
And yet, the same feeling follows me.
The same signal.
You are not safe.
Even when I am.
Especially when I am.
A trauma that is not mine—but lives in me
I now call it inherited fear.
Or borrowed trauma.
It has no beginning. No storyline. No memory.
But it shapes everything.
I can’t process it—because nothing happened.
I can’t heal it—because nothing is broken.
And yet it hurts.
It contracts. It whispers. It controls.
I feel like a flower that never saw the sun
and wonders why it never bloomed.
There is no violence in my past.
But there was no safety, either.
And maybe that’s enough.
I’m not broken—I just inherited a warning system
I’m not looking for pity.
I don’t need a label.
I don’t want to be “fixed.”
But I want words for this.
I want space for the ones who live with symptoms that make no sense.
For those who were never hurt—
but never free, either.
This isn’t about trauma in the usual sense.
It’s about what happens when the nervous system believes the war is still on—
even though life looks peaceful on the outside.
We need a different question
Not:
What happened to you?
But rather:
Do you live like something happened
—and have no idea why?”
If yes,
you’re not broken.
You’re not imagining it.
Maybe this is your story too
Maybe you’re carrying something that doesn’t belong to you.
But lives in you anyway.
And maybe,
it’s time to stop running.
“My body speaks to me” – a conversation I never wanted. And will never forget.
Some texts don’t come from the mind.
They come from the space that only opens once.
This is a private follow-up to my essay on borrowed trauma—but on another level.
Not about explaining.
About listening.
👉 To read this private dialogue,
sign up with your email here
You’ll receive:
✅ Instant access to the members-only text
✅ Future essays sent directly to your inbox
✅ No ads. No noise. Just real writing.
I don’t write for reach.
I write for resonance.
Jutta