The first time I tried to date after experiencing trauma, I was terrified, far more terrified than I was when I went on my first date at 19 years old. I feel everything in my body: the good, the bad, the uncertainty. Was I ready to be seen again? To be touched? To want?

It had been years since the word dating meant anything to me. The word itself tasted like poison and felt like fear. As a survivor, even casual flirtation has felt like standing on the edge of a cliff. As a queer survivor, that cliff feels like Mount Everest layered with paradox: I’ve learned what I need, want, deserve, and I am seeking is softness in a world that often eroticizes my pain, community in spaces that claim to be safe but rarely know how to enshrine that.

For a long time, I thought I had to simply “heal” and that the healing would necessitate rejecting my own desire. I told myself the most “empowered” thing I could do was focus on work — to build my career, to pour everything into helping other survivors. I founded my organization The Gold Star Society — a survivor-led community organization dedicated to safety, healing, and economic justice for women, queer, nonbinary, and BIPOC survivors — so people like me could feel safe, seen, and supported again.

I thought I had to choose between being a survivor and being sensual. As I have been actively healing, I’ve learned it doesn’t require cutting off the parts of me that still ache for touch. It means learning how to listen to my body and learning my body’s different languages, slowly translating it back into something tender for myself and then something I am able to give to others.

My Body Remembers Everything

When someone’s fingers brush against mine, even in passing, my body reacts before my brain does. There’s a flinch, a pause, a quiet scanning of the moment for danger. I have never forgotten a single touch.

Trauma has rewired my sense of time,  trapping me in moments that no longer exist. Dating after trauma means constantly negotiating between past and present. I can love someone deeply and still feel my pulse race when they reach for me too quickly. I can crave touch and still freeze when it arrives, and those are all things I have had to learn to navigate and embrace.

I used to think that made me broken. But the truth is, it makes me honest. My body is simply telling the truth: Safety takes time to relearn, and desire, like healing, is a process, not a state.

Queer Love, Complicated Love

Dating as a queer survivor adds layers most people don’t talk about. The language we use to describe harm — “gender-based violence,” “domestic violence,” “sexual assault” — wasn’t built for us. These terms were created to fit a heteronormative mold: man as abuser, woman as victim. But what happens when the person who harms you shares your pronouns, your politics, your community space?

In queer culture, we talk a lot about radical love, chosen family, accountability. But we rarely talk about what it means to experience harm within that same radical ecosystem, how queerness doesn’t make us immune to replicating power, control, or silence. When I was harmed by another queer person, the hardest part wasn’t the betrayal; it was the erasure. The way people whispered, “that’s not really assault,” or “but she’s queer, she wouldn’t do that.” Literally no one believed me and kept insisting it couldn’t happen because we’re queer.

Relearning intimacy meant reclaiming not just my sensuality but my truth. It meant refusing to let queerness be used as a shield for harm, while also refusing to let harm steal queerness from me.

There’s a myth that queer love is automatically safer, gentler, more evolved. While this can be  true, it is not always a given. Queer survivors have to fight to even name what happened — and then to rebuild the possibility of touch without fear and without support.

Dating With Soft Armor

Since I have finally started dating again, I made a rule for myself: honesty over performance. If I need to pause mid-kiss, I will and I do. If I need to check in before being touched, I will and I do. Having conversations around this as early as possible has been crucial. The first person who didn’t flinch when I said “I’m a survivor, and sometimes my body shuts down when it remembers” taught me something about what safety can look like — not absence of fear, but presence of care, patience, support, and understanding.

Softness has become my armor, but not in a bad way. In the most authentically human way possible.

Sometimes that softness looks like swiping on a dating app and saying upfront “I move slow”, unafraid of the rejections since they aren’t personal. Sometimes it’s telling a partner “I need the lights on” or “can we breathe together first?” It’s using safewords that aren’t about kink but about grounding and consent. It’s letting myself have boundaries that evolve by the hour and not being ashamed of them.

In queer spaces, sensuality is often framed as liberation, as reclaiming the body from shame, as proof that we’ve survived. Which is beautiful. But for me, sensuality after trauma isn’t about performing confidence or the pressure to be confident in myself right away. It’s about presence. It’s about learning how to inhabit my body again, not just in the moments that are pleasurable, but in the moments that are uncertain, even in the moments that sometimes hurt.

I’m still figuring it all out. I’m still learning how to tell lovers what I need without apologizing for it. I’m still unlearning the reflex to shrink when someone calls me beautiful, as it’s hard for me to take compliments. I’m still practicing how to trust a body that once betrayed me by surviving and extending grace to myself.

The Politics of Pleasure

There’s something deeply political about being a sensual survivor — especially as a queer, Afro-Boricua, Neurodivergent, Indigenous Nonbinary individual. We live in a world that commodifies both our pain and our pleasure, manipulatively  separating them completely or making them into just one thing. Our trauma gets turned into hashtags, our bodies into symbols of resilience, with no in between. But the private, messy, ongoing work of learning to feel safe inside our own skin? That rarely fits the narrative.

Every time I choose to date again, to flirt, to feel desire without shame, it’s an act of resistance. Pleasure is protest. Slowness is rebellion. Safety is revolution. This is what I have been embracing.

When I design survivor tech, I’m not just thinking about crises. I’m thinking about pleasure as safety. About what it means for survivors to have agency over desire, over boundaries, over joy. Looking at us as whole humans who deserve to not just survive, but thrive.

I want survivors to have access to tools that honor not just their pain, but their curiosity — the right to want again, without fear that wanting will lead to harm. We are all humans.

Love as a Slow Rebellion

Sometimes people ask me if I’m “ready” for love again, as if healing has a finish line. It does not. The truth is, readiness is fluid, and I learned that right away on this journey. Some days, I can’t stand to be touched — like, at all. Other days, I crave closeness so much it hurts.

What I’ve learned is that love — the kind that’s real, the kind that’s worth staying for — doesn’t rush you. It moves at the pace of mutual consent, respect, and understanding. It honors silence as much as sound; grace and patience go hand and hand. It asks, gently, “What do you need to feel safe?” and actually listens when you answer.

