How to Tell Trauma Is Driving You to Pull Away (4-video compilation)

It’s obvious that the way people were cared for by their parents in childhood shapes how they form romantic bonds later in life — that’s what we mean when we talk about attachment styles. There are five main ones: secure — people who felt loved and safe as children and tend to be adaptable in relationships; anxious-preoccupied — those who constantly fear they aren’t loved enough and worry the love will disappear; dismissive-avoidant; fearful-avoidant; and disorganized. The last three — dismissive-avoidant, fearful-avoidant and disorganized — often struggle to offer love in a way that makes insecure partners feel reassured. I’ve noticed online that many discussions are led by people with insecure attachment (myself included) asking how to understand and live with others’ styles. Today’s letter, though, comes from a woman I’ll call Lisa, who identifies as avoidant and wants to learn how to be a better partner. That’s a brave, constructive question, so let’s unpack what she shared. Lisa writes: Hi Anna — I’ve been trying to work through healing from CPTSD and hoped you could advise me about handling triggers and trauma now that I’m 25 and committed to getting healthy. When I was born my father — an angry, manipulative ex-military narcissist — abused me in every way: mentally, emotionally, physically and sexually. (There’s a lot to circle back to here, but let me read on.) He never admitted fault or let us express our feelings. I have two older sisters but I got the worst of it. We lived on survival mode, always walking on eggshells. I know he projected his pain onto us, but that doesn’t make living with the triggers easier today. My mother loved us unconditionally but was submissive and terrified for her life and ours; she was depressed and did her best, but she couldn’t protect us because he was too powerful. A few years later she found the courage to leave him and filed for divorce; I refused to see my father again. Around that time I was being viciously bullied at school — kids told me to kill myself and said I’d never be pretty enough. I was in so much pain. At 14 my mom was diagnosed with cancer and died two weeks after the diagnosis. I moved to another state to live with an aunt who was very critical, treated me like a burden, always compared me to others and made me hyper-focused on my flaws. I never felt good enough for her. I understand some of her behavior comes from her own upbringing and pain, but it still got internalized. At 18 I moved out on my own. Over the next years I dated a few men who cheated on me, compared me to others and made me feel burdensome to love; that left me with trust issues and very low self-worth. Fast forward to last year: I met a wonderful person and we’ve dated about six months. He truly loves me, models what a healthy partner looks like and seems secure. The problem is I’ve carried behaviors from my family and exes into this relationship and I’ve projected them onto him, draining him in ways like fear of intimacy. I have an anxious-avoidant attachment: lots of fear, insecurity, trouble trusting, emotional unavailability, controlling tendencies, defensiveness, feeling unlovable and assuming worst-case scenarios. He’s been amazing and supports my healing, but I feel like I keep hurting him with my trauma and I understand why he’s exhausted. Can you guide me on overcoming CPTSD, stopping the habit of imagining the worst about him and myself, and showing up lovingly when I’m triggered? I struggle with self-doubt and worthiness — how can I heal those fully and create a secure attachment? I love him and I don’t want to reject or sabotage him anymore. Do you think a healthy relationship is possible after all this abuse, and if so how do I get there? — Lisa That’s a heavy story and I’m so sorry for what happened to you. Between the abuse from your father, losing your mom so suddenly at 14, the aunt’s mistreatment and the bullying, it’s understandable how difficult things became. It also sounds like you already carry some compassion for yourself, which is important: you can acknowledge that what happened wasn’t your fault, and still accept responsibility for trying to change behaviors that hurt you and others. I’m proud of you for wanting to heal so you can be kinder to a partner — that’s an admirable goal. If everyone who suffered chose that path, the world would be better. Thank you for showing people it’s possible to stay hopeful and take action even after terrible things. You said a long list of traits about yourself — anxious-avoidant, fears, insecurities, difficulty trusting, emotional defensiveness, and so on. That level of self-awareness tells me you’ve been working on yourself, trying to identify what’s getting in the way, and that’s important progress. Don’t forget to acknowledge the strengths you also bring — you wouldn’t be loved by a good, secure person right now if you had nothing to offer. Survivors often develop grit, empathy for others who suffer, and a deeper understanding that people can seem fine on the outside while struggling inside. Trauma gives some painful lessons, but it often also builds resilience and insight. You’re not only a collection of faults; you’re a