How Trauma Shows Up After Dark

A Trauma-Informed Guide for Nighttime Triggers

Written by Emma Nagle, LCSW | June 9, 2025

For many people, especially those healing from trauma or difficult relationships, nighttime can bring up overwhelming feelings of fear, abandonment, or loneliness. If this sounds familiar, know that you're not broken or "too much." Your body may be remembering old emotional pain, even if your mind can’t explain it.

Why Nighttime Can Feel So Hard

At night, there are fewer distractions. With less stimulation and external noise, old or unresolved thoughts and feelings often have more space to surface. Many people struggle with being able to wind down for bedtime and instead experience a flood of worrying thoughts and physical discomfort.

For many, early life experiences play a role. Being left alone when comfort was needed, or feeling unsafe in the dark, can leave a lasting imprint on the nervous system. Do you recall yourself being afraid of the dark as a child? This can be, but not always, a sign of stressful experiences or childhood trauma.

The nighttime also brings emotional vulnerability. The stillness, darkness, and quiet can trigger feelings of isolation, fear, or sadness that were never fully processed. Lying in bed can heighten this vulnerability.

Some of these factors can be connected to implicit memory. Our bodies sometimes hold on to emotional or sensory experiences such as fear, helplessness, or sadness. This occurs even when we can’t consciously recall the event that caused them. This is known as implicit memory, and it differs from explicit memory, which involves details we can actively remember and describe.

Individuals who were sexually abused during childhood or adolescence often experience higher levels of distress associated with the nighttime and more specifically, nightmares. Those with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) may be prone to trauma responses or heightened anxiety when attempting to fall asleep. Nevertheless, not everyone who struggles with the quiet or dark are survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA).

what can You do to support yourself at night?

1. Validate What You're Feeling

Instead of judging the fear or sadness that comes up at night, try meeting it with compassion. You might say to yourself, “This is hard, and it makes sense that I'm feeling this way.” These emotions aren’t overreactions—they’re your body remembering something. When fear arises, it’s often a signal from your nervous system, not a flaw in your character. Validation is the first step toward soothing.

2. Soothing Strategies to Try

Gentle, sensory-based tools can help calm your nervous system and bring your body back to safety. Try using a weighted blanket or soft textures to feel grounded. Play calming music, white noise, or nature sounds to ease overstimulation. Apps like Insight Timer and Headspace can help you get started with soundscapes and guided meditations. Slow, deep breathing, gentle rocking motions, and tapping can all regulate your body’s stress response. Visualization is a great technique for establishing safety. Close your eyes and picture a place, or person, that brings you comfort and safety.

3. Create a Gentle Nighttime Routine

Routines send signals of safety to the brain. Begin by dimming the lights 30 minutes before bed to ease into rest. Himalayan salt lamps are a therapist-approved favorite. Due to the effects blue light has on sleep, limit your screen time when possible, especially scrolling that can spike anxiety or overstimulation. Choose calming activities instead like reading, stretching, or journaling to help your body transition into stillness without pressure.

4. Ground Yourself in the Present

When panic starts to build, try orienting yourself to the here and now. You might say: “I am here now. I am safe.” Touch something solid, like your bedframe or the floor beneath you. Use grounding tools like naming five things you can see, hear, or feel. Try a breath practice: inhale for 4 counts, hold for 4, and exhale slowly for 6. Body scans are especially useful at bringing awareness to the body. These small practices can bring your body back from fear to presence.

5. Use a Support Object or Reminder

It can be helpful to keep a small, comforting item nearby like a note you wrote to yourself, a photo of someone you love, or a symbolic object from your healing journey. Even a favorite stuffed animal or your pet can be sources of support.

Your cat or dog at the foot of the bed brings instant safety into the bedroom and serves as a reminder of the physical world, helping to counteract feelings of detachment and dissociation.

Whatever the object, accept it as a sign of your strength, especially in moments that feel disorienting or lonely.

6. Ride the Wave

The mindfulness technique known as urge surfing (you can find a separate article where I go into greater detail on its application here) can be a powerful way to stay present with intense emotions, like panic, instead of being swept away by them. When your head hits the pillow and a wave of panic begins to rise, practice observing the sensations without judgment. You can label what you experience: tightness in the chest, overheating in the face, or racing thoughts. Then gently narrate the moment to yourself: “This feels intense right now, but it will pass.” Just like a wave, panic builds, peaks, and eventually subsides. Practicing this ahead of time, especially before bedtime, can help train your nervous system to tolerate and move through discomfort with greater ease.

Final ThoughtS

You’re not alone in this. Nighttime struggles are common and they make sense when you’ve lived through experiences that left you feeling unseen or unheld. Over time, your nervous system can learn that you’re not abandoned anymore.

Be patient and curious. Let yourself be supported in and out of the dark.

If you need more support, talk to your therapist about what comes up at night. Together, you can build tools that are persona l to you and  your needs and help you feel safer and more at home in your body.