Covert vs overt trauma 

• Overt trauma: The obvious, visible wound. Abuse, violence, accident, war, violation — experiences so overwhelming they leave no doubt that something terrible happened. It’s clear, external, and usually named.

• Covert trauma: The quiet absence. Neglect, emotional dismissal, chronic invalidation, conditional love. Nothing “explosive” happens, yet the child grows up unseen, unheard, unmet. It’s invisible, often minimized — but it carves just as deep.

Overt trauma shouts. Covert trauma whispers. Both tell the nervous system: “You are not safe, you are not whole, you are not worthy.”

Often, people who lived covert trauma struggle more to name it, because there was no dramatic event — only a slow erosion of self. But both forms leave behind the same wound of disconnection, and both call for healing.