I learned a lot about myself this week. Not all of it was good, but all of it had good results so far.
For those who have been keeping up, I’ve been trying to write a semi-sane set of posts about limerence when it comes from trauma, and the topic itself is traumatic. This is because I’m incredibly embarrassed about it. Daring to write about it openly left me feeling tired and sensitive and turtled up. When my coach decided it was time to start working on it, I really wanted to, but I had no idea how far back we would have to go to get to the root of it all. No wonder I protested so much with past therapists.
I think I explained it right the first twenty times, but limerence isn’t romantic for me, it’s not with one person (though there does seem to always be one person who gets significantly more attention than others), but I do it with everyone. If someone appears nice on a consistent level, I feel like I have to perform to keep them around. I am exhausted as a result, and typically end up giving up before the connections have a chance to blossom into anything beyond acquaintanceship, because I’m content with not finding out if people are dicks.
So…we went back through the list of everyone who’d ever done anything to me, and I won’t list folks who are alive, but everyone got named. We went all the way back to the first interaction where I recalled something negative happening. I was four.
It seemed that from that point forward, I had something traumatic happening every week from a different person, but everyone was repetitive in their actions against me. And each person did different kinds of things. There was physical sexual, religious, ritualistic, emotional, neglect, public humiliation, shaming, gaslighting, and being denied medical care when I was severely injured after a few events.
So basically, we itemized each situation, and I was able to say out loud to my coach why these contributed as a whole to my relationship problems.
- Random, Repetitive, Varied Abuse: different forms of trauma from different people at the same time taught my nervous system that people were unpredictable threats. The only way to ensure my safety was to be perfect and pleasing. I had to constantly perform to gain acceptance and keep it in order to avoid the next inevitable punishment.
- Lack of Consistent Safety: I never had a foundation of safety or unconditional acceptance. As an adult, I pull back before connections deepen, or I go all out until people pull back on their own, which creates a cycle of performance, connection issues, and either overperformance or giving up entirely. These two conditions reinforce two things: that I would give up first to control the rejection, or I would feel like I was not good enough or unworthy of the love, safety, and unconditional acceptance that I’ve never had.
Naming the Damage
Itemizing every single thing that I went through, stepping back into areas that I’ve previously kept locked tight, and talking through all of them with my coach is called trauma mapping. The process of doing this was excruciating, and I’ve felt so many different emotions in the process, none of them positive.
- Doing this was the most validating experience I’ve had, as my coach created an environment where I felt safe and comfortable before going to this place with me. I felt comfortable enough to be able to speak freely about everything without fear of repercussion or judgement. I think it helped that we discussed this in a casual setting (on her back porch outside of town) and not in an office.
- When I was able to go through all of these people and what they did and how it affected me, I was also able to say that the limerence isn’t me, it’s me reacting to what I fear. I went through a lot. And it’s survival, not me being a creeper or one-sided. It’s me not knowing how to react when I perceive things to go south (or when some asshole decides to put it in my mind that things are going south). But it’s the trauma that caused it. It wasn’t a naturally occurring thing. I hope on their death beds that every single person felt horrible guilt for what they did to me and others.
- It feels like I let go of two tonnes of physical stuff when I let it all out with my coach. I went from feeling ashamed of it all to feeling like I would never have to revisit any of it again. But feeling like I’ve been exonerated for something I did not do, but was done to me has been so freeing. Redeeming, even. There’s no shame in who I am, nor is there shame in how I’ve tried to survive and protect myself. But them? They should have felt so ashamed. The ones who are still alive? I’ve forgiven them. It doesn’t mean I stay close to them. I forgave them for my own mental health, and I moved on. I think I’m finally able to actually say that I’ve moved on.
- Hopefully with understanding how what happened so deeply affected me, I can start to create and develop better connections with people. I don’t have to jump in head first, but I can hopefully manage the connections I already have and build from there.
I do know that I’m incredibly grateful for some folks who are still around, even if not as connected as I’d like for them to be. But everyone, for the moment, is exactly where they need to be, and for the moment, I don’t believe anyone is being overwhelmed or neglected. Perhaps over time, I can start talking about the pruning part. But I did practically raze a forest to build a better boundary or three. Let me see how that works, first.