Trauma and Neurodivergent Coach

🦄Trauma, privilege, and the Limits of Personal Willpower to Heal

When Healing Isn't a Level Playing Field Reflections on Trauma, Privilege, and the Limits of Personal Willpower

Recently, a client helped me see something I hadn’t fully grasped—at least not with the depth and weight it deserves. In one of our sessions, I began to notice just how radically different the healing journey can look depending on the conditions we live in.

In group, while some participants were sharing stories of breakthroughs made in our program, changes supported by private sessions or peaceful home environments, this client—who is BIPOC, neurodivergent, and living with their parents due to financial instability—shared something different: the sheer loneliness of trying to heal in a world that doesn’t accommodate them.

It struck me how invisible these layers of complexity can be, even in well-meaning spaces. When your nervous system is already working overtime to process trauma, and on top of that you live in a home that doesn’t feel safe or validating, your body is in survival mode—not healing mode. When therapy is expensive, your time is consumed by low-paid work or government paperwork, and society doesn’t reflect your lived experience, it’s not just “harder” to heal. It’s a fundamentally different path.

This moment made me pause and reflect more deeply on the unspoken assumptions we sometimes carry about healing: that if someone “really wants it,” or “just does the work,” they’ll get there. But as my client so succinctly put, "Healing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in context"—a context that includes race, class, neurotype, gender, and much more.

In this post, I want to explore those contexts. I’ll name some of the systems and terms that shape what kind of support a person can access, what safety even means for them, and why we need more inclusive, compassionate frameworks when talking about trauma recovery.

Because healing should not be a privilege—it should be a right. But for now, it's clear: some of us are asked to climb mountains while others are walking a paved path. And we need to start talking about that.

Healing from trauma is often framed as a personal journey—and in many ways it is—but the amount of control someone has over that healing is deeply shaped by systemic, social, and environmental factors that are often outside the individual’s control.

Let’s break this down in two parts:

✅ What Parts of Trauma Healing Can Be Self-Directed or Controlled

There are areas where individuals can take active roles in their healing, especially when the right conditions exist. These include:

But the key word is “where possible”—and that’s where limitations come in.

⚠️ Factors That Can Make Trauma Healing More Difficult (and Less Within Individual Control)

Here’s a breakdown of external factors that can limit or delay healing, even when someone is trying hard:

1. Socioeconomic Status (Poverty, Financial Insecurity)

2. Systemic Oppression (Racism, Ableism, Sexism, etc.)

3. Neurodivergence or Disability

4. Intergenerational Trauma & Family Systems

5. Living Conditions & Ongoing Stress

6. Cultural and Religious Context

🌀 So… How Much Control Do We Really Have?

The internal will to heal is necessary, but not sufficient when:

That’s why trauma healing should be seen as a personal process within a larger context. Like:

🧠 “It’s not just what’s wrong with you—it’s what happened to you, and what continues to happen around you.”

And for many people, part of healing is also resisting and naming the systems that contributed to their trauma.

❤️ Summary: Two Truths

Both truths need to be honored. Otherwise, we fall into toxic positivity or victim-blaming, suggesting people just need to “try harder” or “manifest healing.”

🔑 Foundational Concepts

Building a vocabulary around systems of power, oppression, and inequality will help you understand how trauma, healing, and mental health are shaped by the world around us, not just by what’s “inside” of us.

Here's a list of foundational terms that can help you navigate these ideas more clearly.

1. Systemic Oppression

Structures or systems (like laws, institutions, cultural norms) that disadvantage certain groups while benefiting others. → Example: Racism in housing, education, policing.

2. Intersectionality

Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw. Describes how different identities (race, gender, disability, etc.) intersect to create unique experiences of oppression or privilege. → A Black autistic woman faces different barriers than a white autistic man.

3. Power & Privilege

Power: The ability to influence or control access to resources and decision-making. Privilege: Unearned benefits granted to some people because of social identity. → Example: White privilege, cis privilege, financial privilege.

4. Meritocracy (Myth of)

The belief that people succeed purely by talent and hard work. → Often ignores structural barriers like racism, classism, or ableism. → “If you worked harder, you wouldn’t be poor” = myth of meritocracy.

5. Ableism

Discrimination against disabled people (physical, intellectual, psychiatric, etc.). → Example: Treating neurodivergent people as broken, lazy, or burdensome.

6. Neurodiversity

A framework that sees autism, ADHD, etc., as natural brain differences—not pathologies. → Challenges the idea that neurotypical is “normal” or better.

7. Sanism / Mentalism

Prejudice against people with mental health conditions. → Believing someone with PTSD is dangerous or unreliable.

8. Racism

Prejudice + power that benefits one race (usually white people in the West) and harms others.

9. Colonialism

The historical and ongoing domination of lands, peoples, and cultures by foreign powers. → Creates intergenerational trauma, cultural erasure, and exploitation.

10. White Supremacy (Culture)

Not just about extremist hate groups. Also refers to everyday norms that center whiteness as the standard (values like urgency, perfectionism, objectivity).

11. Colorism

Discrimination within communities of color based on skin tone, usually privileging lighter skin.

12. Classism

Prejudice or systemic disadvantage based on socioeconomic status.

13. Sexism / Patriarchy

A system where men (especially cis, heterosexual men) are privileged and women/femmes are devalued.

14. Cissexism / Transphobia

Assuming cisgender identity is “normal” and rejecting trans/nonbinary identities.

15. Heteronormativity / Homophobia

Assuming heterosexuality is the default and marginalizing LGBTQ+ people.

16. Structural Violence

Social structures that cause harm by preventing people from meeting basic needs. → Like poverty, underfunded schools, or inaccessible healthcare.

17. Institutional Racism / Oppression

Racism or other biases that are embedded into policies and systems, not just individuals.

18. Gaslighting (Systemic)

When institutions or social systems make people doubt their own reality or lived experience. → “You're imagining the discrimination.”

19. Trauma-Informed vs. System-Informed Care

Being trauma-informed means understanding how trauma affects individuals. Being system-informed goes further—asking why trauma exists and what keeps it in place.

🧩 Other Helpful Terms

20. Cultural Competence / Cultural Humility

Skills that allow professionals to engage respectfully with people from diverse backgrounds. Humility goes further: it means ongoing self-reflection and power awareness.

21. Collective Care / Mutual Aid

Community-based support systems that share resources and healing outside of individualism. → A trauma survivor network offering support, food, or shelter to each other.

22. Internalized Oppression

When people begin to believe harmful messages society tells them. → A disabled person thinking they are lazy or worthless because of capitalism.

🌿 Optional but Powerful Concepts