Queer love taught me safety isn’t sterile — it can still be wild, electric, messy, full of heat and contradiction. The goal isn’t to erase fear but to learn how to dance with it. To know that you can tremble and still reach out and have all the human experiences we’re meant to have.

To touch after trauma is not to forget what happened — it’s to remember who you are beyond it and embrace that.

Relearning Desire

There’s a moment, every once in a while, when someone touches me and I don’t flinch. It’s rare, but it does happen. It’s quiet, almost unremarkable — a hand resting on my thigh, a kiss at the corner of my mouth — but in that moment, I feel something I hadn’t felt in years: possibility.

Not because I’m “healed,” but because I’m here. I’m present. I’m choosing softness again, even when it is scary.

For us survivors, desire isn’t just about pleasure. It’s about return — returning to the body, to the world, to the possibility of being loved not in spite of what happened, but because we are still capable of loving and giving and trusting again.

Dating after trauma isn’t linear. It’s not pretty. But it’s real. And in a world that taught me survival was the ceiling, I’m finally learning that tenderness can be the floor, the place where I start again.

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“Turn down the volume of your negative inner voice and create a nurturing inner voice to take its place.” ~Beverly Engel

After the abuse ends, people think the pain ends too. But what no one tells you is that sometimes the loudest voice isn’t the abuser’s anymore—it’s the one that settles inside you.

It whispers:

“You’re broken.”

“You’re used.”

“You don’t deserve better.”

And over time, that voice doesn’t just whisper. It becomes the rhythm of your thoughts, the lens through which you see yourself.

That’s what I mean when I say the trauma keeps talking.

Living with the Echo

In the months after my assault, I didn’t have words for what I was feeling. I just knew that every choice I made seemed to come from a place of damage.

I found myself in situations that felt eerily familiar—letting people use me, letting hands roam without question. I wasn’t saying “yes” because I wanted to; I was saying it because a voice inside had already decided I wasn’t worth more.

And to anyone watching from the outside, it might have looked like I was reckless. But inside, I was just tired. Tired of fighting a voice that seemed louder than mine.

Why We Stay Stuck

Trauma has this way of rewriting the script in our heads.

It convinces us that we’re not the same person anymore, that we’re tainted beyond repair. And because we believe that, we keep choosing situations that prove the voice right.

It’s not that we want to keep hurting ourselves. It’s that the part of us that knows we deserve better gets buried under layers of pain and self-blame.

I remember once thinking, “What’s the point of saying no?” I felt like I’d already lost the right to draw boundaries.

Looking back now, I realize that wasn’t me speaking. That was trauma—still in control.

The Turning Point

For me, things didn’t change overnight. There wasn’t a single moment when I woke up healed. But there was a moment when I got tired of losing to that voice.

I remember looking in the mirror and realizing, “If I keep going like this, the abuse wins forever—even without him here.”

That realization didn’t silence the trauma, but it gave me a reason to fight back.

I started doing small, almost invisible things to reclaim myself:

Saying “no” even when my voice shook.

Choosing one safe person to tell the truth to.

Permitting myself to stop—to pause—before walking into another cycle that would hurt me.

Each of those choices felt impossibly hard at the time. But with every pause, with every “no,” the voice of trauma got quieter.

Healing Is a Process, Not a Snap

I used to think healing meant waking up one day and feeling nothing.

Now I know healing means learning to talk louder than the trauma.

It means choosing—again and again—to believe a different story about yourself.

If this is where you are—if the trauma is still talking and you feel powerless to shut it up—I need you to know something:

You can stop. You can pause. You can turn around.

Not for anyone else—for you. For your peace. Your sanity. Your healing.

What I Want You to Remember

I won’t insult you by saying, “Just snap out of it.” That’s not how this works.

But I will tell you that one pause, one moment of reclaiming yourself, can change everything.

It’s not easy, I know. But it’s possible. And it’s worth it.

You deserve better than pain on repeat. You deserve to be more than what was done to you.

If you’re reading this and the trauma is still talking, please hear this from someone who’s been there:

The voice isn’t you. You’re still here. And you’re allowed to fight for a story where the abuse doesn’t win.

I may not have all the answers, but I know the terrain of this road—the stops, the setbacks, the slow turning around. And I want to walk it with you, one better choice at a time.

Because healing isn’t out of reach. You just have to start talking louder than the trauma.

About Ibukun Oluwaseun Adesina

Ibukun Oluwaseun Adesina is a trauma-informed social worker, coach, and soul-writer who believes that healing can take many forms—from professional guidance to personal reflection and storytelling. Through her movement, Virginia Heals and its youth initiative, SafeNest Teens, she helps others find safety, courage, and self-worth after pain. She’s also the author of How to Heal When You Can’t Talk About It, a guide for silent survivors learning to find their voices again. Connect with her on Facebook or email virginiaheals@gmail.com.

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“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” ~Audre Lorde

For most of my life, I asked myself a quiet question:

What’s wrong with me?

I didn’t say it out loud. I didn’t have to. It was stitched into how I moved through the world — hyperaware, self-correcting, and always just a little out of step. I knew how to “pass” in the right settings, but never without effort. Underneath it all, I was exhausted by the daily performance of normal.

Looking back, it’s clear where it started.

I grew up in a home marked by emotional chaos and unpredictability. Like many kids with developmental trauma, I became hypervigilant before I even had words for it. I learned to track mood shifts, tones of voice, the silences between the words. While other kids were absorbing math lessons, I was reading the room.

In elementary school, I wasn’t the loud kid or the front-row overachiever. I was the quiet one in the middle row—not bold enough to be in front where people might see me, and not defiant enough to risk the back, where the “bad kids” got called out, punished, or ignored. I learned early that safety meant staying in the middle: visible enough to avoid trouble, invisible enough not to stand out.

