CPTSD and Relationships: Why You Pull Away When You Want to Get Closer

Has this ever happened to you? You find yourself longing for connection, closeness, intimacy, for the feeling of being seen, understood, safe. And yet, when you start to feel that in a rel, somehow you find yourself pulling away, closing off, ending the connection. On one hand, you ache to feel close to someone, on the other hand, it seems like you won’t let yourself.

If you’ve experienced prolonged or repeated trauma, particularly relationship trauma, it’s possible that you’re living with Complex Post-Trauma Stress Disorder (CPTSD) and that’s at the root of what’s happening. This pattern of “I want closeness but I also fear it” is very common with CPTSD. This pattern can show up both in romantic relationships and friendships alike. In this article, we’ll explore why this happens, then we’ll explore what you can do to help shift it.

Why Pulling Away in Relationships Happens: CPTSD and Early Relational Trauma

In a perfect world, you would have grown up with parents/care givers who could meet all your needs most of the time, well enough that you knew they were there when you needed them. In this world, when someone caused harm, they would repair the harm they caused, and take accountability for their actions, leaving you able to trust their intentions and goodness. What would the result be if this happened? Well, you’d have an inherent sense of safety and trust in others and the world. Your nervous system would learn that it could rely on others and trust them to be there for you. You’d feel this deep sense of safety when in connection with others. So when you meet someone new, your system would trust them, unless it learnt otherwise, and would open up to them in a safe manner.

What if instead, you grew up in an unpredictable, unsafe environment where you were harmed, rejected or neglected, and when that happened, the people/person causing the harm didn’t try to repair it? They maybe even made you feel that it was your fault and that they weren't there for you when you needed them. In this case, your nervous system would learn something very different! It might learn that others can’t be trusted and that you can only trust yourself. This is called an attachment wound. Rather than your nervous system learning how to “attach” to others in a healthy way, it instead learns that it cannot “attach” without risking being hurt.

The long and short of it? If you got hurt in relationships (whether in childhood or adulthood), you learnt connection= pain and distance=safety. So now you default to distance as a way to stay safe.

BUT there’s still a part of you that longs for connection (you can learn all about parts and how they work at this link here). Our nervous systems are created and wired for connection. They want and need it! So part of you says “connection hurts me”, and another part of you says “but I want it so bad!”. This is where the pattern of reaching out for connection and then pulling away when it gets too close comes from; you reach out because it is inherently human to want connection and then the closeness feels unsafe, so you find a way to pull back to a place where you feel safe.

Common Relationship Patterns in CPTSD


If you have (or suspect you might) have CPTSD, you might be familiar with these patterns:

Holding Tightly:

You are in such desperate need for connection, that when you get it, you hold on so so so tight, even if the connection isn’t really meeting your needs/desires.

Emotional Flooding --> Shutdown:

You get close and the feelings of closeness become so intense that you, without conscious decision, shut down. This may be dissociation or simply distancing yourself.

Choosing “Safe” Connection:

In an attempt to stay as safe as you can, you choose people in your life who you don’t feel much of a connection to, because if you lose them, you unconsciously think it wont hurt as much.

You Leave First:

To make sure they can’t hurt you, you always leave first, believing that the control of leaving first makes you safer.

Hyper-Independence:

You have learnt to take care of yourself fully, never relying on anyone, in a hope that never relying on others means you wont ever get hurt.

Hyper-vigilance:

You are always scanning for the risk of being hurt in a relationship, so much so that you struggle to take in any of the good, because you think that something bad is on the horizon and you need to stay prepped for it.

If you’re interested in a quiz we’ve created that explores these concepts (though a little differently) check out our Trauma Relationship Quiz here.

What to Do Instead: Practical Steps for Staying Close and Safe

The main reason behind pulling away is that connection feels unsafe and distance feels safe. So if we want to help create closeness, we have to help you learn that close can be safe.

There are many ways this can be done, so let’s explore a few together, and you can choose which one(s) feel most right to you. (Note that these are in no particular order!)

The following ideas contain a lot of prompts; consider journaling to help you work through them.

