Unhealed trauma doesn’t always show up as sadness or silence.

Sometimes, it makes people cold, calculating, manipulative, even cruel.

Trauma can twist behavior in ways that aren’t always sympathetic or palatable.

It doesn’t always look like someone soft and broken. Sometimes, it looks like someone selfish, controlling, or untrustworthy because their wounds are festering in the shadows, driving actions from behind the scenes.

How Trauma Shapes Behavior

Of course, this isn’t always the case. But when trauma is left unprocessed, it distorts how a person sees the world and how they operate within it:

• They may become the very thing they were once hurt by.

• They may manipulate because they were once manipulated.

• They may deceive because they were once deceived.

Unhealed trauma fractures the sense of self.

Without a core identity rooted in truth and love, people become highly vulnerable to outside influence. They self-abandon, self-betray, and use ot

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