Vulnerability, Intimacy, and Trust Issues in Relationships with CPTSD

This is the transcript version of the podcast episode of the same name! Check it out wherever you stream, search “traumatized motherfuckers.”
Or hit t-mfrs.com for more doods, episodes, and community info, Fucker.

So how do you feel about relationships?

Complicated?

You want them? You despise them? You fear them? You long for them? You try them? You exit them rapidly? Or you try to? You get stuck in them? And haunted by cycles of unfulfillment?

At the beginning, middle, and end of the day… maybe you’re a bit skeptical? Maybe you’ll try. You’ll attempt connection. But the connection either goes too far too fast, or goes nowhere at all?

Maybe you’ve given too much in relationships in the past? Now you’re a bit stingy when it comes to extending yourself so far for someone else again? And who could blame you? Cue the exhaustion and exasperation.

Maybe you’ve given up on relationships completely? You decided a long time ago that they’re more trouble than they’re worth? Again, cue the life draining out of your body.

Or, maybe you’ll give them a swing? But you tend to keep people at ten arm’s lengths? They can know you, but they won’t be allowed to KNOW you. And you might not have much interest in knowing the deepest depths of them, either.

No matter your strategy, it just feels… safer that way. You’re not a fool. You’ve seen what can happen and extrapolated what could ALWAYS happen again. And besides, you’ve probably had the experience that “no one can really get it.” No one can really “get you.”

PS — other humans are hell.

So why bother forming these supposedly important, healing, trauma-recovering relationships? Why aim for close connections? Why reveal yourself to people, when people love to punish you for exactly that?

Why on earth would any one of us decide to issue vulnerability, intimacy, or trust to another party? And accept all the subsequent pains that are destined to follow?

Well, that’s the topic of the month. We’re taking a deep dive into relationships — and moreso, the stable, close, and healing relationships we supposedly all need to fully heal our trauma wounds. And we’ll be chasing that train of thought for the next few months, diving deeper into what’s happening inside of ourselves that prevents authentic connection.

So, the unfulfilling relationship issue all starts with safeguarding ourselves against offering vulnerability, intimacy, and trust — from what this Muff can tell.

We ain’t got them to spare and we’re not looking to extend them to others, after so many experiences providing important lessons about the dangers of those decisions.

And, of course, it all starts in childhood. Or whenever your initial traumas went down.

We learn early on that other people are dangerous. They don’t meet us in the middle or consider our experiences. They use and dismiss us, depending on how it serves them. We have those beliefs confirmed later down the line, when our childhood experiences are repeated. And our brains wisely determine “never fucking again, better off without them.”

Shutting down all ability for vulnerability, intimacy, or trust — the foundations of long-lasting, healthy, brain rehabilitating relationships.

So, let’s get into the definitions.

Intimacy is allowing someone to get close to you, showing them your soft underbits. Vulnerability is the knowledge that someone COULD strike at those parts, but exposing them anyways. And trust is believing that they WON’T take advantage of what they’ve learned, believing they’re reliable and consistent in their care and authenticity.

Annnnnd I’m positive we could stop right there and chortle together about those ideas right now. “SHOW someone my shit? Give them the opportunity to destroy me? AND believe that they won’t, so it’s okay to proceed?”

Haaaaaillll naw.

Anyone else?

Yeah, a lot of us. PTSD passes along some common lessons that we tend to take to heart. And then they define our social and survival strategies for lifetimes.

So. This month we read quite a bit from a study performed with veterans returning from active duty who engaged in high risk sexual behaviors and refused to have “full relationships” with their partners. We went through their direct accounts of these loosey goosey partnerships, and found quite a few commonalities with the complexly traumatized crowd.

We have needs. We have to fulfill them.

But we fear our deeper emotional needs, so those tend to get ignored.

We engage in distant, poorly defined relationships, which help us feel safe while meeting those biological needs.

And we’re expecting rejection at all turns, so there’s no perceived choice in the matter.

BUT… at the same time… we have cataclysmic wounds inside of us that aren’t being mended by this strategy.

We’re still emotionally lonely, unsupported, and isolated, even in relationship. And we often turn around to resent our distant partners when they don’t offer us what we’re TRULY longing for… even when we haven’t given them the opportunity to do it before.

