Have you ever wondered why you push people away when you crave to be loved? That used to be my normal. I remember when I first met a young man who showed interest in me, and the first thing I did was overshare to drive him away.

Of course, I didn’t realize I was doing that. All I knew was I was afraid. It’s not that I didn’t want love; I didn’t know what it actually looked or felt like. I’d been hurt. Can you relate?

Do you find yourself looking for reasons a relationship won’t work? Do you find yourself wanting connection desperately, yet when someone offers it, you become uncomfortable, guarded, or distant? And then do you wonder Why can’t I just let people love me?

If this sounds familiar, I want you to know something right away.

There’s a reason. And where there’s a reason, there’s a solution.

That reason might be something from your past. An experience that hurt you and left something behind. The problem isn’t that you don’t want connection. It’s that something you experienced made connections feel unsafe, unfamiliar, or difficult to receive.

That thing that gets in the way of you receiving the love you crave might be a survival response, a coping behavior due to an unrecognized or unaddressed trauma from your childhood.

There are many reasons people struggle with closeness, and not every relationship difficulty is caused by childhood trauma. But our early experiences influence what we learn about love, trust, safety, and ourselves.

As children, we depend on the people around us. Through those relationships, we begin learning things like:

• Can I trust other people?
• Do my needs matter?
• Is it safe to express my feelings?
• Will someone be there when I need them?
• What happens when I make a mistake?
• Do I have to earn love?
• Can I be myself and still belong?

Children don’t sit down and consciously answer these questions. The lesson is in the experience. There’s an old poem titled “Children live what they learn,” and it carries much wisdom.

Living what we’ve learned isn’t a life sentence. It’s simply where we are now.

If you grew up feeling rejected, ignored, criticized, abandoned, emotionally neglected, or unsafe, you probably learned ways to protect yourself. What does that look like?

• Becoming hyper-independent.
• Keeping your feelings to yourself.
• Disconnecting from yourself.
• Refusing help.
• Being a people-pleaser to keep other people happy.
• Leaving a relationship first so you couldn’t be left.

Those responses may have made sense at the time, but now they create difficulties in your adult relationships.

Although childhood trauma can make adult relationships hard, there’s hope.

One thing I learned about trauma is that what happened to us affects how we relate to ourselves and other people, long after the original experience is over. How so?

• Someone might say they love you, and even treat you well, but you have trouble believing it, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
• Kindness is offered to you, but instead of receiving it, you wonder what they want from you.
• Someone might get too close for comfort, and you feel the need to create distance.
• You may even find yourself choosing relationships where love is difficult to receive because difficult love feels familiar.

These aren’t character flaws; they’re adaptations for self-preservation.

That means looking at your relationship with yourself is where to start.

Sometimes we focus so much on what other people are doing that we miss what’s happening inside us.

Let’s look at 7 ways trauma can damage your relationship with yourself

1. You don’t trust yourself, but constantly question your decisions, feelings, or perceptions.
2. You feel your needs are inconvenient or selfish, so you minimize them or dismiss them.
3. You’re harder on yourself than you are on anyone else.
4. You believe you have to earn love through being successful, useful, agreeable, attractive, or needed.
5. You have difficulty receiving love. Giving it might feel ok, but receiving it feels wrong.
6. You abandon yourself to keep other people happy.
7. You believe something is wrong with you and judge yourself harshly.

That last one can be especially damaging. Because once you decide “I’m the problem,” you can begin treating yourself like someone who needs to be fixed rather than someone who needs to be understood.

You can’t hate yourself into healing

If you’ve recognized yourself in some of these patterns, please don’t use this awareness to shame yourself in any way. These are normal responses.

Discovering that childhood trauma affected you and then saying, “Great. Now I have one more thing wrong with me” won’t help. You need love.

Love, not hate, leads to healing.

You can’t shame yourself into becoming more trusting.

You can’t criticize yourself into feeling worthy of love.

You can’t punish yourself into feeling safe in relationships.

Healing begins with seeing with eyes of compassion.

It begins with daring to understand what’s happening without condemning yourself for it.

This is how I frame it:

SEE what’s happening.

EXPOSE what’s underneath it.

LOVE yourself through what you discover.

FREE yourself to make different choices.

You don’t have to figure everything out at once. It’s a gentle, gracious process.

What if instead of asking “Why can’t I let people love me?” you asked, “What happened that made receiving love so difficult for me?”

That’s a very different question.

One carries shame. The other carries curiosity.

And curiosity creates room for compassion and discovery.

Compassion and discovery say you can learn something new.

• You can learn to recognize healthy love.
• You can learn to receive without feeling indebted.
• You can learn to set boundaries without abandoning connection.
• You can learn to listen to yourself without making yourself the enemy.
• You can learn to stay connected to yourself while becoming connected to others.

That’s where relationship repair begins: repairing your relationship with yourself.

From there, you can begin learning how to build healthier relationships with the people you love.

If you’re struggling to understand why you push people away, why receiving love is difficult, or why the same relationship patterns keep repeating, you don’t have to figure it all out alone. I’d love to do this with you. Let’s connect.