Relationships

Love and addiction can look eerily similar.

Both crave closeness.
Both fear abandonment.
Both convince us that this—this person, this feeling, this escape—is the thing we cannot live without.

But only one truly nourishes us.

From a trauma-informed lens, addiction often disguises itself as love when we’re hurting. It whispers promises of comfort, relief, and belonging—especially to those whose early experiences taught them that connection was conditional or unsafe (Van der Kolk, 2014). For trauma survivors, that promise can feel sacred.

Love—real love—doesn’t require you to disappear to survive.

When Love Becomes a Trigger

For many people, love wasn’t safe growing up. It was inconsistent. Conditional. Sometimes painful. As a result, the nervous system learned chaos instead of calm, intensity instead of intimacy—patterns rooted in insecure attachment (Bowlby, 1988).

That’s where addiction slips in.

Substances.
People.
Toxic relationships.

Patterns we swear we’ll never repeat.

Clinically, this aligns with the self-medication hypothesis, which frames addiction as an attempt to regulate emotional pain—not a pursuit of pleasure (Khantzian, 1997).

We don’t chase the high—we chase relief.
We don’t want numbness—we want peace.

But addiction never gives peace.
It only postpones pain.

The Trauma Bond Between Love and Addiction

Addiction feeds on unmet needs:

The need to feel chosen
The need to feel worthy
The need to feel whole

When love has historically come with abandonment, control, or unpredictability, addiction feels familiar. Trauma bonding research shows that unhealthy relational attachments and substance use activate similar reward pathways in the brain (Dutton & Painter, 1993).
Love says, “You are enough as you are.”

Addiction says, “You are only enough when you use, chase, or escape.”

One builds you.
The other consumes you.

How This Shapes the Work at Rise Above Your Norm

At Rise Above Your Norm, we understand addiction not as a failure—but as a survival response shaped by trauma, attachment wounds, and nervous system dysregulation (Schindler, 2019).

Healing is not just about stopping behaviors.
It’s about restoring safety—internally and relationally.
Trauma-informed care centers on:

Emotional and physical safety
Choice and empowerment
Trust and collaboration

Rebuilding healthy attachment (SAMHSA, 2014)

This is the foundation of the work I believe in—and the work I plan to offer in my future practice.

Learning to Love Without Losing Yourself

Healing means relearning love—starting with yourself.

It’s learning that:

Calm doesn’t mean boring
Boundaries don’t mean rejection
Consistency doesn’t mean control

Research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) confirms that early trauma significantly increases vulnerability to addiction and relational struggles later in life (Felitti et al., 1998).

But healing is possible. Secure connection can be learned. Regulation can be restored.

This is the heart of trauma-informed recovery.

Rising Above the Norm

At Rise Above Your Norm, we don’t shame the struggle.

We honor the survival behind it.
Because addiction is not who you are—it’s what helped you cope when you didn’t feel safe.

And learning to love differently is not weakness—it is courage.
If you are untangling love from addiction, know this:

You are not broken.
You are learning.
And you are worthy of a love that doesn’t cost you your life.

BigmommaJ

When I was first diagnosed with PTSD a few years ago, I felt relieved—but also taken aback by how intensely my childhood trauma has affected my adult self and how I function in general, especially in my relationships with others. Because I don’t talk about it as openly or in as much depth as I do my generalized anxiety or persistent depression, I often feel like I have to “prove” or list the reasons why I “qualify” to have PTSD when I do bring it up. That feeling leaves me even less likely to open up about what I’ve experienced.

What has your experience been like? Do you feel like others believe you when you share about your PTSD?

Sometimes, I can’t fix things. I can’t rewind time. It’s too late. I’m at a place in my life where I felt ready to reach out to an old friend. We were actually best friends in high school. Then I abruptly broke off the friendship. No explanation. She moved on and made new friends. I folded into myself. See, we were getting too close. I had to keep my secrets about my abuse. I was ashamed and afraid. Since then, I’ve always been the one to denigrate a relationship. I’ve never felt worthy.
Well, I decided I was ready to reconnect with my old friend. I wanted to explain to her what I’d been going through back then. I wanted to ask for forgiveness. I wanted to hug her. It was too late. I found out she died of cancer in August 2 years ago.
I guess I just wanted to remind everyone not to wait. If there is something you want to tell someone, say it. Regret is something I’ll always live with. Rest in peace, Mary.

As doctors, we witness not just illnesses of the body, but also the silent, painful struggles of the heart. And when we see a couple navigating the stormy, traumatic process of divorce, there are three deeply important things we must remember:
✨Pause the Assumptions
Even if you have a PhD-level understanding of relationships, remember—you can’t decode every story. Every bond has its mysteries, every fracture its own hidden reasons. Resist the urge to judge, to comment, to assume you “know” what went wrong. Keeping your thoughts to yourself is not weakness—it’s compassion. Gossip behind closed doors? That’s not just unhelpful, it’s cruel.
✨Pray for Them, Sincerely
Turn to prayer, from the heart. In the Quran, we are reminded that trusting Allah’s wisdom and relying on His guidance brings peace. Pray that they find protection, strength, and provision beyond what they can imagine. Pray that even in this pain, something beautiful, something redemptive, can come from it.
✨ Pray for Yourself, Too
Yes, for yourself. Pray endlessly for your own relationships, for your own growth, for your own heart to be guided. Today, they are facing a trial—you might face it tomorrow. This is the humbling truth: empathy is also self-preservation. Let this awareness remind you to cherish the blessings you have, and to seek Allah’s barakah in every connection in your life.
Sometimes, the simplest acts of humanity—silence instead of judgment, prayer instead of gossip, empathy instead of criticism—are the most revolutionary. They’re the acts that heal, both for others and for ourselves.
💥 Let’s not forget: kindness is contagious. And a little human decency can ripple farther than we ever imagine.