complex mix of strengths and wounds. Healing begins by noticing patterns that sabotage you or hurt others, and then gently changing course with help and perspective. It’s easy to drown in self-diagnosis and believe “I’m so messed up,” which is a trauma-driven thought. What you described fits into two emotional buckets I often talk about: fear and resentment — anxiety and anger in different forms. Learning to name, release and decompress those feelings can be hugely helpful. I teach a method I learned decades ago when my own trauma was overwhelming: naming fears and resentments on paper in a specific way, not just free-ranting, and then following that writing with meditation. If you try this, don’t simply dump negative thoughts on paper without the structure — that can make things worse. The technique is meant to identify and then intentionally let go of fears and resentments; practiced twice daily and combined with a restful meditation afterward, this “daily practice” can steadily reduce the burden of trauma. It helped me when therapy three times a week and other supports weren’t enough — writing what was upsetting on paper brought an instant sense of relief. There is research that supports emotionally expressive writing: James Pennebaker at UT Austin found that writing about stressful feelings can speed recovery, reduce illness and alleviate depression. Writing engages a different brain pathway than talking and can be a powerful tool for naming and releasing the hold painful emotions have on you. You described a pattern that’s common after childhood neglect: an insatiable hunger for someone to finally take care of you, combined with an instinct to push people away when intimacy becomes overwhelming — “I need you, I push you away; I need you, I push you away.” That push-pull creates a lot of drama and strain. One practical way to reduce that drama is to take distressed thoughts to paper before bringing them to your partner. So instead of immediately starting a fraught conversation — “Honey, I’ve been anxious about what you said; I think you don’t love me…” — write it out first. Note your fears: “I’m afraid I made too many demands on Roger; I’m afraid I’m too needy; I’m afraid I was harsh; I’m afraid he’ll get sick of me.” Also name resentments: “I resent myself for not doing the homework my therapist suggested; I resent my fear.” Once you’ve poured those worries onto the page and done a calming meditation (even twenty minutes of restful closing of eyes), you’ll get a break from the thoughts. They’ll return, of course, but repeated release builds a habit of not carrying them around. When there’s less fear and resentment inside you, there will be fewer accusatory demands, fewer tears, less reactivity when you interact with the person you love. That’s how the daily practice helps relationships: it gives your intense feelings somewhere to go other than out onto the people you care about. Some people find it useful to do the writing with a buddy or read parts of it to someone in a supportive group; that kind of mutual accountability and practice is also a feature of some membership groups. The first step is to learn the technique and practice it consistently. With time it often calms the inner turmoil enough to save relationships that otherwise would be overwhelmed by intensity. You said your boyfriend seems secure and that you identify as avoidant in places — pulling away and being emotionally less available. An avoidant partner can still be a good partner with effort. It’s realistic to accept that an avoidant style may persist to some degree lifelong, but you can learn specific skills to be emotionally present in ways that help the relationship. A core principle is meeting your partner halfway. If your partner needs verbal reassurance — hearing “I love you” back, or conversation when they say they’re hurt — try to respond with curiosity and connection rather than shutting down or withdrawing. The Gottman Institute describes “bids” for connection: small invitations your partner offers to connect — a question about a shirt (“Do you think this looks good on me?”), a request to eat dinner together — and avoidant partners can miss or ignore these bids. Practicing noticing and answering bids, even if it’s not your natural style, increases closeness. The other person will also need to make allowances for your natural aloofness sometimes; both sides can learn to compromise. If both people pay attention to what the other needs, secure interactions can be built even when neither began as perfectly secure. Avoidance often stems from trauma and can feel like a relief to some because it prevents messy, unpredictable intimacy — hence avoidants are sometimes drawn to unattainable partners, which creates a safety in unavailability. If you’ve ever dated someone avoidant, you know how painful it is to be left hanging, unable to pin down plans or commitment. Avoidant people tend to pull away when relationships seem to head toward deeper commitment, even when they want closeness. That brings me to a second letter, from a woman I’ll call Amaly. She’s 45, from southern Europe, and was diagnosed about 15 years ago with avoidant personality disorder — a severe form of anxiety in relationships. She shared that