I didn’t know what the lesson was. But I knew who the teacher favored and who she didn’t. Who had a rough night at home. Who was trying too hard. Who had checked out. And who was silently hurting the way I was.

I was always paying attention—even if they said I was unfocused—just not in the way the teacher wanted me to.

I also daydreamed. Constantly. I lived in fantasy worlds that I made up in my head, complete with characters, backstories, and dialogue. I wasn’t trying to avoid reality—I was trying to survive it. And those imagined worlds were often kinder than the one I was stuck in.

So when people say things like, “That child is so distractible,” I want to pause them.

Sometimes, what you’re seeing isn’t a disorder. Sometimes, it’s a child adapting to a world that feels unsafe.

What We Call Disordered Might Just Be a Different Kind of Wisdom

As I got older, I started to realize how many of the things we pathologize—especially in women, neurodivergent folks, and trauma survivors—are actually adaptive or even gifted traits. But because they don’t fit the dominant mold of what “healthy” looks like, we call them broken.

Let me say this clearly: Different doesn’t mean disordered. And even when support is needed, that doesn’t mean the person is lacking.

Take ADHD. It’s often reduced to disorganization or forgetfulness, but for many people, it reflects fast-paced, pattern-jumping brains that crave stimulation and thrive in high-innovation spaces. That same brain might struggle in school but light up in entrepreneurship, the arts, crisis work, or tech.

Take anxiety. Yes, it can be overwhelming. But beneath it is usually a sensitive nervous system attuned to energy, risk, nuance. In trauma survivors, it often reflects the ability to read between the lines—to sense what’s not being said, to prepare for every possible outcome. They keep themselves and others safe by seeing the risks before the bad thing happens.

Take autism, especially in girls and women. What gets labeled as rigidity or social awkwardness might actually be deep authenticity, truth-telling, and sensory brilliance in a world full of noise and social masking.

Even depression can be a form of wisdom—a body demanding rest, a soul refusing to keep performing, a nervous system finally saying “enough.”

What Neurodivergence Really Means

Neurodivergence isn’t one thing. It’s a big umbrella. It includes conditions like:

• ADHD
• Autism
• Learning differences (like dyslexia or dyscalculia)
• Sensory processing differences
• Mood disorders (sometimes)
• PTSD and C-PTSD (especially when they cause long-term brain changes)

For some, it’s hardwired. For others, it’s trauma-shaped. And for many of us, it’s both.

In my own family, neurodivergence runs deep.

My mother lived with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. My oldest son has ADD and anxiety. My youngest is autistic, has an intellectual disability, and also lives with ADHD. I’ve carried complex PTSD, anxiety, depression—and honestly, probably undiagnosed ADD too.

We are not broken. We are not less.

We are a line of deeply sensitive, differently wired humans trying to survive in a world that doesn’t always recognize our kind of brilliance.

I know what it is to be the outcast.

I watched my mom become one—judged and misunderstood by her own family, dismissed by society because her bipolar and schizophrenia made people uncomfortable. I’ve watched my youngest son become one too. He’s autistic, has an intellectual disability, and ADHD. And I know—deeply know—that if I hadn’t chosen to value his wiring, the world might have crushed him. For a little while, it did.

But this kid plays the drums like nobody’s business.

He is fiercely protective, wildly loyal, and more emotionally intuitive than anyone I’ve ever met.
And every once in a while, he’ll say something so specific, so strange, so piercingly true, I swear he’s reading my mind — or someone else’s.

We don’t talk about this kind of intelligence enough. The kind that doesn’t show up on standardized tests or IQ charts, but lives in the bones. In the music. In the knowing.

Neurodivergence simply means your brain functions in a way that diverges from the norm. That’s not bad. That’s essential—because the “norm” was never built with all of us in mind.

The Bigger Picture

We live in a culture that rewards sameness: attention that stays linear, emotions that stay tidy, learning that happens on schedule.

But real life is messier than that. And real people are more complex.

Some of the most powerful thinkers, healers, leaders, and artists I know live with labels that would’ve sidelined them if they hadn’t learned to translate their differences into power.

Different doesn’t take away from the conversation. It adds to it.

And the next time you wonder if something is “wrong” with you,  pause.

What if that part of you isn’t broken?

What if it’s just misunderstood?

What if it’s trying to show you something the world forgot how to hear?

About Allison Briggs

Allison Jeanette Briggs is a therapist, writer, and speaker specializing in helping women heal from codependency, childhood trauma, and emotional neglect. She blends psychological insight with spiritual depth to guide clients and readers toward self-trust, boundaries, and authentic connection. Allison is the author of the upcoming memoir On Being Real: Healing the Codependent Heart of a Woman and shares reflections on healing, resilience, and inner freedom at on-being-real.com.

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Editor’s Note: This You Need Help contains mentions of suicidality.

Q:

I should start this off by saying, I have a therapist and he knows about my shame/guilt. Identify as a trans male, and when I was in middle school, pleasing myself was used against me. Ever since, I’ve had a hard time after I’m done. Sometimes I even try and end my life because of it. I know it’s normal to self please but I feel wrong doing it because of my past. Am I wrong?

A:

Feeling bad about masturbation is a remarkably normal thing, especially for people who were immersed (drowned) in shame from the beginning. But developing suicidal ideation as a result of masturbation? That’s really serious.

It’s also a sensitive topic and I’m going to angle my discussion toward trauma, recovery, and healing. Masturbation is an inciting event for you, but this could occur as the direct result of many other terrible experiences.

Post-nut something

Orgasm is an enormously complex neurological event that shocks the entire body. Biologically speaking, orgasm brings a hormone rush that feels intensely good. But a physiological response alone doesn’t account for the host of feelings that follow. Afterglow. Shame. Traumatic resurgence. Blank headspace. Each orgasm can swing a lot of feelings at us alongside enjoyment.

Men often talk about ‘post-nut clarity’, a burst of realization or mental clarity after an orgasm. There’s also cozy post-orgasmic bliss. The type people don’t talk about is post-coital tristesse or post-sex dysphoria. And since masturbation/solo sex usually takes a backseat to partnered sex, like nobody thinks about its effect after masturbation.

