One of the cruelest effects of complex trauma is how our nervous systems become equally desperate for connection and terrified of it. Any interaction can feel potentially dangerous. We focus on detecting threats and protecting ourselves, but we can’t protect and connect at the same time. So, superficial connections feel safer, not with people who are close by or long known, but with internet acquaintances and occasional emails.

For years I have not been able to bring myself to write to my oldest and dearest friends. It’s a horrible feeling to be unable to respond. It’s excruciating, like having my hand caught in a rat trap. I want so badly to free myself, but I can’t do it alone and I don’t get nearly the support I need. It’s a process that requires care, help, and time.

I’ve been trying to write a thank-you note to my dear friend Cindy. She’s been a beacon of kindness and love for years. But I can’t write to her. My nervous system is terrified of intimacy, vulnerability, closeness, and love—all the things I deserve in relationships and once had before medicine messed me up so badly that I almost died three times.

My nervous system is trapped between two powerful forces. These are the 200,000,000-year-old deep need for connection and the 300,000,000-year-old need for protection. This is the overwhelming fear trauma has instilled around intimacy and vulnerability. The very closeness and love that could help me heal are the things that trigger my protective mechanisms, isolating me from the people I care about the most.

Repeated betrayal trauma by caregivers and others in power has trained my nervous system to consider relationships, even with the most loving and safe people, as potential threats. Trauma hijacks our natural need for closeness, creating a vicious cycle where the very things that could help me feel safer and more whole—love, connection, intimacy—are the things I feel I must protect myself from.

Superficial connections feel safer because of the distance, control, and less perceived risk of being overwhelmed or hurt. But the struggle to reach out to someone like Cindy, who’s been a beacon of kindness, feels like hitting an invisible wall I can’t break through, no matter how much I wish. That feeling of being unable to respond, despite knowing what I want to say or do, is like being trapped in isolation.

Knowing that this inability to respond is trauma’s doing—not who I am—dissolves the shame, but it doesn’t resolve the issue. Even though I know how much I value the people in my life, expressing that or engaging feels impossible. But maybe just acknowledging how hard it is to engage, even with those I love, could be a small step toward releasing that trap, little by little.

I deserve and need to reclaim my birthright to love and connection.