Human Contact: Can Developmental Trauma Cause Someone To Associate Human Contact With Death?

Now, although someone can have the desire to be in an intimate relationship, it doesn’t mean that they won’t have ended up pulling away from at least one relationship. In fact, this may have been something that has taken place on more than one occasion.
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Either way, when this has taken place, they could have ended up wondering why they behaved in this way. This is not to say that this took place straight after as it may have taken a little while.

One Priority

When they were in the relationship, they are likely to have felt very uncomfortable and had to get away from the other person. In the beginning of the relationship, however, they might not have felt this way.

This may have been a time when they were happy to have met someone with who they had a connection and started to love them. But, as things developed and they got closer, their experience would have soon changed.

Overwhelmed

If at one point they experienced a lot of pleasure through being around their partner, they would have soon experienced a lot of pain. This would have meant that the love that they felt for them would have soon been partly if not completely covered up.

Consequently, it would have been a lot harder for them to be present and they might not have spent a great deal of time around their partner. Ultimately, they would have slowly disappeared.

A natural Outcome

As a result of this, their partner probably wondered what was going on and may have even blamed themselves. Yet, if at one point they were acting ‘normal’ and were interested and at another, they were no longer as available, how else would they be?

What was going on would then have been seen as very strange by them and this would have been a time when one probably wasn’t even thinking about why they were pulling away. This is because as they were in so much pain, their thinking brain was probably partly if not fully offline.

One Outlook

If this is something that has taken place on more than one occasion, it will be a lot harder for them to see the other person as the problem. Due to this, they could come to the conclusion that they have a ‘fear of intimacy’.

Therefore, they will pull away out of fear and the key will be for them to simply push through this fear next time. So, the answer will be for them to feel the fear and do it anyway.

Going Deeper

It could be this black and white but, then again, there could be far more to it. If they were to go back to how they felt when they needed to pull away and then to go forward to when they did pull away, they may find that they didn’t just experience fear.

What they may find is that, in addition to pulling away and experiencing fear, they felt as though they were going to die, their body seized up and part of their being withdrew deep inside themselves. If this is the case, it will be clear that there was far more to their experience than them just experiencing fear and that they were not in a good way.

Self-Compassion

Considering this, if they have been hard on themselves when it comes to their behaviour, it will be important for them to keep in mind that they didn’t consciously choose to behave in this way. This will also mean that it was not their attention to hurt the person they were with or mean that they didn’t care about or love them.

Quite simply, they did the best that they could with what they knew. Thus, it will be essential for them to do what they can to show themselves the level of kindness and understanding that they deserve.

What’s going on?

When it comes to why they would respond in this way when they get close to another, it can be due to what took place during their developmental years. What took place before they were a child and even toddler can then be what has had the biggest impact on them.

This is likely to have been a time when they were typically neglected and when they did receive attention, it is likely to have been misattuned care. This is likely to have meant that their primary caregiver was emotionally unavailable and not in a good way themselves.

A Closer Look

A stage of their life when they needed to receive the right care in order to grow and develop in the right way would have been a time when they were deeply traumatised. To handle the pain that they were in, a big part of them would have ended up withdrawing deep inside themselves.

This was their only option as they were unable to change their caregiver’s behaviour or to find another one. Withdrawing inside themselves, then, was the only way for them to stop themselves from being aware of the fact that they felt smothered and as though they were going to be annihilated.

Too Much To Handle

The pain that they experienced would have automatically been repressed by their brain and they would have gone into a shut down, collapsed and frozen state. What they experienced was far too much for their underdeveloped brain and nervous system to handle.

Many, many years will have passed since that stage of their life, but they will continue to carry most if not all of the pain that they experienced all those years ago. Furthermore, their sense of self will continue to be underdeveloped and the infantile defence that they had to use to survive, withdrawal, will be used whenever they feel stressed.

Awareness

If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk