Intimacy: Can Childhood Trauma Cause Someone To Have A Fear Of Intimacy?

It has been said that human beings have a strong need to form deep and meaningful connections. These are then not the type of connections where only surface level things are spoken about and an emotional distance is kept.

With this type of connection, someone will share what is taking place in their mind, their heart and allow themselves to be vulnerable, and the other person will do the same thing. Neither of them will keep an emotional distance, thereby allowing them deeply connect to each other.

One Area

Now, this is something that someone can experience when they are in a relationship with someone, but this is not the only type of relationship where something like this can be experienced. And if it was, one would end up expecting a lot from their partner.

Not only can one experience this with their partner, they can also experience it with their friends, family and even their colleagues. The connection that they have with these people will strengthen them in a number of ways and one will most likely strengthen the people in their life through being there for them.

A Distant Dream

However, although these kinds of connections are so important when it comes to someone’s mental, emotional and even physical wellbeing, there are plenty of people on this planet that don’t experience deeper connections with others. It could be said that there will be at least two experiences that someone can have when this is the case.

On one side, this can just be what is normal, meaning that they won’t even be aware of the fact that they don’t a have deeper connection with others. Connecting at a deeper level with someone else is then not going to be something that crosses their mind.

A Big Price to Pay

Yet, even if this is the case, they are not going to be able to avoid the consequences of experiencing life in this way. For example, they could have moments when they feel down and even lonely, but they could soon end up disconnecting from this pain.

The feelings will be there to tell them that something isn’t right, but they won’t pay attention to this information. They may have a number of ways to keep their pain at bay and to make themselves feel better.

Another Experience

On the other side, experiencing life in this way could be incredibly frustrating as one could be in tune with their need to form deeper connections with others. The fact that they are not able to connect with anyone deeply is then going to consume their mind.

This could still be what is normal but it won’t be something that they are comfortable with. Due to how long their life has been this way for, one could believe that there is absolutely nothing that they can do to change their life.

Powerless

Through having this outlook, it is not going to be a surprise if they have a victim mentality. Their life won’t be how they want it to be and they will believe that they can’t to do anything about it, so this is to be expected.

Even if they do have close friends, for instance, they might not have been able to get close to a romantic partner. What they want to experience will have always been just out of their reach.

Two Parts

If they were able to take a step back and to reflect on why they experience life in this way, what they may end up finding is that this is what feels comfortable. On one level, they will want to get closer to another person but, on a deeper level, they will fear getting close to another person.

What they could do, after they have come to see this, is to do some research online and to see what is going on. This could be a time when they will come to see that they have a fear of intimacy.

Moving Forward

To their unconscious mind/body, getting close to another person is then not going to be seen as something positive; it will be seen as something negative. In fact, it can be seen as something that is a threat to their very survival.

One could come to believe that they just need to face this fear and to allow themselves to get close to others. It could be as though what they fear has no basis in reality, which is why they just need to go through it.

Another Approach

This may work or what one may find is that they end up being overwhelmed by fear and even end up shutting down when they try to get close to others. One could be told that this will no longer happen if they change their thoughts and work on their beliefs, for instance.

One may find that this is the case; then again, one might get a sense that they need to do something else. As a result of how long they have avoided intimacy for and how much fear arises when they try to get close to someone, it could be clear that there is more to this than just what is taking place up top.

In The Body

What this may show is that they are carrying a fair amount of trauma in their body, with this being the reason why it is not possible for them to get close to others. When this does happen, all the pain inside them will be triggered and end up overwhelming them in the process.
When this takes place, it may seem as though their life is going to come to an end. This could be a time when they experience anxiety, fear and even terror, and their whole body could tighten up or go into fight or flight more.

What’s going on?

One might find it hard to understand what is going on, especially as getting close to someone should feel comfortable. Still, if one was able to get in touch with what took place during their early years, it might make complete sense.

During this stage of their life, they may have experienced some kind of abuse and/or neglect. This wouldn’t have been a time when they felt safe, secure and loved; it would have most likely been a time when they often felt overwhelmed and as though their life was going to end.

Protection

To deal with all this pain, they would have had to disconnect from how they felt and they might have even armoured themselves. Building a wall around themselves would have allowed then to survive.

For their life to change, one will probably need to resolve the trauma that is being held in their body and mind. As this takes place, their three brains (thinking, emotional and survival) will start to settle down and the wall that they have built to protect themselves will start to come down.

Awareness

This is something that can take place by using something called somatic experiencing or TRE. Naturally, their life won’t change ove
ight but it will change providing they keep going and don’t give up on themselves.