WHY INTIMACY FEELS LIKE DANGER WHEN YOU HAVE TRAUMA

A GinkgoMinds Blog by Jo Oswin

You say you want closeness. You crave it. Dream about it. Bleed for it. But when it finally arrives — when someone actually sees you, stays, softens —you flinch. You sabotage.You shut down.

Not because you don’t want it.But because your body thinks it will cost you everything.

YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM ONLY TRUSTS WHAT IT’S SURVIVED

If love once meant chaos, pain, or punishment, your nervous system doesn’t register tenderness as safe. It registers it as suspicious.

You scan for signs that they’ll leave. That they’ll turn. That the kindness is a trick with teeth underneath.

And so you prepare for the fall. You push them away first. Or you over-attach so fast it suffocates the space between you.

This isn’t dysfunction. It’s the brilliant adaptation of a body that’s been hurt by the very thing it still longs for.

INTIMACY IS A TRIGGER WHEN LOVE WAS A WOUND

When the people who were supposed to protect you were also the ones who harmed you, your system wires love and danger together.

That means:

• Calm feels threatening.

• Eye contact feels invasive.

• Vulnerability feels like a setup.

• And connection?It feels like standing naked on a battlefield.

No wonder your chest tightens when they text back too quickly. No wonder softness makes you cry. No wonder sex feels safer when it’s performative, not intimate.

LOVE WON’T FEEL SAFE UNTIL SAFETY FEELS FAMILIAR

And here’s the heartbreaking part: You can meet the kindest person alive —but if your body doesn’t know how to receive care without bracing for harm,you won’t be able to stay.

Because safety isn’t a concept. It’s a felt experience.

And if your childhood was a warzone,then love is just another sound that makes you duck.

🖤 COACHING PROMPT FOR TODAY

WHEN DID I FIRST LEARN THAT CLOSENESS WASN’T SAFE — AND WHAT DID MY BODY DO TO SURVIVE IT?

Write it down. Let it be messy.Let your body speak.Then ask:What would intimacy look like today if I didn’t have to trade it for safety?

Let yourself imagine that version of love.Let your nervous system meet it slowly.

Inside Patreon, we unpack the grief, the longing, and the body-memory behind this exact pattern. And inside Who the Fuck Am I Becoming? we learn how to stop mistaking anxiety for connection — and how to let love in without abandoning ourselves.

Because the real healing isn’t in loving someone. It’s in letting them love you —without fear that you’ll disappear in the process.

xx Josi