Notice where close has been safe:

Scan through your life and relationships. Where have closeness and safety co-existed? Look to relationships with animals, children, characters or online relationships. Any form of relationship counts! Maybe you have always felt safe with your dog and can cry in to their fur, where that has never been possible with a human. Maybe theres a book character that you relate to so much that you feel understood and safe as you imagine a friendship with them. Maybe in your childhood, before something traumatic happened, you had a really close friend that you trusted. 
See if you can notice how “safe” and “close” show up in your body. What does it feel like, to feel safe. We are hoping to learn what sensations you notice that help you feel safe. 
Then, can we look for whispers of this sensation in other relationships? If safe feels like a warm hug, can you think of a whisper of that warm hug in any other relationships? What would help that feeling grow by 1%? By 10%?

By identifying what safety and closeness feel like, regardless of the relationship, we can begin noticing that sensation in other relationships and helping it grow.

Building Internal Safety and Trust

Even though it was never your fault, sometimes, we believe that the trauma that happened was our fault, and we learn we cannot trust ourselves. Basically, the trauma caused us to lose trust in ourselves. This loss of self-trust can be the source of why we don’t trust others; if I cant even trust myself, how in the world could I trust someone else?!

As such, learning to build internal safety and trust can be a big source of healing. Take an inventory of your life. Where are you not trusting yourself? Where are you not keeping yourself safe? This may look like not setting boundaries, not saying no or always putting others needs ahead of your own. This may look like putting yourself in unsafe situations, not meeting your basic needs or not engaging in self-care. Maybe you are not keeping promises to yourself, not listening to your gut feelings or not believing in yourself. Look to find where you are not keeping yourself safe or trusting yourself.

Then, consciously choose one place to create change, and notice how it feels to do it intentionally because you trust yourself. Slow down and be mindful of what comes up and what happened.

When we mindfully trust ourselves and build safety, we repair the lack of trust in ourselves, which can, in turn, lead to trusting others.

Processing and Healing the Safety Rupture

A huge part of feeling safe is helping your nervous system learn that the events that caused you to feel un-safe are over now. While part of you knows this, trauma research helps us know that part of you does not the events are over. As an example, let’s say you experienced trauma as a 5 year old and are now 25. The 25 year old in you knows that whatever happened at 5 years old is over, but part of your brain is still at 5 years old, experiencing that event and feeling unsafe. As such, if we identify the event(s) that your brain still sees as threats, we can move in to them and heal them. Here are some prompts to help you explore this, BUT please go slowly as this can be re-traumatizing. If you’re unsure or feel unsafe, consider connecting with a trauma counsellor. 
What event(s) caused you to learn that safety and closeness can’t co-exist? As you think about these events, what do you feel? What does the part of you that experienced those events need? How can you give that to them now? How can you show them that things are different now? What do they want to say to you? What do you want to say to your younger part? 
By giving your hurt parts a voice, and meeting their needs, we help your brain learn that the events from the past are over now and that we now longer have to operate in the ways that kept us safe back then.

When to Reach for Professional Support

You’re allowed and welcome to reach for support at any point, for whatever reason. And if you need a list that “allows” you to do so, here are reasons why you may want to reach out for support:

• You know you keep repeating patterns you don’t want to, but feel unable to change them.

• Whenever you feel closeness, it triggers you into shutdown, rage, numbness or escape.

• If you find yourself repeatedly in relationships where you push away, or get hurt when you don’t want to.

• If you avoid relationships entirely because it’s “too much” or “too risky”.

Tip: Look for trauma-informed professionals who know CPTSD, attachment trauma, and relational work, in order to find someone who can support you best.

Change Happens

If you pull away from closeness in relationships, which is often caused by CPTSD, you learnt that distance was the best way to keep yourself safe. You learnt that relationships can hurt and figured out how to stay safe and now, you continue to operate from this belief, even if things have changed. The positive news is that your system can learn that you are safe now and that connection is not inherently unsafe, but rather to gauge each connection individually, rather than universally.

If you are looking for a counselling in Kamloops or in BC to help you learn how to do this, check out our team of trauma therapists!