In this short, the speaker reflects on how early attachment imprints shape our perception of love, often equating love with uncertainty, chaos, and emotional highs and lows. They recount a traumatic abusive relationship at age 19, describing a vivid incident where they were locked in a bathroom, lost money, and were abandoned by their partner. While watching the partner leave with a new woman, a flashback to a childhood memory of being abandoned by their mother triggered a deep realization: the pain they felt was rooted in their own "mother wound" rather than the current abuser. This insight led to a pivotal moment of self‑recognition, where the speaker understood that healing does not depend on the abuser’s return but on their own inner work, marking a turning point toward self‑reliance and inner peace.
Chapters
that is not obviously love, but it's the most familiar thing. And so for a lot of us, our original imprint of what we would maybe unconsciously deem love is uncertainty or chaotic or disorganized in some way. And so there is this imprint in the nervous system of anticipation or uncertainty or excitement or that high and low. And so, you know, from a nervous system neurology standpoint, when we're engaging with people who bring that sensation to us. They activate that experience in us. It's not necessarily healthy or true love, but it is familiar. You know, in one of my abusive relationships when I was my very early— I was like 19 years old, and I remember I had been locked in the bathroom and I was looking in the mirror at my own reflection and I could barely recognize myself. You know, I was really betrayed in, in so many ways, and that woke up my mother wound finally. And so he, you know, had started left our home with all of his belongings in the home, just sort of ghosted me, you know. I lost all of my money, everything has been taken, and then he just sort of ditched without a word. And there was this time where he returned back, this new woman he was dating, and she was parked outside in their red SUV, and he came in to grab some things, and then I kind of followed him out, and as he drove off down that road, I stood there on the side of the road, just outside of the the wood fence and I had no shoes on. And as I watched their car drive away, all of a sudden I just had this flashback of being 3 and being in the arms of foster parents in the middle of the night and watching my mom's headlights drive off and me kicking and screaming and begging for her to come back. And in that moment, I really felt clear, okay, this is not about him. This is really about me. This is my own inner work. And this is these old wounds that are coming up to be cleared. And that was a relief because I was like, okay, well, as desperate as I feel for this pain to go away, at least I know that he doesn't actually have to come back, or he doesn't have to do anything in order for me to be okay. I can actually work through this and be okay. And so that really catalyzed it for me, and, and that was a big, big moment in my, my journey.