Post-sex dysphoria (under plenty of other names) is a generalized bad feeling that occurs after sex. It’s not a recognized mental health diagnosis and the definitions are vague because there’s not much investigation into the topic. But it does happen to many people. In diverse ways. Any explainer you read about it will broadly describe it as feelings of depression, anxiety, ‘blues’, ‘homesickness’, shame, or emotional disconnection after sex, especially if orgasm occurred.

A reasonable explanation for why it occurs is that some people are susceptible to negative feelings in the aftermath of an orgasmic hormone rush. This is supported by one of the only studies I could find on postcoital dysphoria in men and potential risk factors. Here, the authors had a hypothesis that this non-gendered form of dysphoria occurs more frequently if the person has existing psychological stress or trauma. Their hypothesis was loosely confirmed within the limits of that study. I think there’s an avenue of exploration here for you.

A story in three acts

The reason I’m discussing a named form of mental distress and linking it to the potential for trauma is that’s what your letter reads like. It’s one of the shortest I’ve ever responded to, but it’s also one of the most succinct narratives of a relationship between long-term trauma, sex, and distress I’ve seen in our inbox.

At risk of oversimplifying, what you shared was that you experienced a pattern of childhood trauma related to masturbation. I don’t know its shape. I don’t know if it was direct abuse, religious trauma, an expression of gender dysphoria, or any combination of these. But it happened, and its effects are long-term. Its effects are also intense because it takes a lot for people to feel suicidal after an orgasm. In chemical terms, orgasm is one of the most intensely pleasurable things we can access. People quite literally develop addictions to orgasms and the activities that lead up to it. For your mind to turn something biologically pleasurable into suicidal ideation — the antithesis of life — speaks to a devastating traumatic burden.

That trauma isn’t your fault, far from it. Whatever you experienced was deeply unjustified, if only because it led to harm that warps such a simple pleasure into distress. I don’t know the last time someone told you this, but any residual trauma that leaves you feeling worthless or wanting to die is serious and worth seeking support over, whether that support takes the shape of trusted friends, chosen family, pets, a therapist, etc. Your pain needs and deserves both outlet and recovery. I can’t provide the professional care you could probably benefit from, but I can address your last question.

No, you’re not in the wrong to want self-pleasure despite trauma. You’re also not in the wrong for seeking pleasure through masturbation. While it is possible to masturbate in risky or addictive ways, simply wanting to masturbate is never a point of failure. It’s no more than a desire for a simple pleasure we can provide for ourselves. To me, masturbation should be an act of solo comfort no different from hot chocolate or being flat in bed after a long day. Whatever faults people have dreamed up about masturbation have clearly caused you more harm than the act itself, to include suicidality. I can’t think of more reasons to see masturbation as sane and good in your position. Opposition to it has brought you so much strain with no betterment to show for it. You deserve a break from it all. The stress. The trauma. The isolation. I trust you’ll find it.

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

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“The body always leads us home… if we’re willing to listen.”

For over a decade, I lived in a body that tried to tell me something I wasn’t ready to hear. But eventually, it got louder—loud enough that I could no longer ignore the message.

It started with migraines—always on the left side.

Then came a string of sinus infections and dental issues—again, always on the left.

Lumps formed in my left breast. Then pain in my left ribs. Then a left-sided numbness that made doctors run MRIs for multiple sclerosis. Every test came back normal. And yet my body felt anything but.

At one point, I even developed pain in my left ovary and numbness in my left arm that made everyday tasks difficult. My body was functioning, technically. But it felt like one side of me was shutting down. Whispering. Protesting. Holding something I wasn’t acknowledging.

I joked for years that the left side of my body was trying to stage a revolt. But beneath the joke, there was a persistent unease. A question I didn’t want to ask out loud: What if my body is grieving something I haven’t let myself feel?

The Side I Abandoned

At the time, I had just left an emotionally abusive relationship. I moved to a new town where I knew no one. I had three young kids and a car that barely worked. My sister had died of breast cancer not long before—at just twenty-eight years old. It was a lot. Too much. But there was no time to fall apart.

So I stayed in motion. I hardened. I became high-functioning, resilient, always “fine.” I made sure the bills were paid and the kids were fed and my ex didn’t find us. But the cost of staying “strong” was that I stopped being real.

I didn’t have time for softness. I didn’t have space for grief. I didn’t have energy to ask for help, or even admit I needed it.

Looking back, I realize I didn’t just leave a relationship. I left myself.

Especially the softer, slower, more intuitive parts. The parts that cried easily. The parts that curled up under warm blankets and asked for hugs. The parts that allowed joy, or creativity, or even rest.

Those parts felt dangerous in a life where survival was the only priority.

And so I shut them down.

The Feminine Side—Ignored and Inflamed

In many spiritual and energetic traditions, the left side of the body is associated with the feminine. With receptivity, emotion, intuition, nurturance, the moon, and the mother. The right side is often associated with the masculine—doing, pushing, controlling, achieving.

I lived almost entirely on my right side. Doing everything. Controlling what I could. Shoving every feeling down so deep I couldn’t even find it anymore.

My left side? The part of me that received, softened, surrendered, and felt? She was abandoned.

And slowly, painfully, she began to break down.

How My Body Spoke When I Couldn’t

Looking back now, I see that the symptoms weren’t random. They were brilliant. My body was communicating in the only way I was willing to listen—through physical discomfort. Through pain. Through pattern.

It mirrored the exact parts of me I’d been taught—by trauma, by culture, by survival—to suppress.

The part of me that needed softness. The part that longed to grieve. The part that wanted to be held, not just hold everything together.

My body wasn’t malfunctioning—it was mourning.

She was grieving the years I spent in silence. She was exhausted from pretending everything was fine. She was desperate for me to come back to her.

Coming Home, Slowly

There was no single “aha” moment. No diagnosis. No major spiritual breakthrough. Just slow remembering. Tiny rebellions against the numbness.

