Notes From a Relationship Coach
​(Big ideas in a small email)

“Our number one survival tool is our ability to bond with others. We are wired with an instinctual drive that motivates us to seek relational connection and from that relational connection to experience a sense of safety, security, and protection from danger.”

–Michelle Mays, The Betrayal Bind​

Type 1 diabetes feels like life has been trying to murder me every day since I was eight. There’s a chronic, lonely, visceral powerlessness about that particular brand of survival mode that I’ve never discussed with anyone. My cousin, the only other diabetic I’ve known, died from a single blood sugar spike before we ever got the chance.

Various types of relational trauma have compounded my reluctance to need or rely on others. Hurt me once, shame on you; hurt me bad or long enough, self-reliance becomes instinctual.

And yet, underneath all our trauma responses and coping mechanisms, the desire for connection endures.

One time, under the influence of way too much drugs and alcohol, I was certain I had died and my spirit somehow lingered. Sleeping in a friend’s car (with him), I vividly recall a two-handed death grip on his arm – my only remaining tie to the realm of the living. Literally holding on for dear life.

Drug-induced psychosis or no, I suspect we always have a primal need for connection to secure our own existence on some level. But those of us with repeated relational wounding live with the brutal dilemma of also being terrified of that fundamental human need.

So we do relationships… but maybe not all the way or vulnerably or mutually. Not without armor, walls, performance, withholding, numbing, distraction, domination, or any number of emotional safeguards.

I want love, but if I let myself get hurt one more time, it might completely overwhelm or destroy me, so this will just have to be as good as it gets.

Do these people need a better partner? Stronger communication skills? More self-esteem? Deeper understanding of attachment theory?

I don’t think that’s it, y’all.

•When Relationships Don’t Feel Safe
​•Fear of Being Seen
​•Deep Healing​

May the desire for profound healing exceed the comfort of familiar workarounds and white-knuckle death grips,

*This email contains Amazon affiliate links to the books mentioned.

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