When ‘getting back to normal’ isn’t the answer

Aug 26

When "Getting Back to Normal" Isn't the Answer

Summer has a way of loosening the grip. Fewer schedules, fewer obligations, more room to breathe — or more room for the coping habits that have been holding you together to quietly slip. Then Labor Day hits, the routines snap back into place, and you're expected to just fall in line: back to the calendar, back to performing like everything's fine.

For a lot of people, that's exactly when things start to crack. Not because summer broke something, but because the return to structure makes it impossible to keep ignoring what's underneath.

That's the work Rose Cadden, LMSW, does at gokc — and it starts with a simple idea: you coped the best way you knew how, and you're allowed to want something steadier now.

Rose Cadden, LMSW, therapist at gokc Healing Center in Kansas City

Trauma and Substance Use Are Rarely Two Separate Stories

Rose is certified in both Traumatic Stress and Addiction Counseling, and she works specifically at the intersection of the two — because in her experience, they're almost never separate issues. The drinking, the scrolling, the overworking, the numbing out: those are usually solutions before they're problems. They're what got you through something.

Her approach to trauma is somatic and body-based, meaning the work doesn't stay stuck in your head, going over the story again and again. It moves into the nervous system, where a lot of trauma actually lives — the tight chest, the racing thoughts at 2am, the way your body braces before you've even consciously registered why.

High-Functioning and Quietly Falling Apart

Rose's clients are often people who look completely put together from the outside. Good job. Full calendar. Nobody would guess anything's wrong. Underneath, there's shame — about the coping habits, about not being "further along" by now, about having tried treatment before without it sticking.

If that's you, you're not a treatment failure. You just haven't had the right combination of trauma-informed and addiction-informed care yet, delivered by someone who understands that shame is often the loudest voice in the room and the least accurate one.

A quiet, grounding outdoor scene reflecting somatic, nature-based therapy at gokc

What Somatic Work Actually Involves

If "somatic therapy" sounds abstract, here's the plain version: it's therapy that pays attention to what's happening in your body, not just what's happening in your thoughts. Rose might ask where you feel a memory land physically, or help you notice the moment your shoulders climb toward your ears before you've consciously registered you're anxious. That information matters, because trauma often gets stored below the level of language. You can talk about something calmly for years and still flinch every time it comes up in a different form. Somatic work goes underneath the talking to where the actual bracing lives.

This isn't about reliving the worst moments over and over. Rose paces the work carefully, building your capacity to stay present with difficult material a little at a time, rather than flooding you with it. For clients managing both trauma and substance use, that pacing matters even more — the goal is steadiness, not a breakthrough that leaves you more dysregulated than when you walked in.

Co-Occurring Doesn't Mean Complicated Beyond Help

A lot of people carrying both trauma and a substance use pattern have been told, directly or indirectly, that they need to get the addiction "handled" before anyone will treat the trauma, or vice versa. Rose doesn't work that way. Her certification in both areas means she treats them as one connected picture, because that's what they actually are for most people. The drinking isn't separate from the flashbacks. The numbing isn't separate from the shame. Treating them together, rather than shuffling you between providers who only see half the story, tends to get better, more lasting results.

Why the End of Summer Hits Different

End-of-summer transitions are a known pressure point. The structure that disappeared for a few months is suddenly back, and with it comes the expectation that you'll just resume performing — showing up, producing, holding it together — without any real space to process what the last few months actually stirred up.

If you've noticed old patterns getting louder as fall approaches — reaching for a drink more nights than not, numbing out instead of feeling something, watching shame pile up faster than you can manage it — that's worth paying attention to, not white-knuckling through.

What to Expect From Your First Session

Rose isn't going to ask you to justify why you're "not further along" or explain every prior treatment attempt in detail before she'll take you seriously. The first session is about understanding where you are right now: what's been going on, what's felt unmanageable lately, and what steadiness would actually look like for you. Some people come in already sober and working on the trauma underneath. Others are still figuring out their relationship with substances and want support that doesn't come with judgment attached. Both are valid starting points.

A free consultation is available if you want to get a feel for whether Rose is the right fit before scheduling a full session.

Rose Has Room for New Clients Right Now

Rose currently has openings for adults ready to do this work before the fall routine fully takes over. This is a good moment to start, while you can still name what's been happening instead of just bracing through another season on autopilot.

You can read Rose's full bio here, or go straight to scheduling a free consultation. Not sure she's the right fit? Browse the full gokc team, or try our Therapist Match Maker to find your person.