The Trauma of Navigating the System Is Often Worse Than the Original Pain

 



The Trauma of Navigating the System Is Often Worse Than the Original Pain

By Niki Gent

There’s a particular kind of hurt that doesn’t come from what happened to you — but from what happened after.
After you asked for help.
After you reached out.
After you reported what no one else knew.
After you told the truth.

It’s the hurt of being doubted. Delayed. Dismissed.
It’s the trauma of sitting on hold with Centrelink for hours, only to be told you called the wrong department.
It’s the trauma of telling your story for the fifth time to the fifth intake worker who still hasn’t read your file.
It’s the trauma of walking into a service that was supposed to help, and walking out feeling smaller than when you arrived.

System trauma is real.
And in my work — sitting with people in crisis, navigating child protection, NDIS, homelessness, and mental health systems — I’ve seen it over and over again:

The original injury was awful.
But the trauma of not being believed? That’s what broke them.

🧠 What Does System Trauma Look Like?

  • A woman who has escaped family violence but is too afraid to go to court because of how she was treated last time.

  • A parent who has done everything asked of them but still loses access because the department didn’t update their records.

  • A teenager with disability whose funding is cut because he “seemed okay” during one meeting.

  • A child who watches their parent cry after trying to advocate — again — and gives up asking for anything.

These aren’t just bureaucratic errors.
They are experiences that get stored in the body. They create hypervigilance, shutdown, learned helplessness, and deep distrust.

🧭 Why It Matters

If we truly want to be trauma-informed, we can’t just respond to past experiences.
We have to recognise when the system itself becomes the trauma.

That means:

  • Recognising that missed appointments might not be “non-compliance” — they might be avoidance of retraumatisation.

  • Understanding that anger toward services might not be “manipulation” — it might be grief.

  • Knowing that disengagement is not disinterest — it might be self-protection.

🛠️ What Can We Do About It?

1. Believe people the first time.
You don’t need every detail. You don’t need perfect language. You just need to show that you trust them more than the policy manual in front of you.

2. Reduce repetition.
No one should have to tell their trauma story to five different workers. Do your homework. Read the file. And when in doubt, ask, “Have you already had to explain this to someone else?”

3. Slow it down.
People in trauma move at their own pace. We need to create systems that allow for that — not punish people when they can’t keep up.

4. Name the harm.
If a person has been failed by the system, acknowledge it. Don’t defend it. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that” can be the beginning of repair.

5. Be someone’s soft place to land.
You may not be able to fix the system — but you can humanise it. You can be the exception. The person who listens. The one who doesn’t rush. The one who cares enough to explain things twice.

💬 A Final Thought

We talk a lot about trauma-informed care.
But if we don’t look at the way our systems operate — the endless paperwork, the under-resourcing, the power imbalances, the lack of lived experience — we’ll keep retraumatising the people we claim to support.

And people will stop reaching out.
Not because they don’t want help.
But because asking for it has become too dangerous.

So if you're in a position of influence — whether you're a frontline worker, a manager, or a policymaker — ask yourself:

Are we making people heal from the help they tried to access?

And if the answer is yes, then something needs to change.

Because survival is hard enough without having to survive the system too.


About the Author,

Niki has worked in Child Protection, Family Law, Juvenile Justice and NDIS for over 20 years.  Having worked extensively with families, government departments, not for profits and privately owned large and small businesses, Niki understands the needs of families, the pressures of compliance, quality and sustainability, and the need to work smart, be resilient, and know who we work for and who we work with.

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