I started walking every morning in silence—no music, no podcast. Just me, the trees, and the sound of my breath.

I sat outside with my tea and watched the steam rise instead of scrolling. I held my gaze in the mirror and whispered, “I miss you. Let’s try again.”

I cried when I needed to. And sometimes when I didn’t.

I laid my hand on my chest—on the left side—and said, “I see you. I hear you. I’m here.” Some days that was all I could do. Some days, that was enough.

There were setbacks. There were moments I judged myself for not doing more. But I kept showing up with softness, even when shame tried to drag me back into survival mode.

I stopped forcing joy. I stopped apologizing for being tired. I stopped pretending that “holding it all together” was some kind of virtue. Instead, I made a quiet commitment to hold myself.

The Invisible Work of Healing

Healing wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t look impressive from the outside. It was the kind of work no one sees: turning down invitations when you need rest. Letting a load of laundry sit in the dryer while you sit with your feelings instead. Choosing softness when your old patterns scream for control.

I read about nervous system regulation and the vagus nerve. I learned how trauma isn’t just psychological—it’s physical. It lives in the tissues, the fascia, the breath. It hides in clenched jaws and tight hips and shallow breathing.

I began doing slow, gentle movements that made me feel safe in my body again—not “fit,” not “productive”—just safe. I allowed myself to stretch like I was worthy of space. I let go of the voice in my head that told me I needed to earn rest, joy, or ease.

I took salt baths and made art for no reason. I danced barefoot in the kitchen with no audience. I let myself want things again—connection, affection, softness, stillness, beauty.

And little by little, my body responded.

The pain in my ribs faded. The left-side migraines stopped. The numbness disappeared. Not all at once—but piece by piece. As if my body was slowly exhaling after holding her breath for years.

The Lesson I Needed to Learn

I used to think healing meant “fixing” myself. That the goal was to return to the woman I was before everything fell apart.

Now I know: the woman I was before never felt safe. She was praised for being strong because no one knew how scared she was. She needed to break down.

What I was really doing wasn’t fixing—I was reclaiming. Reclaiming my softness. Reclaiming my truth. Reclaiming the right to be a human being—not a machine of performance and perfection.

And now? I’m still learning. Still learning that healing isn’t linear. Still learning to trust the wisdom of my body. Still learning that when something aches, it’s not always a sign of brokenness—it may be a signal for attention. For love.

So if you’re reading this and you’ve been in pain—emotionally, physically, energetically—I want you to know this:

You are not broken. You are not failing. And you are not alone.

Sometimes our pain is simply asking us to slow down and feel what we’ve been too afraid to feel. Sometimes our symptoms are sacred messages: Come home to yourself. Not as you were. But as you are now. Whole. Worthy. And ready.

TRIGGER WARNING: This post references rape and suicide attempts, which might be distressing for some readers.

“Our lives only improve when we are willing to take chances, and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” ~Walter Anderson

This was my third psychiatric hospitalization after my suicide attempts.

On this visit, something shifted. All I knew at that moment was, for the first time, I wasn’t in a hurry to leave.

There was no window or clock. Just blank, pale walls I’d been staring at for twenty-one days.

I lay there, shattered and broken in a way that felt beyond repair. It shouldn’t hurt this much just to be alive.

Then I heard it—a whisper from deep inside me. It was little Jennifer, saying, “There has to be more to my life than this.” I didn’t recognize this voice yet as my inner child, but that whisper marked the beginning of my healing. It was the moment I stopped running and decided to stay with myself.

I used to be so embarrassed by how my life had unfolded. I never believed I’d share my story with anyone, let alone write about it publicly. Now, I’m ready to tell the world.

We rarely discuss grueling topics openly—mental health, suicide attempts, codependency, and shame. That silence is killing us one secret at a time.

If you’re reading this and you’re where I was, I want you to know you’re not alone. No matter how broken you feel, you are worth fighting for.

Before that hospital stay, I had spent years surviving. Much of that survival was wrapped around someone I loved deeply. I’ll call him Ethan.

He supported me through surgeries, breakdowns, and diagnoses. Even after we broke up, we stayed entangled in each other’s lives, emotionally dependent and clinging to a connection I didn’t know how to navigate without.

My world shattered around me when I was raped. Then my rape kit and other records went missing.  That’s when my second suicide attempt happened, landing me in the ICU. I felt violated twice, leaving an internal scar on me.

I was consumed with rage at the world and myself. I didn’t trust anyone. I pushed everyone away, even the ones trying to love me. Friends and family didn’t feel safe. Nothing did.

I couldn’t face the reality of my life, so I buried my head in the sand of online shopping, sleeping, and eating. It reached the point where I couldn’t function on a day-to-day basis.

My nightmares were so intense that I’d wake myself up screaming. Then I’d look down and realize I had ripped my sheets in half while I was sleeping. I was terrified to fall asleep.

When I was awake, it felt like I was fading. I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. The fear and depression were so heavy, I couldn’t be touched—not even by things that were supposed to feel normal.

The shower water hitting my skin would make me flinch. The blow dryer made me panic. I had crying spells that came out of nowhere. During flashbacks, I would grind my teeth unconsciously and crack a tooth.

After the rape, I was unable to remain in the apartment where the assault had occurred. Thankfully, being the kind friend he was, Ethan let me move back into his apartment, which I had previously lived in when we were dating.

I fell apart in every way. I hadn’t showered in weeks and was still wearing the same Victoria’s Secret flannel pajamas, which had become loose from constant wear over the weeks.

My hair was a wild lion’s mane, the kind you’d expect from a creature lost in the jungle, only ever softened when Ethan sat me down and brushed it with gentle care. The cold hardwood floors shocked my bare feet during those brief journeys from bed to bathroom or kitchen, my only ventures in a world that had shrunk to the size of his apartment.

Ethan would leave for work before sunrise and return to a dark apartment. He’d turn on the kitchen light and see chocolate wrappers and tissues scattered across the floor, evidence that I’d been up, if only briefly.

