How to Break Trauma Bonds and Choose Connection That Heals

Love is meant to be one of God’s sweetest gifts - a place of safety, warmth, and belonging. But for so many women, our earliest experiences of “love” didn’t look anything like that at all. Instead of tenderness, we learned tension. Instead of steady affection, we learned inconsistency. Instead of being cherished, we learned to perform, to appease, to survive.

And when you learn love through fear or conditional approval, your heart doesn’t forget. It carries those lessons into adulthood, quietly shaping who you’re drawn to, what you tolerate, and the kind of relationships you believe you deserve. In my book Burned, Blocked, and Better Than Ever, I share how my own understanding of love was formed in a childhood where affection was something you earned, trust was something you rationed, and vulnerability was something you hid. I didn’t know it then, but those experiences were laying the foundation for years of trauma bonds; emotional ties that felt like connection but were really captivity.

If you’ve ever stayed in a relationship that drained you… If you’ve ever felt “addicted” to someone who hurt you… If you’ve ever mistaken intensity for intimacy… You’re not alone. And you’re not...Continue Reading