When Trauma Shapes How You Connect

Over-Attachment / Extreme Independence

These are two sides of the same coin when trauma shapes how you relate to others.

Some people hold on so tightly to relationships that they smother the very connection they’re desperate to keep. Others build walls so high no one can reach them, convinced it’s the only way to stay safe. These patterns may look opposite on the surface, but they come from the same wound — a nervous system that learned relationships weren’t safe.

This isn’t who you are.
It’s how you survived.

Over-attachment shows up when your system has been trained to believe closeness is the only way to avoid loss. You cling to people because the thought of being left feels unbearable. You may even try to control situations or relationships to keep them from slipping away.

Extreme independence is the other side of this same wound. Your system decided it was safer to never need anyone. So you shut people out, refuse help, and carry everything on your own shoulders. Vulnerability feels like handing someone the power to hurt you.

Both responses were protective. They were brilliant strategies at the time.
But what kept you safe then can keep you stuck now.

These patterns can quietly run your life:

• You fear abandonment or rejection, so you grip harder.

• Or you fear being hurt, so you keep everyone at a distance.

• Relationships swing between too close and too far, never feeling steady.

• Trust — of yourself or others — feels out of reach.

You might even see the pattern playing out but feel powerless to change it. You want closeness, but closeness feels dangerous. You want independence, but independence feels lonely. You feel caught in a loop you didn’t ask for.

These patterns don’t just affect you — they shape the people around you too.

When you cling, those you love may start to pull back. The pressure of needing to reassure constantly can become overwhelming, even when they care deeply.

When you wall up, the people who want to love you are left on the outside. No matter how hard they try, they can’t get through the fortress you’ve built. Over time, they may stop trying.

In both cases, the pattern creates the very pain you were trying so hard to avoid.

This isn’t just “in your head.” These patterns live in your body. They were built through experience — often when love and safety were tied to fear, unpredictability, or harm.

Abuse trauma often drives this pattern deeper. When the people who were supposed to protect you were the ones who hurt you, your nervous system doesn’t forget. It keeps trying to protect you, even decades later.

For someone who loves you now, it’s confusing. They may feel helpless, wondering why their love isn’t enough to make you feel safe. They may even carry their own pain from not being able to reach you, no matter how much they try.

This isn’t about blame. It’s about understanding why the walls exist, and why the grip feels so tight.

Ask yourself: Is this pattern still protecting me? Or is it keeping me from the love and safety I want most?

You didn’t choose this, but now you have a choice.

The truth is, what saved you then is not serving you now. You deserve more than survival.

Healing begins with creating safety inside yourself — not in the other person, not in the relationship, but in you.

If you tend to cling, you learn to sit with yourself. To self-soothe. To trust that you are enough, even when someone isn’t right there holding you.

If you lean toward extreme independence, you start letting someone in — slowly, safely. You practice allowing help, receiving care, and seeing that not everyone will harm you.

This isn’t about fixing you. You were never broken. It’s about teaching your nervous system a new truth: connection can be safe.

This is where the horses and I do our work.

Horses don’t buy the stories you tell yourself. They don’t get fooled by walls or calmed by clinging. They respond to what’s real — the truth you’re carrying in your body, even when you can’t see it.

They meet you with honesty, not judgment.
They show you, in the moment, what safe connection feels like. Not forced. Not distant. Just real.

When you feel that in your body, you remember it. You learn to create it in your own life.

I’ve watched clients who thought they’d never trust again open their hearts. I’ve seen people who believed they’d always cling or always push away finally find balance.

Because this work doesn’t just shift your thinking — it rewrites the patterns where they began: in your body, in your soul.

This trauma response doesn’t have to define you.
It doesn’t have to keep running your relationships.

You are not too much.
You are not too distant.
You are someone who learned to survive.

Now it’s time to learn to live.

When you’re ready to experience what safe, balanced connection feels like — with yourself and with others — the horses and I are here to walk that path with you.

Huge Love,

Jennifer Malocha