He gently encouraged me to shower but never made me feel ashamed of myself. He still hugged me every day.

After two years of caring for me, he reconnected with someone from his past. That night marked the beginning of something new for him and the unraveling of what little stability I had left.

I remember thinking, “How can he fall in love when I’m dying inside?”

I stayed curled up under my pink furry blanket as I watched life pass by. Heavy tears slid down my face and soaked into the only thing that still brought me comfort.

Every time he left the apartment to go out with his new girlfriend, my chest ached with a mix of emotions that flooded me. Jealousy, anger, and confusion bubbled up so fast I couldn’t make sense of it. I felt abandoned, forgotten, and replaced.

As the hours went by after he left, my mind started to race. I imagined what she looked like, what they were doing, and whether he was happier with her than he ever was with me. The thoughts consumed me and fed my depression, and I started binging on food to numb the pain.

He was just a human being attempting to continue with his life, but in my broken state, I saw it as evidence that I was unrepairable, that everyone else could heal and move forward except me.

The problem was that I didn’t have a life to return to. I had no identity outside of him. I didn’t know who I was, what I liked, or how to care for myself emotionally.

When I no longer felt needed, I lost my sense of worth.

That whisper lingered with me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was my inner child—little Jennifer—asking me not to give up on her again. Healing her became one of the missing pieces I didn’t even know I was searching for.

For years, I had relied on Ethan to soothe me when I didn’t have the tools to relieve myself. He gave me love when I hated myself, and care when I couldn’t function or forgive who I had become. In many ways, he was mothering the parts of me that I had never learned to nurture.

It took me over a year to stop my old habits when I got out. I finally deleted all my dating apps and promised myself I wouldn’t use men, shopping, or food to escape anymore. I was choosing myself for the first time.

I started buying myself flowers and offering the compliments I used to beg someone else to say: “You’re brilliant. You’re beautiful. I’m proud of you.” Now, I was becoming the one who gave myself the love and attention I was always seeking.

I began going on self-love dates. At first, it was just five minutes of listening to music. Then it became six, and eventually seven. Sitting alone with my thoughts was excruciating for someone like me, who had always escaped with weed, alcohol, or other people’s company.

I didn’t know how to manage my restlessness, but I kept showing up. I added one more minute each week.

Eventually, I wore the prettiest dress and took myself to cafes, meditation classes, and movies. I didn’t know what I liked, so I made a list. I wanted to become someone I could count on. Slowly, I began to love my own company. The woman who once couldn’t stand being alone became someone I looked forward to getting to know.

Those self-love dates didn’t just build my self-esteem—they became the foundation of finding myself.

Each outing helped me rediscover little pieces of myself. I realized I was funny. I could make myself laugh.

I no longer needed distractions. I never would’ve known any of this if I hadn’t kept showing up and learning who I was underneath the pain. Looking back, the most life-changing thing I ever did was stop abandoning myself.

If I had loved and valued myself back then the way I do now, I still would’ve been heartbroken when Ethan moved on, but it wouldn’t have broken me the way it did. I would’ve known I could survive it and still build a life worth living.

We build our relationship with ourselves just as we do with someone we’re dating.

Remember when you first met someone and stayed on the phone for hours, even when you were exhausted, because your curiosity about them kept you awake? That same childlike curiosity is what we need to bring to our relationship with ourselves.

Loving yourself isn’t a luxury. It’s essential. When you build a strong bond with yourself, you don’t fall apart when someone else leaves. You’re no longer waiting to be chosen.

That’s what I was learning on those self-love dates. I asked myself many questions, explored my thoughts, and gradually began to learn about myself.

If you’re feeling lost or unsure of who you are without someone else, start with these gentle questions:

• Is there a book, song, or movie you’ve been wanting to try but haven’t had the chance to yet?
• Think of a food you loved as a child but haven’t had in years.
• What would your younger self be sad about that you stopped doing today?
• What small detail, like an outfit, a scent, or a song, used to make you feel alive?

The answers don’t need to excite you right now. They’re just starting points, tiny threads to follow when you’ve lost the map to yourself.

If asking yourself these questions feels overwhelming, start with something smaller. Whisper to yourself: ‘There’s still hope for me.’ Because there is.

Even in my darkest moments, when I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to live again, hope was waiting quietly beneath all that pain. Sometimes, the tiniest spark of hope is enough to keep you going until you’re ready for the next step.

Those questions lead to curiosity. Curiosity leads to action. And action becomes the first step in finding your way back to yourself.

You don’t need to wait for someone else to choose you. You can start by choosing yourself.

That whisper I heard in the hospital became the roadmap to finding me.

My biggest regret is not choosing little Jennifer sooner. I kept waiting for someone else to save her, but she’d been waiting for me to bring her home all along.

If there’s a quiet voice within asking for you to focus on more than just your survival, please listen to it.

It might feel impossible now, but that whisper holds the truth you’ve searched for everywhere. Your journey back to yourself may not look like mine, but I promise you this: you are worth fighting for.

About Jennifer Conacchio

Jennifer is a certified trauma recovery coach at www.jenniferconacchio.com, guiding women from survival to self-discovery through personalized healing approaches when therapy alone is not enough. Jennifer’s approach combines DBT-based skills, inner child healing, and fashion therapy to help clients create actionable roadmaps to reconnect with themselves. Grab Your FREE Inner Child Quiz & Healing Guide to find out which inner child is guiding you.

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Have you ever felt an inexplicable push and pull in your relationships, simultaneously craving closeness while fearing intimacy? This internal conflict might be rooted in something deeper than mere indecision or commitment issues. It could be a sign of disorganized attachment, a complex pattern of relating that stems from early life experiences.

The way we connect with others isn’t random. Our attachment style, formed in childhood, acts as an invisible script guiding our interactions. While some people develop a secure attachment, characterized by comfort with intimacy and independence, others may form anxious, avoidant, or disorganized patterns. Among these, disorganized attachment stands out as particularly challenging, yet understanding it opens the door to profound personal growth and healthier relationships.

