A few years back I realized most of my personality is just a trauma response so ingrained in me that I don't know how else to behave.

yep

Yeah I've recently learned this and it's opened my eyes to so much!

this is useful

and yeah I can trace a lot of things about how I interact with my surroundings to early experiences. that strong survival instinct kicks in, when you are in a terrible situation, that goes "holy shit do not want" and spends the rest of forever looking around every corner just in case

the stronger it is, the longer it settles in, the harder it is to change.