Childhood trauma in adulthood

Childhood trauma does not stay in childhood. It settles into the body. It becomes instinct. It quietly teaches us how to survive connection long before we ever learn how to feel safe inside it.

We don’t grow out of trauma. We grow around it. And unless it is healed, it shapes every relationship we enter, romantic or otherwise.

When love in early life was inconsistent, conditional, or required us to be smaller than we were, we did not learn what we deserved. We learned what we could endure. We learned how to read moods, how to anticipate disappointment, how to stay when it would have been healthier to leave. We learned that connection might come with anxiety, and that our needs were inconvenient.

As adults, those lessons don’t disappear. They repeat...until we heal. 

We find ourselves staying in relationships that leave us unseen. We overgive in friendships that rarely reciprocate. We excuse emotional absence because it feels familiar. We tell ourselves that wanting more is asking too much, when in truth, we are simply asking for what we never had.  Is anyone one else crying yet, do you see yourself or someone you love? 

Here is the hard truth. Many adult relationships survive not because they are healthy, but because one person keeps carrying the weight. Time, history, and shared memories are often mistaken for intimacy. But longevity does not mean safety, and familiarity does not mean care. A relationship that requires silence, shrinking, or constant self-abandonment is not a relationship built on love. It is built on survival.  

Not everyone you love is capable of loving you well. This is especially painful in adult friendships. Some people are comfortable receiving your emotional labor but deeply uncomfortable offering their own. Some people want access to you without responsibility to you. And some relationships exist only as long as you are the one doing the understanding, the forgiving, and the holding together.  

Healing childhood trauma changes this dynamic, and that change is often lonely. As you heal, you stop overexplaining. You stop rescuing. You stop accepting crumbs as connection. And when you do, some relationships will falter. Not because you are cold or difficult, but because the relationship was never built on mutual effort to begin with.  When the relationships end healed or not that old pain still hurts.  You often wonder why wasn't I good enough.

This is where many people get stuck. They confuse peace with boredom and chaos with depth. A regulated, healthy relationship can feel unfamiliar to a nervous system raised on instability. It does not spike anxiety. It does not require constant vigilance. It does not demand you prove your worth. And for someone shaped by trauma, that quiet can feel uncomfortable before it feels safe.

Settling is not always romantic. Often, it happens in friendships and family dynamics where we continue to show up long after the relationship has stopped showing up for us. We stay because leaving feels like abandonment. We stay because we were taught that loyalty meant endurance. We stay because somewhere deep inside, we still believe love must cost us something.

But here is the truth that changes everything. You were never weak for staying. You stayed because once, you had no choice. You stayed because connection was survival. You stayed because a younger version of you did what it had to do to be loved.

You are not that child anymore... Work has to be done and it is your work to do. 

Healing is not about blame. It is about awareness. It is about recognizing that you are allowed to want relationships that are mutual, emotionally present, and safe. It is about understanding that love does not require self-betrayal, and that outgrowing people does not make you ungrateful or unkind.

The moment you stop settling is the moment you stop confusing familiarity with love. It is the moment you realize that real connection does not ask you to disappear. It asks you to arrive fully, and to be met there.

Love you