Trauma & PTSD
When something that happened is still setting the terms: sleep, startle, avoidance, and reactions that arrive before the thought does.
Trauma is not only the large and obvious kind. People come in after a single event, after something that went on for years, and after things they are not sure count. What is often shared is the shape of it afterwards: sleep that will not settle, a startle response with a hair trigger, routes and situations quietly avoided, and reactions that arrive fully formed before there is a thought attached.
You are not required to tell the story to book an appointment. A first appointment can be spent entirely on how you are now, what you want to change, and how you would like to work. Pace is something you set, and being asked before being taken anywhere difficult is part of how this should be done.
Where people start here. Most people start with Therapy, an hour at a time with the same clinician. Where sleep or day-to-day functioning is badly affected, a Psychiatric Evaluation is the appointment where that gets looked at properly, including whether Medication Management has a role.
If you are in crisis or someone may be in danger, call or text 988, or go to your nearest emergency room.
Appointments run one hour, in person in Bowie or by telehealth. If starting from home is easier than walking into a clinic, you can do that, including for a first appointment. We see adults 18 and over.