Dating and Trauma

Why Dating Never Heals Emotional Pain

People with attachment troubles or other child trauma often ask: why is dating so difficult?  It is, for a reason.

So instead of the dating hunt,  I invested my life, fortune, and sacred honor to work for “earned secure attachment.”  Dr. Dan Siegel says that’s when we start out with attachment damage from childhood trauma,  but grow into secure attachment by earning it as adults.  “It’s possible to change childhood attachment patterns,” as Dr. Mary Main says in a 2010 video. [FN1]

My plan: “become the change you seek,” as Ghandi said — and then a good-hearted mate will find me.  Either way, eventually I’ll have peace in my soul.

Look, Ma, no hunting or begging – for once in my life!  I’ve been begging since birth for a scrap of love like Oliver with his begging bowl, and I’m done.  Dating website emails go to my spam folder.

I know it’s possible to earn secure attachment, even for those with ACEs like me who’ve had developmental trauma “since the sperm hit the egg” and thus the world’s worst case of anxious attachment.

I know, because as I force myself to share my most gut-wrenching fears and most body-wracking tears, in person, face-to-face, with entirely platonic “Safe People” [FN2], I’ve felt a deep movement of architectonic plates down in my body and soul... 

I’ve felt a tiny, new, fragile, and yes, vulnerable part of myself growing slowly but surely for the last few years. And yes there is no magic bullet; it takes time — months and years.  But hey, what else have we got to do if not finally feel some mental health?  “For everything else, there’s MasterCard.” 

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