How Past Trauma Shapes the Way We Receive Love
The effects of trauma extend beyond simple recollection, and are not just contained within memory. The body frequently exhibits reactions resembling those of a threat when affection is experienced. We react to threats by fighting, fleeing, freezing, or people-pleasing. These are survival instincts, but they can mess with our ability to feel loved.
After years of neglect and abuse, my first reaction to affection is often anger or frustration, followed quickly by withdrawal. I worry about being exposed in my emotions or not knowing how to respond to kindness with words. Physical affection is complicated too: touch is my love language, yet I’ve learned to limit it. Living with an elderly parent has reactivated these patterns—his emotional volatility encourages the hostility I thought I had left behind. I try to stay calm, but when non‑violent efforts fail, my body’s instinct is still to stay and fight.
Random Side Note: I don’t think relying on my favorite motto “an eye for an eye” would work all the time…but life makes it very challenging to NOT put that motto to work, if you catch my drift.
Psychological Lens
Trauma not only shapes how we think, but also reshapes how the body reacts to care and affection. After repeated stress, the amygdala—the brain’s alarm system—becomes sensitized. This means that even in neutral or kind situations, the body can trigger fight‑or‑flight responses, because it has learned to expect harm rather than safety.
Attachment theory helps explain why affection may feel threatening. When past care was inconsistent or unsafe, the nervous system adapts by becoming cautious. Love can then feel manipulative or conditional, leading to defensive reactions that push connection away even when it is genuinely offered.
The body itself carries this stored trauma in muscle tension, breath patterns, and touch aversion. Naturally, this creates a split: the mind may long for closeness, but the body resists. Affection, instead of feeling nourishing, can activate old protective instincts. Understanding this mind‑body divide is important because it shows that difficulty receiving love is not a flaw in character—it is a survival strategy many people relied on until they found safer environments.
How Survival Responses Show Up in Love
Survival instincts don’t disappear when the danger is gone; they often resurface in moments of care and affection. Each response—fight, flight, freeze, and fawn—carries its own way of reshaping how love is received.
For some, affection can feel controlling, which triggers the fight response. Instead of relaxing into care, the person argues, resists, or asserts independence as a way to protect themselves. Others experience the flight response, where closeness feels suffocating. They withdraw, stay busy, or avoid intimacy altogether, not because they don’t want connection, but because their body equates it with risk.
The freeze response shows up when love feels overwhelming. In these moments, the person may shut down, go blank, or struggle to respond, even when they long for closeness. Finally, the fawn response emerges when care feels conditional. Here, the person appeases, over‑accommodates, or minimizes their own needs, confusing compliance with genuine connection.
Together, these patterns reveal how trauma can distort the experience of love. What was once a survival strategy becomes a barrier to intimacy, making affection feel unsafe or undeserved.
Check In Reader Questions 💡
When someone offers me kindness, do I feel anger, withdrawal, numbness, or compliance first?
How to Answer: Pause and notice your initial instinctive reaction to care. Also consider self‑observation while connecting directly to the fight/flight/freeze/fawn framework.
What small cues (tone of voice, pacing, respect for boundaries) help my body trust affection more?
How to Answer: Identify what helps you feel safe. Respond to it with using practical and actionable insight.
Fear of Manipulation
When someone shows affection, the brain may search for hidden motives, replaying past experiences where kindness was followed by harm. Trauma often teaches the mind to anticipate danger, so emotionally this can lead to detachment and a refusal to risk being hurt again.
Inconsistent affection—such as being dismissed one moment and praised the next—can feel manipulative. Over time, this pattern erodes trust and teaches survivors to guard themselves. For children especially, inconsistent care can blur the line between genuine love and control, making it harder to regulate emotions or communicate openly.
Technology adds another layer. Social media often amplifies wishful thinking through “couple goals” content, while also blurring sincerity in digital affection. Shifting toward growth‑focused content can help reframe love more realistically, but the risk of misreading online gestures remains.
Did you know? Attachment theory shows that inconsistent care often leads to anxious or avoidant patterns. Digital communication, by stripping away tone and body language, can intensify these patterns and make trust harder to build.
Reframing the Internal Story
Trauma often leaves behind survival beliefs such as “If I give more, they will give back” or “If I don’t appease, I’ll be abandoned.” These beliefs once served a protective purpose, but they can become barriers to receiving love. Reframing the internal story means teaching the nervous system that boundaries and choice are not threats—they are the foundation of safe connection.
What is “Safe Love”?
Safe love is not about constant sacrifice or catering. It is about mutual growth, gentle correction, forgiveness, and authentic celebration of achievements. In practice, this means allowing space for differences while maintaining respect, and recognizing that love does not need to manipulate or humiliate to be real.
How to Start Reframing Yourself
Reframing begins with small shifts. Silence, breathing, or short walks can help the body release tension and remind us that boundaries do not equal abandonment. Over time, consistent experiences of respect and patience reinforce the idea that love can be steady, flexible, and safe.
If you struggle with receiving love, begin by finding peace and balance within yourself before deepening connections with others. Healing is powerful, but love must be cautious, careful, and bold. Surround yourself with people who care about your existence, not those who try to control your responses to life’s challenges.
Check In Reader Questions 💡
What old beliefs about love or safety do I still carry, and how can I reframe them?
How do I define safe love now compared to how I defined it in the past?
Author’s Note
Thank you for spending time with today’s post. My hope is that it offered clarity and encouragement for your own journey. We all deserve peace, respect, and growth in our relationships, and Hari’s Helping Hands exists to keep those conversations open and accessible.
This publication is free by design — no paywalls, no strings attached — because healing and reflection should never be limited to those who can afford it. Still, creating and sharing these resources takes time and care. If you’d like to help sustain this work, consider spreading the love through Ko‑fi. Your support keeps the content free for everyone and allows me to continue offering gifts like journals, custom posters, and affirmation cards to subscribers.
Together, we can make sure this space remains a resource for anyone who needs it most.
Your reflection captures something a lot of people live through but rarely put into words: the way trauma rewires the body to interpret care as danger. It’s powerful (and heartbreaking) how you describe wanting closeness while your nervous system prepares for war. That push-pull between longing and self-protection is so real for anyone who grew up in unsafe environments.
I really appreciate how you connected your reactions to both neuroscience and attachment patterns. It helps remove shame from the conversation—these responses aren’t “overreactions,” they’re learned survival strategies that kept you alive. And the way you notice your body’s instinct to fight or shut down, even when affection is present, shows such a deep level of self-awareness.
Your point about living with a volatile parent reigniting old patterns also hits hard. It makes sense that your nervous system would slip back into those familiar defenses; you’re not failing, you’re adapting to a stressful dynamic you never chose.
And that side note about “an eye for an eye”—I get it. When someone’s behavior is consistently harmful, it’s human to feel that pull toward retaliation. The fact that you even question that impulse shows growth.
Thank you for sharing this honestly. It’s a reminder that healing isn’t about “just accepting love,” but slowly teaching the body what safety actually feels like. You’re doing the hard work, even in the midst of triggers. Keep being gentle with yourself.