TRAUMA therapy IN RENO, NV

Heal the experiences that shaped you without letting them define you.

A butterfly with yellow and black wings resting on green leaves in a natural setting.

“Why does this still hurt so much?”


When you grow up in a home that’s unpredictable or consistently chaotic, you naturally learn to adapt. You didn’t really have any other choice but to be the strong one—the independent one who constantly walked on eggshells or stepped into the role of “parent” because yours simply could not show up the way you needed or wanted them to. 

And now, years later, as an adult, you're exhausted. You might have a good life—the career, a family, people in your life who love you. But there's still a part of you carrying something heavy. You regularly second-guess yourself, you struggle to relax, and you still feel responsible for everyone and everything else (even after all this time). 

For some, the pain didn't begin in childhood. It was brought on by traumatic loss, betrayal, abuse, a frightening event, or a season of life that changed you forever. Life may have moved on, but it’s like your body and soul didn’t. Certain memories or triggers seem to pull you right back into everything you thought you had left behind.

Trauma doesn’t always look the way we expect.

Close-up of a person's hand touching green grass and small white flowers in a field, wearing a silver chain bracelet.

Many people assume trauma has to involve one major event—and sometimes it does. But other times, trauma develops from years of living in environments where you didn't feel emotionally safe, consistently protected, or understood.

Trauma can manifest itself in many forms, including:

  • Childhood emotional neglect

  • Parent wounds and family-of-origin struggles

  • Physical, emotional, or psychological abuse

  • Parentification and growing up too fast

  • Living with addiction, mental illness, or chronic instability in the home

  • Family estrangement and complex family dynamics

  • Traumatic grief and loss

  • Betrayal and relationship trauma

  • Divorce and significant life transitions

  • Debilitating anxiety, flashbacks, nightmares, or feeling disconnected

In order to heal and reclaim yourself, we don’t ask the question of whether your experience was "bad enough” or “counts,” we ask how it's affecting you now.

You deserved so much more than survival. You needed safety, support, and care.

It’s not too late to begin giving those things to yourself.


My Approach

Every person who walks through my door has a different story, different wounds, and different strengths.

Mery Vargas Mares, therapist in Reno, NV with curly hair wearing a yellow dress, with her eyes closed and hands on her chest in a garden.

That's why I take the time to really get to know you—what you've been through, what's weighing on you now, and what you're hoping life can look like moving forward. We move at your pace.

Many of my clients have spent years minimizing their experiences, questioning whether things were really "that bad," or feeling like they should be “over it” by now. Instead of rushing past the pain, we slow down and make space for all of it. We acknowledge what happened, what was lost, and how those experiences may still be affecting your life today.

From there, we find the path that feels most supportive for you. Sometimes that means EMDR or somatic therapy to help process memories that still feel emotionally charged or stuck in the nervous system. Other times, we may lean into meditation, ritual, inner child work, or psycho-spiritual practices that help you connect with deeper layers of healing and meaning.

For some clients, soul regressions offer a powerful shift in perspective. They can help illuminate recurring patterns, family dynamics, longstanding wounds, or deeper themes that may be influencing your life today. Often, clients walk away with a greater sense of compassion for themselves and a renewed connection to their own inner wisdom.

TRAUMA THERAPY CAN help YOU…

Feel safe enough to exhale


Understand why you do what you do

Let go of the belief that you're the only one who can save yourself



Grieve what was lost without losing yourself in the process


Create relationships that reflect your worth instead of your wounds


Become the person your younger self needed


Listen to (and trust) your own wisdom

Learn to hold both the pain of your past and the possibilities of your future


Mery Vargas Mares, therapist in Reno, NV smiling with curly hair, sitting on a patterned sofa with a yellow blanket and yellow pillow in a room with wooden walls and a decorative white wall art piece.

You don’t have to spend the rest of your life “surviving.”

FAQs

COMMON QUESTIONS