The Roots of Disorganization

Consider a world where safety and danger are inexplicably intertwined. This paradoxical environment often gives rise to disorganized attachment. Unlike the more consistent patterns seen in secure or even anxious and avoidant styles, disorganized attachment emerges from a childhood marked by unpredictability, trauma, or neglect.

The origins lie in experiences where a child’s primary source of comfort – their caregiver – is simultaneously a source of fear. This creates a profound dilemma for the developing brain. The very person meant to provide safety becomes associated with threat, leaving the child with no coherent strategy to navigate their emotional world.

This isn’t a choice or a flaw in the child’s character. It’s a survival mechanism, an adaptive response to an environment that defies logical understanding. The young mind, unable to make sense of the contradiction, develops a fragmented approach to relationships. The result is a deeply ingrained belief that the world is unpredictable and that even those closest to us can’t be fully trusted.

From a neurobiological perspective, this survival mechanism develops as the brain attempts to cope with overwhelming, contradictory input. The amygdala, responsible for processing emotions and threat detection, becomes hyperactive. Meanwhile, the prefrontal cortex, which normally helps regulate emotional responses, struggles to integrate these conflicting signals. This neurological pattern, established early, can persist into adulthood if not addressed.

The Adult Experience of Disorganized Attachment

As children with disorganized attachment grow into adults, the patterns established in childhood manifest in complex and often painful ways. The internal conflict between longing for connection and fearing vulnerability plays out in various aspects of life.

In everyday interactions, this might look like intense anxiety before social gatherings, followed by an overwhelming desire to leave once there. It could manifest as difficulty maintaining consistent communication in relationships, alternating between over-sharing and complete withdrawal. At work, it might appear as a pattern of initial enthusiasm for new projects followed by self-sabotage as success (and thus, increased visibility or responsibility) becomes a possibility.

Mood swings are another hallmark of this attachment style. Someone with disorganized attachment might find themselves feeling deeply connected and affectionate towards a partner one moment, only to be gripped by inexplicable anger or the urge to end the relationship the next. These shifts aren’t manipulative tactics; they’re genuine emotional experiences rooted in conflicting internal models of relationships.

Trust issues run deep for these individuals. Having learned early that even caregivers can be sources of pain, they approach new connections with a mix of hope and skepticism. This cautious approach makes forming and maintaining long-term relationships challenging, as every interaction is filtered through a lens of potential betrayal.

Internally, adults with disorganized attachment often experience a constant state of emotional turmoil. They might feel a deep longing for connection while simultaneously experiencing intense fear or anger when someone gets too close. This internal conflict can lead to chronic stress, anxiety, and difficulty regulating emotions.

The Impact on Relationships

The effects of disorganized attachment ripple through all types of relationships, from romantic partnerships to friendships and even professional connections. The inconsistent behavior and emotional volatility can create an atmosphere of unpredictability that affects everyone involved.

In romantic relationships, the impact is often most pronounced. The alternating desire for closeness and distance creates a relationship dynamic that can feel like an emotional rollercoaster. Partners might find themselves confused by seemingly contradictory behaviors, never quite sure where they stand.

This dynamic often leads to a cycle of approaching and withdrawing that can be deeply frustrating for both parties. As intimacy begins to deepen, fear takes hold, leading to behaviors that push the partner away. Then, as distance grows, the fear of abandonment kicks in, prompting attempts to reestablish closeness. This cycle can repeat endlessly, leaving both partners feeling exhausted and unfulfilled.

In friendships, the impact might be less intense but is still significant. Friends might find it difficult to rely on the person consistently, never quite sure which version of their friend they’ll encounter. The unpredictability can strain even the strongest friendships over time.

Professional relationships aren’t immune to these effects either. Colleagues might find it challenging to build trust or establish a stable working relationship. The individual with disorganized attachment might struggle with consistent performance, alternating between periods of high achievement and self-sabotage.

It’s crucial to understand that these patterns aren’t intentional or manipulative. They’re deeply ingrained responses to a world that once felt dangerous and unpredictable. This understanding can be the first step towards empathy – both for oneself and for those struggling with this attachment style.

The Path to Healing

While the challenges of disorganized attachment are significant, they’re not insurmountable. The human brain, with its remarkable neuroplasticity, can form new patterns even in adulthood. The journey towards more secure attachment is one of rewiring both thoughts and behaviors, creating new neural pathways that support healthier ways of relating.

Therapy often plays a crucial role in this healing process. Working with a skilled therapist, particularly one versed in attachment theory, can provide a safe space to explore past traumas and begin to reshape old patterns. The therapeutic relationship itself can become a model for secure attachment, offering a consistent, supportive presence that may have been missing in childhood.

One powerful approach in therapy is the exploration and reframing of past experiences. By revisiting childhood memories with adult understanding and compassion, it’s possible to start seeing these experiences in a new light. This doesn’t change what happened, but it can change how we relate to those memories and, by extension, how we approach current relationships.

Specific therapeutic modalities like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) or Internal Family Systems (IFS) can be particularly effective in addressing the root causes of disorganized attachment. These approaches help process traumatic memories and integrate fragmented aspects of the self, leading to more coherent internal experiences and external behaviors.

Mindfulness and self-awareness practices are also powerful tools in this journey. By learning to observe our thoughts and emotions without judgment, we can start to identify patterns in our responses to others. This awareness allows us to pause in moments of emotional intensity and choose how we want to respond, rather than reacting automatically based on old fears.

The power of mindfulness lies in its ability to create space between stimulus and response. In that space, we find the power to choose our actions rather than being driven by unconscious patterns. This practice of pausing and choosing can gradually transform our attachment style, allowing for more intentional, secure ways of relating.

Building a support network is another crucial aspect of healing. Surrounding ourselves with understanding, patient individuals can provide a safe space to practice new ways of relating. These relationships can offer corrective experiences, slowly rebuilding trust in others and in the possibility of stable, secure connections.

