Why connection can feel unsafe

You may want to be close to someone and still find it hard to relax with them. Even when they are kind, a part of you may worry that their warmth will disappear if you disagree, ask for something, show how you really feel, or choose not to give something that parts of you do not want to give. You might look for signs that they are upset with you, or say yes before you have had space to notice your own needs.

We can be curious about what these parts are trying to protect. Some may be guarding parts of us that feel vulnerable, unloved, unworthy or “too much”. Keeping us agreeable or watching for disapproval may be their way of trying to prevent that pain from being felt again. Others may shame or criticise us, hoping to stop us risking the same hurt.

Other parts may begin to judge the other person, find fault or feel revulsion towards them. At the same time, some parts may try to ignore those feelings or turn them into “just a mild irritation”, perhaps hoping to preserve the connection. All of these parts deserve attention, including those whose feelings other parts find difficult to acknowledge. We can make room to understand what each is responding to, what it hopes for and what it needs.

Gabor Maté speaks about the tension between authenticity, being connected to our own feelings and needs, and attachment, the connection we depend on with others. For a child, that connection is essential. If expressing a feeling or need seems to threaten it, hiding that experience can become a way to preserve the relationship.

We may learn to be agreeable, easy to care for or quiet about our distress. We do not consciously choose to lose touch with ourselves. Parts of us find ways to keep the connection we need, sometimes carrying our own needs out of sight for a long time. There is so much care to offer the parts that learned to do this.

For some parts, the fear is more than “Will they like me?” It is “I will lose myself. In connection, I will not exist.” There may seem to be room for the other person’s feelings, wishes and needs, but little room for our own. Keeping the relationship can come to mean staying quiet, adapting or disappearing within it.

Sometimes the people we most needed to stay connected to were also the people who hurt us most. With abuse or neglect, the longing for closeness can sit alongside fear of the very person we depend on. Connection can also feel painful or leave little room for us in relationships we would not describe as abusive or neglectful. We do not need a particular label for our experience before we can care for its impact.

It is not only what happened that matters. It can also be what did not happen when we needed it: comfort when we were frightened, someone noticing our distress, protection, or delight in who we were. Parts of us may have made sense of that absence by believing “I do not matter”, “I am too much” or “I have to need less to be loved”. These were ways of trying to understand what we could not yet understand, rather than truths about our worth.

People may have loved us, faced their own difficulties or not intended to cause pain. Understanding that can sit alongside compassion for what it was like for us. A lack of intention does not take away the hurt, or the needs that went unmet.

In IFS, we can meet the parts that watch for disapproval, keep everyone happy or shame us for being “too much”. Other parts may withdraw, keep their distance or leave first, hoping to protect us from being hurt again.

Some parts reach for connection while others fear what it will cost us. Both deserve to be heard. We can honour how they have tried to help and listen to what they would need to feel safer. We do not ask them to disappear or make us open up before they are ready.

In one of my journal entries, I put words to the longing carried by parts of me:

“Why can’t I have a mum? Why can’t I rest? Why can’t I put my head down on a warm body and be held?”

There were parts of me who longed to be cared for. To rest against someone and feel held. To have someone see them, their pain and how much they had been carrying.

Alongside that longing were parts who wanted love, peace, safety and connection for everyone, while wondering whether someone would notice their pain too. Some carried the hope that if they cared enough, someone would care enough in return. There was also care that came simply from feeling how we are all connected, and how one being’s suffering touches another.

And there were fierce protectors.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Don’t show weakness.”

“We don’t need anyone.”

“Needing will hurt.”

They wanted to hide the little one who needed care, to keep her beyond the reach of anyone who could hurt her.

In my inner world, that danger appeared as a monster who disguised himself as someone offering love, connection and safety. What looked like care became the way harm gained access. Then came violation, and the feeling of being possessed or trapped, followed by shame and pain.

Knowing this, I can understand why an offer of care might have brought alarm alongside hope. The very thing one part longed for felt dangerous to the parts protecting her.

Over many years, I sat with the longing and despair, listened to the protection and made room for what each needed me to understand. That work included retrieval and unburdening many times: helping parts leave places where they had felt trapped, and release pain and beliefs they no longer needed to carry. For the little one, this also meant releasing the shame and fear that had entered her but were never hers to carry.

At times, other parts of me responded, “Oh no, not this one again!” What appeared familiar was not always the same part. Sometimes there was more to hear from a part I already knew. At other times, I met other fragments of her, or came to understand her experience from a different perspective, one she had not previously felt safe enough to share.

In meeting the little one beneath what she carried, I experienced her as love and light. No wonder the others had wanted to hide her. They believed that her love, her innocence, the depth of her care for others and how deeply she felt their suffering were why she had been hurt. Hiding her had felt like the way to keep her safe. Pain and shame had covered her, but her light and innocence were still there.

As her wounds received attention, compassion, persistence and patience, I experienced her beginning to stand and then walk within my inner world. In one of these inner experiences, the body she had left behind so she would not feel what was happening was retrieved too. She was whole again. She became a source of love and connection to all beings.

Now I have learnt that needing isn’t a burden or a responsibility. It is a gift of connection, giving and receiving. Giving can be a choice. We don’t have to. We can choose to.

This work continues to shape how I am alongside you in therapy.

It helps me sit with despair and remain present, with compassion for the pain and for the parts trying so hard to protect against it.

I have come to know different qualities of caring within myself. Some caring parts carry urgency or fear. They may feel responsible for making everything better, or need the person they care for to be okay. Their intentions deserve understanding too. Even loving care can feel overwhelming when it comes with pressure, expectations or a need for something to change.

When I am caring from Self, the quality is calmer, more peaceful and spacious. There is no agenda for where you need to get to, and no condition you have to meet to receive that care. I can care deeply and fiercely while staying grounded, with an open and hopeful heart.

From there, I can stay alongside your parts with curiosity, patience and persistence. I can listen to their fears and hopes, and hold confidence in their capacity to find their own way with support, even when some parts of you may hold no hope at all. There is no need for them to feel hopeful for me. As we listen together, you can begin to know your parts more deeply and they can begin to know you.

Sometimes this care is active and practical, with confidence and clarity. Sometimes it is being present with what hurts. We can explore together what is needed, with permission and room for choice.

This quality of care has room for clear boundaries. As caring becomes safer and more of a choice, we can be clearer about what we welcome and what we will not accept. We can care about someone and understand the parts behind their behaviour while saying no to unkindness or harm. We can choose distance when we need it. Our care includes us too.

Can there be room for me, as well as for you? This may be a new and tender question. It can mean noticing a preference, hearing a quiet “no”, or recognising that we want closeness and also need space. Privacy, discernment and boundaries can support connection. We do not owe everyone access to our inner world.

We can explore which relationships offer care and what support helps us stay connected to ourselves. There is no demand to trust, forgive or tell a story before it feels safe.

You might notice whether any part of you recognises this tension, and what it worries would happen if you showed more of yourself. You do not have to find an answer or change anything immediately.

The video is listed by the EMDR International Association. Alongside the video, there is room to be curious about your own experience and what your parts would like you to know.