her father was avoidant and her mother had intense anxiety, which transmitted abandonment and rejection fears to her. She’s had codependency struggles, long periods without work (only recently starting a temporary job after many years), and in the few relationships she’s had they were typically with emotionally unavailable men. Last year she met someone through a Facebook group who initially seemed very interested; they had a strong connection, but he had a long-term girlfriend of ten years who was apparently going through a crisis. She waited, gave him some space, shared her number, and they started texting. He invited her to visit; when she did they slept together and he seemed affectionate. Yet in the following weeks he became difficult to pin down — he said he wanted to see her again but then kept postponing, so she stopped texting for a week and asked if he had really meant it when he said he liked her. He then told her his ex was struggling with substance use and he needed to help her, so he couldn’t see Amaly. Heartbroken, she waited. Ten months later he reappeared, they reconnected, and she again found the pattern of irregular contact — nights at his place, sex, and then long periods of silence. He sometimes claimed he might have ADHD; he’d say he liked her and considered her a friend, but also said he didn’t want a partner and even considered having children alone. After months of uncertainty she took a break, focused on job hunting and accepted a temporary job; he congratulated her. She realized she’d placed heavy expectations on this situation and on herself, pressured herself not to disappoint, and asked why she couldn’t be more carefree and enjoy the relationship without expecting reciprocity. She wondered why she anticipates so much and doesn’t honor her own needs and pace. She acknowledged she tends to hide who she is to keep the tenuous arrangement working, but that was never enough. She asked, why couldn’t she just be selfish in a healthy way, maintain her tempo and needs, and avoid the drama? She also worried she might not really know what she wants, or that she’s afraid of admitting it because it might end things. This story contains many red flags: dating someone who still has entanglements, inconsistent availability, promises of interest followed by withdrawal — classic patterns that trigger anxious or avoidant wounds. When someone is involved with another partner, it’s generally wise to avoid pursuing them; if you’re actually interested in building something real, don’t get involved with someone who is attached. It’s one thing to be friendly to someone who’s already in a relationship, but another to flirt and accept sporadic availability — and doing so generally hurts you and keeps you from meeting people who can fully reciprocate. People with attachment wounds often convince themselves to adapt to the other person’s terms because any affection feels better than none; that’s understandable but ultimately self-destructive. Staying in half-relationships like this keeps you from growing into a person who can attract true reciprocity, and repeated heartbreak drains and damages your capacity for future connection. If you’re drawn to someone who’s not available, the healthiest stance is to be clear about your needs and boundaries. If someone you like is still with their partner, step back rather than staying on the sidelines. Set standards for yourself: you deserve someone who can give you the kind of attention you want. Consider joining groups or programs where others are learning to relate more securely — dating programs, therapy groups, adult-children groups, 12-step rooms, or communities that focus on healthy boundaries — so you have support when it’s time to exit a damaging pattern. Writing down what you want and keeping it in front of you helps avoid denial and cognitive dissonance when someone’s behavior doesn’t match your needs. A theme that helps with many relationship issues is attunement — the ability to sense and respond to other people’s feelings. Trauma can blunt attunement, but it’s a skill that can be reclaimed. Signs your attunement might be off include: giving unsolicited advice (jumping in to tell people what they should do instead of listening), a lack of curiosity (immediately assuming you know why someone feels or thinks a certain way instead of asking), insensitivity to people’s highs and lows (missing chances to celebrate achievements or validate pain), difficulty owning mistakes (defensiveness instead of apology), constantly being shielded or too busy so others stop trying to connect, dogmatism (pushing your creed or viewpoint rather than listening), gossiping (which signals you’re not a safe confidante), exaggeration (sweeping statements that feel unreliable), or flakiness (not following through on plans). These behaviors often stem from family patterns or from the way neglect and abuse damage neurological and social development. Trauma can also heighten defensiveness — criticism can feel like a life-or-death threat — which makes relationships brittle. There are concrete, learnable fixes. When someone tells you something painful, resist the urge to immediately relate, explain, or fix it. Instead, be present, ask gentle questions about