I.e. the participant who purposely kept sexual partners sequestered to a non-emotional connection… and then got mad at them when they weren’t abruptly available during a time when he needed emotional support. He ended the relationships when the other parties didn’t meet his needs, which were unexpressed and denied. Then he was upset that no one could use their mind reading powers to flip the relationship dynamic in an instance.

So. From all this we learned:

We can set up relationships to help ourselves get through the day… to remember that we still exist in the human species… but that doesn’t mean they’re providing actual connection to our lives. They don’t always include vulnerability, intimacy, or trust. Often those attributes are completely absent.

What we DO get from them is physical comfort, ego support, and a false sense of security. But they lack authenticity, disclosure, and emotional relation.

And that doesn’t actually sit well with us.

They scratch some shallow itches. They keep us afloat, in some ways. At least we don’t feel completely isolated or deprived in the sexy junk.

But the participants mentioned time and time again that they were in this relationship pattern NOW, but it wasn’t ideal. They often felt lower, more depressed, and more PTSD symptomatic after surface-level relationship experiences or sexual encounters. They had to deal with personal shame and intrusive memories in the aftermath. Feeling inauthentic, empty, and emotionally alone.

Overall, the soldiers who participated in the study had goals for better relationships, but weren’t able to offer them to others at the time.

You know, “for everyone’s sake.”

Another common characteristic of the research participants’ experiences was the idea that the PTSD-sufferer in question wasn’t personally prepared to be in a healthy relationship. Yes, they were protecting themselves from the pains of connection… but at the same time, they held beliefs that it was best for the other party, as well. “I’m just not relationship material yet” is the name of the game.

And that sounds familiar. Being concerned about what we’ll do to others, if we were to be ourselves around them. Especially when we’re still working on our own inner and outer problems. I say “amen.” And so I keep my shit to myself.

So, from all of this, we heard that traumatized individuals desire what they fear. They work against what they truly need. They might entirely stop trying to form relationships, or they might end up in relations that don’t actually suit anyone involved to the deepest degree — instead they settle for surface level associations that feel somewhat relieving, at least on a physical or egoic level.

But throughout all of this relational tomfuckery, we don’t get what we’re hurting for. We don’t find healing through our partnerships. We just continue to echo our early traumas.

We aren’t able to disclose those experiences, creating chasms between us and our partners, and keeping those memories fragmented from our daily experiences. We perpetuate the narratives that “something is wrong with us and no one will ever be able to understand or accept us.” Which rots out our lives with encaging self-limitations.

We continue holding ourselves back from experiencing real life. And keep strengthening our trauma-brained programming by hiding pieces of ourselves. Living in fear of ever being “fully found out.”

We keep the idea that “humans equal pain” alive. We increasingly edit who we are around others to avoid what we can’t fathom experiencing again. We live in ongoing fear, deprivation, and social disconnection. And wonder why our brains aren’t healing the ways that we hoped they would.

Well, Fuckers.

I understand the lone-wolfing lifestyle. I love it. I lean on it. And I have a hard time letting it go.

But I’m recently coming to terms with the less comfortable truth.

Connection is a fundamental human experience. One that’s NEEDED for our successful development and survival. We’re biologically designed FOR it. There are theories that the human brain evolved for experiences of love and species support.

So. We may have missed out on early opportunities for vulnerability, intimacy, and trust in our close relationships, and this has plenty of implications when it comes to brain and attachment style development. But perpetuating that lack for the rest of our lives isn’t doing anyone any good, either. It isn’t nourishing or rewiring the brain. It ISN’T “keeping us safe.” It isn’t challenging our traumatic narratives or forming new perspectives.

It’s keeping us locked in time. Separated from the rest of the species. And stuck with our own shamed brains, forever trying to hide and mask ourselves from others as we negatively judge what lurks below the surface. And get a bit self-obsessive doing it, since we’ve been left with little to think about besides our own thoughts.

Engaging in vulnerable, intimate, and trusting relationships is a required part of trauma recovery. We’d all rather avoid it. Even though we all dream of it.

Sometimes those dreams are overtaken by living nightmares that we flee from forever. But, the hard underlying reality is… we’d all benefit from learning how to do it.