Developing Secure Attachments

Moving towards a more secure attachment style is a process of consistent, intentional change. It’s about creating new habits and ways of thinking that gradually become more natural over time. This doesn’t happen overnight, but with persistent effort, significant change is possible.

One powerful approach is to “act as if” – behaving as though we have secure attachments even when we don’t feel secure. In practice, this might look like reaching out to a friend when feeling overwhelmed, instead of isolating. It could mean staying present during a difficult conversation with a partner rather than shutting down or lashing out. It might involve expressing needs clearly in a work setting, rather than assuming they won’t be met.

These actions, repeated over time, can help rewire our emotional responses. The brain begins to associate these behaviors with positive outcomes, gradually making them feel more natural and comfortable.

Self-regulation is another key skill in developing secure attachments. This involves learning to manage our own emotions without relying on others to calm or validate us. Techniques like deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, or grounding exercises can be invaluable tools in this process. The goal is to develop an internal sense of safety and stability, rather than constantly seeking it from external sources.

Practicing setting and respecting boundaries is crucial in this journey. Clear, consistent boundaries create a sense of safety in relationships, something that was often missing in the childhoods of those with disorganized attachment. Start small – perhaps by saying no to an unreasonable request or expressing discomfort with a particular behavior. Over time, these small acts of self-respect build into a more secure sense of self in relation to others.

Cultivating self-compassion is vital throughout this process. Change is challenging, and there will inevitably be setbacks along the way. Treating ourselves with kindness and understanding, rather than harsh self-criticism, creates an internal environment conducive to growth and healing. This might involve developing a self-compassionate inner dialogue or practicing loving-kindness meditation.

The Role of Energy Management

In the context of healing from disorganized attachment, energy management becomes particularly crucial. Emotional regulation and relationship navigation require significant mental and emotional resources. By prioritizing our emotional energy – understanding when we’re depleted and need to recharge, and when we have the resources to engage deeply – we can better manage our responses in relationships.

For those with disorganized attachment, emotional interactions can be especially draining. The constant internal conflict between wanting closeness and fearing vulnerability takes a toll. Recognizing this allows us to be more intentional about how we spend our emotional energy.

In practice, energy management might involve setting aside regular time for solitude and self-reflection. It could mean learning to recognize early signs of emotional exhaustion and taking breaks before reaching a breaking point. It might include developing a repertoire of self-soothing activities to replenish emotional reserves.

By managing our energy effectively, we’re better equipped to handle the challenges that come with changing long-standing patterns. We’re more likely to respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively in emotionally charged situations.

Small Steps to Success

Transforming our attachment style is a significant undertaking, but it happens through small, consistent actions. Rather than trying to overhaul our entire approach to relationships overnight, focus on making small, manageable changes. These incremental shifts, over time, lead to profound transformation.

Start by practicing one mindful interaction each day. This might involve giving your full attention to a conversation without planning your response or checking your phone. It could mean pausing to take a deep breath before responding to a stressful email. These small moments of presence gradually build into a more mindful approach to relationships.

Set a small, achievable boundary in one relationship. Perhaps communicate a preference that you’ve been hesitant to express, or decline an invitation that you would usually accept out of obligation. These acts of self-respect, however small, contribute to a more secure sense of self.

Reach out to a friend when the impulse is to withdraw. This simple act challenges the ingrained pattern of isolation and creates opportunities for positive connection. Even a brief text message can be a step towards more secure attachment behaviors.

Spend a few minutes each day in self-reflection. This could involve journaling about your emotional experiences or simply sitting quietly and observing your thoughts. This practice builds self-awareness, a crucial component in changing attachment patterns.

These small steps, taken consistently over time, can lead to profound changes in how we relate to others and ourselves. They work by gradually rewiring our neural pathways, creating new, healthier patterns of thinking and behaving in relationships.

The Power of Systems Change

In addressing disorganized attachment, it’s crucial to focus on changing our systems rather than trying to change who we are at our core. This means looking at the patterns, habits, and environments that reinforce our attachment style and working to alter these systems.

Start by identifying one relationship pattern you’d like to change. Perhaps you tend to withdraw when feeling vulnerable. Create a new system where you commit to sending a text to a trusted friend instead of isolating. Set up reminders or cues to help you remember this new behavior when you’re in an emotional state.

If you struggle with emotional regulation, establish a daily meditation practice to build your capacity for self-soothing. Start small – even five minutes a day can make a difference. Gradually increase the duration as it becomes a habit. Use an app or set a daily alarm to remind you of this practice.

In professional settings, create a system for regular check-ins with colleagues or supervisors. This can help build more consistent, predictable relationships in the workplace. Set up recurring meetings or reminders to initiate these check-ins.

By focusing on these external systems rather than trying to force internal change through willpower alone, we create sustainable shifts that can gradually transform our attachment style. These systems provide structure and consistency, qualities that are often lacking in the experiences that lead to disorganized attachment.

A Journey of Transformation

The path from disorganized attachment to secure relationships is not an easy one, but it is a journey well worth taking. It’s a process of unlearning old patterns, healing deep wounds, and building new, healthier ways of connecting with others and ourselves.

Remember, the goal isn’t perfection. Even those with secure attachment styles have moments of insecurity or struggle in relationships. The aim is progress – moving towards a place where we can engage in relationships with more stability, trust, and genuine intimacy.

This journey requires patience, self-compassion, and often, the support of others. But with each step, we move closer to a way of relating that brings more joy, stability, and fulfillment to our lives. We learn that while our past experiences have shaped us, they don’t have to define our future relationships.

In embarking on this path of healing and growth, we not only transform our own lives but also break cycles that may have persisted for generations. We create the possibility of more secure attachments for ourselves and, potentially, for future generations.

As you reflect on your own attachment style and relationships, consider: What small step could you take today towards more secure connections? How might your life and relationships transform if you committed to this journey of healing and growth? The path to secure attachment is open to all who choose to walk it, one small step at a time.

Featured photo credit: Photo by Terri Bleeker on Unsplash via unsplash.com