The Three Stages of Trauma Recovery—And What They Look Like in Real Life

(Because Healing Isn’t Linear, No Matter What the Self-Help Books Say)

When I first heard about the three stages of trauma recovery, I thought it was bullshit. Not because the concept didn’t make sense—it did—but because I was convinced I’d never make it past stage one.

For those who aren’t familiar, trauma experts like Dr. Judith Herman and Dr. Pierre Janet have outlined three core stages of recovery:

Establishing Safety (a.k.a. trying to convince your nervous system that the world isn’t actively trying to kill you).
Remembrance and Mourning (a.k.a. revisiting the ghosts of your past without letting them possess you).
Reconnection and Integration (a.k.a. figuring out who the hell you are outside of survival mode).

Sounds neat and tidy, right? Three steps and you’re free, healed, and living your best life? Except real life doesn’t work that way.

Trauma recovery isn’t a straight path—it’s a messy, unpredictable loop. Some days, you’re thriving in stage three. Other days, a random smell or song drags you back to stage one so fast it feels like your bones are rattling.

So, what do these stages actually look like when you’re living them? Here’s what I’ve learned, the hard way.

Stage One: Establishing Safety (And Realizing You Have None)

Trauma rewires your brain to believe that you are never safe. Not physically, not emotionally, not even in your own mind. When I left the troubled teen industry, I thought I was free. I had escaped. I could move on.

Except my body didn’t get the memo.

I was still having nightmares that I was back in the desert, waking up in a panic, drenched in sweat, heart hammering against my ribs. I was still struggling to trust people, still flinching at sudden noises, still feeling like my freedom could be yanked away at any moment. My nervous system never learned to relax.

And the hardest part? I am still in an environment that makes me feel unsafe. I live with someone carrying deep, unhealed trauma, and it has made this first step—the step where I’m supposed to feel safe—feel impossible at times. When I left my husband and got my own place, I finally started to work through these steps. I had space. I had control over my surroundings. But then my body failed me. My health crashed, and I ended up right back in the house that broke me.

It’s better than it was before, but my body remembers how it used to be. And now, in some ways, I’m back to step one. The difference is that this time, I have a better set of tools. I understand what’s happening in my body. I know the science of trauma. I know that safety isn’t just about where I am—it’s about who I surround myself with, and that’s why I’m fighting to build a community that makes healing possible.

But here’s the thing nobody tells you about healing:
It’s not just about what you gain. It’s about what you have to lose.

In The Price of Admission to Recovery, trauma therapist Dr. Glenn Doyle talks about how healing often requires giving up the things that once made us feel safe—especially when those things were toxic. And I felt that in my bones.

Healing meant giving up the version of me that stayed small and silent to avoid conflict.
It meant walking away from people who had been in my life for years because they kept me trapped in old cycles.
It meant letting go of the idea that my family would ever be who I needed them to be.

The first step of healing isn’t just establishing safety—it’s admitting what safety isn’t.

For years, I thought “safety” meant not rocking the boat, staying in toxic relationships just because they were familiar, and pushing my trauma so far down that I could pretend I was fine. But I wasn’t fine. And I wasn’t safe.

So when we talk about the first phase of trauma recovery, we have to acknowledge that it’s not just about building a better life—it’s about walking away from the things we once thought we needed to survive.

And that? That’s the hardest part of all.

Stage Two: Remembrance & Mourning (The Grief You Never Saw Coming)

This stage sucker-punched me when I least expected it.

I had built a life that looked safe. I had a home. A job. People who loved me. And then, out of nowhere, the grief hit.

Not just for what I had been through, but for what I never got to have.

I grieved the childhood I lost. The parents who, despite their best efforts, didn’t protect me. The version of me who never got to just be a kid instead of a soldier in an unwinnable war.

No one warns you how much it will hurt when you finally acknowledge everything you survived. When you stop minimizing it. When you stop making excuses for the people who hurt you. When you sit with the truth of what happened and let yourself feel it.

For me, this stage looked like:

Listening to songs I loved as a kid and realizing I couldn’t remember a time when I felt safe enough to dance.
Breaking down while watching What A Girl Wants because I realized that I may never have the relationship with my father that I want.
Staring at childhood photos and not recognizing myself because I knew exactly what that little girl was about to go through.
Writing out my story and finally admitting how much it still hurt.

Mourning is brutal. It’s necessary. And it does not mean you’re going backwards. It means you are strong enough to face what you’ve buried.

Stage Three: Reconnection & Integration (Learning Who You Are When You’re Not Just Surviving)

This is the stage people don’t talk about enough.

Because what happens when the trauma stops defining you?

What do you do when you wake up and realize you get to decide who you are now?

For me, this stage is still a work in progress. I spent so many years defining myself by what I survived that I had no idea who I was outside of it.

Stage three looks like (so far):

Realizing that I could have hobbies that weren’t trauma-related (I don’t have to write about my pain all the time? Wild.)
Giving myself permission to experience joy without guilt.
Understanding that healing doesn’t mean I’ll never get triggered again—it just means I know how to handle it when I do.
Choosing to live fully, not just exist.

The thing about healing is that it’s not a finish line. It’s not a perfect, linear journey. It’s a cycle, a spiral, an ebb and flow of good days and bad.

And that’s okay.

Because the goal of trauma recovery isn’t to erase the past. It’s to build a future where your past doesn’t control you anymore.

What Stage Are You In?

Maybe you’re still trying to find safety. Maybe you’re grieving. Maybe you’re finally starting to see glimpses of a future you never thought possible.

Wherever you are—you’re not alone.

I’d love to hear from you:

What has healing looked like for you?
Have you experienced these stages in a different way?
What’s one thing you wish more people understood about trauma recovery?

Drop a comment below or share this with someone who might need to hear it. And if my journey resonates with you, my memoir Smoking in Garages is out now—I wrote it for survivors like us.

Because healing out loud is how we change the world.

The price of admission to recovery.

(Read more about the cost of healing in Dr. Glenn Doyle’s piece, The Price of Admission to Recovery.)

Jessica Woodville | Memoir & Musings