therapy for trauma from addiction
In greenville, sc
a place where your experience matters too.
having a relationship with someone struggling with addiction is a
heavy experience to carry.
maybe your partner overdrinks or overdrugs and you’re always worrying about them — and about how others judge them and you. you could have grown up with an alcoholic or addicted parent or caregiver, and your nervous system is preset to be on high alert. maybe you’re so hypervigilant that you’re not only monitoring your own substance use, but also that of everyone around you (I.e., you know exactly how many drinks everyone in the room has had). you could be struggling with grief from losing someone to addiction, even if they’re still breathing. over time, you have likely learned to put your needs to the side and boundaries don’t feel like something you can set, or are even allowed to have.
it’s time to name these things for what they are, and to give them the space they deserve.
this might sound familiar —
From the outside, people think you’re handling it — but inside, you’re staying alert, bracing for the next shift, and rarely fully at ease.
You’ve spent years walking on eggshells — carefully monitoring moods, words, and reactions — trying to keep things calm or prevent things from getting worse.
The addiction has taken up so much space in your family or relationship that you’re not always sure where you fit anymore, or what you’re allowed to need.
You feel deeply exhausted, even during quieter stretches, from the constant stress, unpredictability, and emotional whiplash that comes with loving someone in addiction.
You carry conflicting feelings that don’t seem to belong anywhere — love and anger, hope and resentment, grief and relief — and feel ashamed for having them at all.
You’ve learned to manage yourself carefully — staying composed, minimizing your reactions, second-guessing your needs — and now it’s hard to know how to stop doing that.
You’re carrying a kind of grief that doesn’t have a clear shape — grieving the person they used to be, the relationship you hoped for, or the version of your life that never quite happened, even if they’re still alive.
You might recognize yourself in more than one of these — that’s okay.
Living with addiction isn’t one-dimensional, and neither is your experience.
what support can look like here
Support here offers space — space to exhale, take up room, and focus on your experience after so much attention has gone to someone else’s addiction. Here, you don’t have to minimize what this has been like for you or explain why it’s affected you the way it has — the messy, conflicting, or hard-to-name feelings are all allowed and welcome.
This kind of space helps your nervous system come out of constant vigilance, so you’re not always bracing for what might happen next. A lot of people notice that just having space like this makes things feel a little less heavy, even before anything else changes.
This work isn’t about fixing the addiction or figuring out what you should do next.
It’s about helping you feel steadier, clearer, and more supported as you navigate what’s already here.
how we might work together
Whether you grew up around addiction, are living with it now, or are grieving someone you’ve lost to it, we start with how your experience has been shaped — not with what you should do about anyone else.
Most people I work with have spent years holding things together for someone else, and our work begins by understanding what that’s been like and what it’s been costing you.
Sessions move at a manageable pace — sometimes focused on talking, other times on slowing down and noticing what years of anticipating and managing have done to your body. Over time, this helps loosen patterns like always being on alert, taking on too much responsibility, or putting your own needs last.
what that can look like in practice —
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talking about anything — including (but not limited to!) what it’s been like to love, worry about, adapt to, or lose someone in addiction, and how that’s shaped the way you think, react, and take care of yourself now. no thought or feeling is taboo or judged here.
EMDR and/or brainspotting — approaches that help your mind and body process the ongoing stress, memories, and emotional impact of addiction — including the ways your body has held years of anticipation, loss, and emotional whiplash — without needing to relive every moment or explain anything perfectly.
nervous system focused work — tl;dr: we identify your body’s responses and work with them. this is to help with the constant tension, jumpiness, or even shutdown. instead of always scanning, anticipating, or managing everything, this work will help you feel less reactive and more grounded in yourself.
parts-focused work — to help you understand the different roles you’ve taken on to survive addiction in your family or relationship, and begin relating to those parts with understanding instead of criticism.
nothing about these parts is wrong. we work with them and teach them to adapt to our needs now.
if any of this feels like it fits …
it makes sense that you’re tired.
Living with addiction — past or present — can shape you in ways that are hard to untangle alone. Therapy can be a place to slow down, make sense of what you’ve been holding, and start feeling more supported at your own pace.
If you’re ready, we can start with a quick conversation. You can ask me any questions you have, get a sense of how I work, and decide whether this feels like a good fit — all with zero pressure to commit. let’s start where you are.