feelings, and validate. If you don’t know what to say, it’s okay to pause and tell the person you’ll think about it. That pause can prevent defensive, reactive responses. Practicing little things — answering bids for connection, celebrating others’ wins, asking curious follow-up questions — builds attunement and closeness. Learn to own mistakes quickly and simply: apologize, listen to how you hurt someone, and ask for specifics so you can understand and repair. Keep channels open; if you’re busy, set boundaries without shutting people out — for example, say, “I’m tired tonight but would love to get together next week,” rather than repeatedly broadcasting how busy you are in a way that pushes others away. Boundaries are central: when you know you can leave an uncomfortable situation gracefully, you can enter it without dread. Practice gracious exits (“Thanks for a nice night — I need to call it early tonight”) so you can say yes to social opportunities without feeling trapped. Also practice emotional self-regulation: not to deny feelings, but to choose when and how to express intense emotions so they don’t overwhelm relationships or lead to regret. That might mean moving through a difficult emotion privately first, or saying, “I want to think about this and come back to you,” rather than unloading in a moment that’s not safe. Attunement is attractive and can be relearned. When you’re attuned, people feel seen, heard and safe. If trauma dulls that skill, it’s not a character flaw that can’t change; with practice — including the daily practice I mentioned — people can become more sensitive and present. That improves friendships, dating and family life. Finally, another letter from a woman I’ll call Marilyn raises the issue of being married to an avoidant partner. She’s 30, married ten years, with two small children. Her husband is reliable, earns well, and they’ve achieved housing stability — but he often seems distracted, lost in his own world, and fails to notice her bids for connection. Around family he becomes even more distant, seeming unable to show affection or attention in public, which leaves her feeling worthless and invalidated. He’s better at focusing on others (like a sister-in-law and even her dog) than on her, and he says he’s uncomfortable showing intimacy publicly; that makes family gatherings torture for her, and she feels shut down and wrecked afterward. She suspects her own mother may have had borderline personality disorder: growing up she remembers living on edge, walking on eggshells, unpredictable rage attacks, chaos in the home, no steady provision of food or basic care, and no comforting parental presence. Her father was often absent and work-focused, so she missed the secure parental attachment she longed for. She imagined the intimate marriage she wanted, and now asks: how to handle her husband’s public emotional distance and avoidant behavior? Is she the problem or is he? What can she do? Being partnered with an avoidant doesn’t doom a marriage, but it requires realistic expectations and a lot of navigation. Avoidant people often learned early to rely on themselves and to keep distance from intimacy; they can feel overwhelmed by the intense emotional needs of a partner who expects frequent affirmation. With young children, the practical demands of parenting often supplant romantic time and make the problem feel worse. There are some practical strategies: from your side, try to develop parallel supports and friends who meet your emotional needs so you’re not relying entirely on your husband for validation; distribute your attachment needs across multiple relationships. From his side, if he’s willing, small, concrete efforts can matter: remembering special days, asking what would feel romantic to you, and following through with gestures that show attention. Some avoidants benefit from clear guidance about what actions would make their partner feel loved — specific suggestions for gifts, small rituals or ways to celebrate important days. Both partners will need to accept some reality about who the other is. You can ask for change and expect effort, but full transformation is slow and may not be complete. For parents, leaving is an extreme option and often not the first choice; instead, meeting in the middle usually yields better results. Keep practicing emotional regulation and the daily writing-and-meditation technique so you have a safe way to hold the grief and longing that come from your childhood wound and present disappointments. That practice helps you remain more regulated for the kids and for your relationship, which supports healthier co-regulation in the family. Across these letters the common threads are clear: attachment wounds shape adult behavior; naming and releasing fear and resentment helps prevent reactive harm to partners; daily structured writing backed by meditation is a practical tool many find transformative; learning attunement, owning mistakes, setting boundaries and distributing emotional needs across supportive people are actionable steps; and while trauma makes relationships harder, with consistent practice and compassionate effort — both from yourself and from a willing partner — it is possible to create more secure, loving partnerships.