9 Common Human Experiences That Can Be Traumatic—But Are Often Overlooked (and How They Relate to PCOS)

One of the most common things I hear from highly sensitive women struggling with PCOS is:
“But I had a good childhood…”

They often say this with confusion, especially when they start learning that nervous system dysregulation—not just hormones or diet—can be at the root of their symptoms. They want to understand why they’re feeling so overwhelmed, why their body feels stuck or unresponsive, why fatigue and inflammation linger, or why their cycles are so irregular despite everything they’ve tried.

The truth is, trauma doesn’t always look like one big catastrophic event. Often, it’s the subtle, chronic misattunements or overwhelming moments—especially in early life—that shape the nervous system to stay in survival mode. And when your system is stuck in survival (especially the freeze response), that’s the environment PCOS tends to grow in.

Here are nine very human experiences that can shape the nervous system in ways we often don’t realise—and how healing at this level can begin to shift our physiology, including PCOS.

1. Near-Death or Overwhelming Health Events

Things like high fevers as a child, seizures, serious infections, choking, or even a scary accident can leave the body in a heightened state of survival—especially if no one helped us come down from the experience afterward.

When the nervous system is overwhelmed like this, it doesn’t always “know” the danger is over. That lingering shutdown or clenching can create a physiological pattern of numbness, disconnection, or adrenal overdrive—all of which can play a role in the development and persistence of PCOS.

2. Surgery and Anesthesia

Even routine surgeries in childhood—like getting tonsils removed—can be traumatic to a small, helpless body, especially if they involved restraint or fear. Anesthesia adds another layer of disorientation and shutdown to the system.

Many women with PCOS have stored stress in the body from these early medical events. They may not remember them consciously, but their body does—and that stored survival energy can be a hidden factor keeping the system stuck.

3. Birth Trauma or Premature Birth

Being born early, by C-section, or with a lot of medical intervention can disrupt the earliest wiring of safety and regulation in the nervous system. Babies who go straight to incubators or are separated from their mothers may not get the co-regulation they need to form a sense of safety in their body.

If you’re someone who’s always felt “on edge” or had a hard time grounding in your body—it might not be random. These earliest experiences leave a physiological imprint that can show up decades later as chronic symptoms, including hormonal imbalance and PCOS.

4. Stress in the Womb (In Utero Stress)

The body starts learning what “normal” feels like before we’re born. If your mother was highly stressed, unwell, or in an unsafe environment during pregnancy, your system may have been wired for stress from the start.

This doesn’t mean she did anything wrong—it means your body adapted to its early environment. That wiring can shape how you respond to life, how your body metabolises stress, and how your hormones function.

5. Parental Depression or Misattunement

You don’t need a “bad” childhood to have a dysregulated nervous system. If a parent was emotionally unavailable, chronically overwhelmed, or simply couldn’t tune into your emotional needs, that’s enough to wire a system into hypervigilance or collapse.

Many sensitive women with PCOS describe growing up feeling like they had to “be good” or not have needs. These early dynamics shape our physiology, not just our psychology.

6. Cultural Conditioning and Shame Around the Body

Being told to “be polite,” “sit still,” “suck it up,” or “hold it in” might sound like discipline—but if those messages come with shaming or punishment for having basic biological needs, they disconnect us from our body’s cues.

Over time, this kind of conditioning creates internal conflict: we don’t trust our hunger, rest, impulses, or emotional needs. For someone with PCOS, this can look like difficulty with eating, digesting, ovulating, sleeping, or knowing what your body is really asking for.

7. Intergenerational Trauma

Even if your own childhood felt relatively “fine,” your body may still carry the stress physiology of your lineage—especially if there were unresolved traumas like war, loss, poverty, or abuse in previous generations.

This isn’t spiritual fluff—it’s science. Nervous system patterns and stress responses can be inherited epigenetically, shaping how your body responds to the world today. Understanding this can bring deep compassion—and motivation to stop the cycle.

8. The Pressure to Perform or Be Perfect

This one is incredibly common among the women I work with. Many of us were praised for being the achiever, the helper, the responsible one. And we learned that being loved meant being perfect, producing, performing.

But this creates a chronic stress load on the system—and a body that feels like it’s never allowed to rest. This kind of chronic activation can fuel the metabolic and hormonal imbalances that PCOS thrives on.

9. Unexplained Symptoms with No Clear Origin

Sometimes there’s no “logical” reason we can find for symptoms. This is where it’s helpful to expand our lens beyond just this lifetime. Whether you connect with past life trauma, ancestral energy, or simply the unknown—it’s valid to notice that your body is holding something that needs attention.

Even if we don’t fully understand the why, we can work directly with the how—by working at the level of the nervous system where all of this stress gets stored.

The Good News

If this list feels heavy, take a deep breath. None of this means you’re broken or doomed. It means your body adapted to stress the best way it could—and now it’s ready for something new.

You don’t have to go digging for every memory or make sense of everything before you start healing. You simply need the right support and tools to start building a new physiological pattern—one where your body no longer has to brace, shut down, or protect you from life.

This is exactly what I teach in Unclench, my 21-day nervous system healing experience designed for highly sensitive women wanting to heal PCOS at the root nervous system level. Because healing your hormones starts with healing your relationship to safety, stress, and your body.

The healing doesn’t happen in your head. It happens in your cells, your reflexes, your breath, your gut, your ovaries. And it begins when your system learns that it’s safe enough to come out of survival.

You are not broken. You are not the problem.
Your body adapted to a world that didn’t always know how to meet you—and that is something we can begin to change.