The research shows, being able to get vulnerable with others and experiencing acceptance leads to greater self-acceptance, sense of security, and enhanced connectivity. And there are some ways to help ourselves, help ourselves with these wanted (but unwanted) goals. Even when we’re still trauma-symptomatic.

The research showed that being part of a group that’s based on supporting one another opens up room for us to practice being consistently engaged with others. Social norms such as trouble-texting or keeping conversation in the small talk arena goes out the window when the group is centered around keeping tabs with one another. There’s an enhanced sense of interrelational responsibility that helps us learn to rely on each other, and be reliable FOR one another.

That opens the door to learning how to relate consistently, openly, and supportively — despite what our prior programming would normally dictate is “typical, acceptable, behavior.” Breaking down barriers that societal rules normally enstate.

Another intimate relationship assist? Is engaging with children. You know, like… your own children, your niblings, or maybe a community organization. Not, like, random children on the streets. Obviously, don’t be that guy. (ng’d)

The literature shows that PTSD sufferers who had relationships with children found themselves practicing vulnerable relationships, relational responsibility, and measured self-disclosure which helped them apply those skills to others. Those who were able to share their unspoken life stories with adult children felt relieved, more closely connected, and understood, in the aftermath. Quite a change, starting from hiding their autobiographies for decades.

And if you’re NOT on the market for interacting with children… ya know… consider how pets can help.

If we’re better able to engage in VIT relationships when we have an increased degree of social responsibility and reduced threat of betrayal, animals are also a great place to start. They need us. They can’t talk shit. They can’t betray our trust. And they offer unconditional love, even when we’re not estimated to be “at our best.”

And from there, with any of these options, we just have to keep practicing authentic connection. With the good news about brains and behavioral science:

It gets easier and easier, the more you receive evidence that you won’t be cast aside, punished, or worse. Validation builds momentum. If one person (or fur people) can accept you, you’ll continue to build evidence, build experience, and realize that many can.

But… Fucker… Buttfucker… I know it feels like climbing a mountain to get started, especially after long periods of self-protective isolation. AND, this is an even steeper climb, because we can’t experience acceptance from others, if we can’t even accept ourselves.

So you see where this conversation is going.

Our brains have a lot of polarized views on other human beings entering our lives. Views that we may not have fully sussed out, ourselves. Patterns that we might have been ignoring. Internal perspectives that stop us from being a great relationship partner, if we can get started at all.

Which is what we’ll be picking up and talking about next time.

Disorganized attachment starts in our selves. In our oppositional perspectives on humans and human relationships. And in our self-protective strategies that shut down any opportunity for healing partnerships.

You know, ensuring that we ruin them, if we ever gather up the balls to get started at all.

So it would probably be considered “necessary” for us to get vulnerable, intimate, and trusting within our own brains (which we’re normally ignoring, dismissing, fearing, or screaming at) before we try to bring those skills outside to others. Huh?

And that’s what we’ll come back to talk about next month. Diving into our parts, as we combine the ideas of IFS with VIT in relationship. Taking a look at the common relationship problems we create when we aren’t even capable of being vulnerable, intimate, or trusting with our own selves. How projection, self-fulfilling prophecies, and cyclical abuse emanate from our unhealed and ignored parts. And how we create “mutual hells” for ourselves and our partners, as we both get trapped in the worst pieces of our brains together, in “repetitive conflicts that seem to have no resolution.”

If you’ve struggled with close, vulnerable, healing relationships… you might want to tune on in. And find out how external relations have been slated for failure, thanks to the internal relations we’ve all been trying to ignore.

It’s a lot to consider… but don’t worry, we’ll be talking about it in pieces for the coming months.

Jump into the full conversation in the private podcast stream, over at patreon.com/traumatizedmotherfuckers. Find that you’re seen, understood, and accepted… for all your bits, not just the ones you’ve learned to present safely to the world. And stay tuned here, on the public platform, for the quick and dirty versions of every topic we cover.

Looking to get into a VIT support group? Ya know the community is here for that, too. Nothing you say can shock us, darling. And we’re signed up for practicing safe human connection together, with a lot of honesty about the ways we’re fearing it.

And until we speak again in about two weeks… ya know.

Hail yourself.

Hail vulnerable relationships for the purpose of healing, rather than reliving, trauma.

Hail Flop-King Archie.

And cheers, y’all.