June 9th, 2023
We covered trauma bonding today. The overlap between fear and desire. How the nervous system processes threat and arousal on adjacent tracks, how the two can wire together under the right (or wrong) conditions until the body can’t tell them apart.
I took excellent notes.
Came home, poured a glass of wine, sat on the counter, and thought about it for a long time. Because here’s the thing nobody says out loud in a clinical setting: knowing why something happens doesn’t make you immune to wanting it.
Understanding the wiring doesn’t disconnect it. You can name every mechanism, cite every study…
And still want it anyway.
Not to observe it. Not to analyze it. Feel it. Fear and longing so tangled I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
I don’t know what that says about me.
Probably nothing good.