jratkinstherapy

People often ask me one question. “What made you stop?” It’s an understandable question. But over the last 16 years of working in addiction, alongside my own journey in recovery, I’ve realised there’s a far more important question. “What was the addiction doing for you?” Because addiction is rarely about the substance. It’s about what the substance, behaviour, or compulsive habit allows you to escape from. For years, I believed alcohol and drugs were my problem. I eventually realised they...

Trauma bonding has become one of those terms that seems to be everywhere. Spend five minutes on social media and you’ll probably hear someone say: “We trauma bonded.” Usually, what they mean is that they went through something difficult together and it brought them closer. Whilst that can create a deep connection, that isn’t trauma bonding. It’s a shared traumatic experience. Trauma bonding is something very different. And understanding the difference could change the way you see your...

When people hear the word trauma, they often think of one big event. War. Violence. Abuse. Disaster. And whilst trauma can absolutely come from these experiences, trauma is often much quieter than people realise. Sometimes trauma looks like growing up in a home where you never knew what mood someone would be in. Sometimes it looks like never feeling safe enough to be yourself. Sometimes it looks like years of bullying, criticism, rejection, neglect, or simply not getting what you needed...