THE ADDICTION TO ALMOST: HOW UNAVAILABLE LOVE BECOMES A SURVIVAL STRATEGY

A GinkgoMinds Blog by Jo Oswin

There’s a particular kind of hunger that never shows up in obvious ways.It doesn’t scream. It waits.

Waits for someone to come back. Waits for a message that never arrives. Waits for the shift in tone that might mean: You matter now.It doesn’t look desperate. It looks patient. Polite. It looks like a woman staring at her phone, telling herself she’s fine. Like a man holding back his needs until he earns the right to be seen.

SOME OF US LEARNED TO FIND SAFETY IN STARVATION

There are people who never got fed emotionally, but learned to survive on the promise of nourishment. You grow up like that, and it wires something into your bones.You stop expecting intimacy to be easy. You start equating love with effort. And not mutual effort — no. Your effort. Your overgiving. Your silence. Your endurance.

Suddenly, you’re thirty-four and falling for people who withhold just enough to keep you wondering. People who touch you just long enough to wake up every ache you swore was buried.And then pull away like they never meant it.

UNAVAILABILITY ISN’T A RED FLAG WHEN IT’S YOUR ORIGIN STORY

If love was something you earned —through being good, being quiet, being needed —then someone who offers love without conditions won’t feel trustworthy.

They feel strange. Like a glitch in your programming. Like a gift you didn’t work hard enough to deserve.

So you go back to the one who hurts you —not because you’re broken,but because you understand that pain. You know how to dance with it.You know what it requires of you.

YOU DIDN’T FALL FOR THEM — YOU FELL FOR WHO YOU COULD BECOME IF THEY LOVED YOU RIGHT

Here’s the raw truth most people never admit:You weren’t addicted to them.You were addicted to the version of yourself you imagined you’d finally becomeif they said, I choose you. I won’t leave this time. You’re enough.

It wasn’t about their eyes or their humour or the sex. It was about redemption.It was about finally feeling like someone stayed long enough to rewrite your story.

But here’s the trap: Even if they had stayed,it wouldn’t have undone the hunger.

Because the ache didn’t begin with them —and it was never theirs to fix.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM MISTAKES CHAOS FOR A LIFE FORCE

A calm relationship might feel boring at first. You might find yourself craving conflict, drama, the thrill of “what does this mean?”

That’s not dysfunction. That’s conditioning. When your system is used to fight-or-flight, stillness feels foreign. When you only ever felt seen in crisis, peace can feel like invisibility.

This is why survivors often sabotage healthy love.Not because they don’t want it — but because it feels like unfamiliar terrain. And unfamiliar, to the trauma-wired brain, equals unsafe.

BUT STILL — THERE’S A PART OF YOU THAT KNOWS THIS ISN’T IT

Even while you’re reaching for the phone.Even while you’re twisting yourself to be more desirable, more accommodating, more lovable.

Something in you knows:This isn’t connection.This isn’t intimacy.This is performance.

And no amount of almosts will ever feel like home.

🖤 COACHING PROMPT: WHERE AM I STILL AUDITIONING FOR LOVE?

Let’s drop the shame and get honest.

• Who am I when I’m not chasing anyone’s approval?

• Where did I first learn to wait quietly for love to arrive?

• What would I have to grieve if I stopped trying to prove I’m worth staying for?

• What parts of me have never known what it feels like to be wanted without effort?

Write it down. Speak it aloud.And know that this — right here — is how the spell breaks.

INSIDE PATREON, WE NAME THE PATTERN AND UNLEARN THE PULL

There’s nothing wrong with you for wanting what you were never given. But there is freedom in understanding why you want it, and even more freedom in realising: you no longer have to chase it.

In Patreon, we unpack this in real time — through nervous system work, story reclamation, and somatic coaching.You’ll find workshops, truth bombs, messy journal prompts, and a community that gets it.

And in my 10-part workshop series Who the Fuck Am I Becoming?, we walk straight through the fire of unworthiness —into the part of you that no longer begs to be chosen, but chooses herself every time.

You don’t need another heartbreak to teach you a lesson. You don’t need to be the one who always loves harder. And you don’t need to settle for someone who’s only halfway in.

Almost isn’t enough. You are not here to ache quietly. You’re here to burn brighter than what abandoned you.

xx Josi