Accrington Counselling & Wellbeing Service

22/12/2025

Emotions are meant to move, not be suppressed or resisted.

They carry messages, not permanent states.
When you fight a feeling, it stays trapped inside.
When you numb it, it goes quiet only to return later.
But when you allow an emotion to be fully felt,
without judgment or escape,
the body understands that it is safe to release it.
Sadness softens.
Anger loses its grip.
Fear passes through.
This is how emotions complete their natural cycle — by being felt, honored, and gently let go.🌿

19/12/2025

Sending love to…
those who don’t feel excited about the holidays.
Those who are tired of being strong.
Those going through big challenges this year.
Those taking things one day at a time.
Those who feel stuck but haven’t stopped trying.
Those spending the holidays alone.

This season can feel heavy in ways that are hard to explain.
Not everyone feels joyful.
Not everyone feels grateful.
And not everyone has the energy to pretend they’re okay.

If you’re moving slowly, that’s still movement.
If you’re resting, that’s still progress.
If you’re just getting through the day, that is more than enough.

You don’t need to have it all figured out.
You don’t need to feel festive to be worthy of love.
And you don’t need to be strong every moment to be brave.

Let this be a reminder that you are not alone in how you feel.
That many hearts are navigating this season softly, carefully, honestly.
And that simply being here, still trying, still hoping
is already something to be proud of.

Sending love to you,
especially if this spoke to your heart. 🤍🥰

18/12/2025

16/12/2025

Your true self ✨

08/12/2025

Psychic Defenses Initiated by Trauma

1. Shame

Shame forms in environments where love is conditional, mistakes are punished, or the child is blamed for the emotional instability of adults. It is not low self-esteem — it is self-protection. The unconscious logic is simple: “If I punish myself first, others can’t hurt me.” By attacking itself, the psyche tries to control the source of pain. Shame becomes a preemptive strike, reducing conflict and preventing humiliation in a threatening environment. It works as a child because self-attack feels safer than external attack. As an adult, the protection becomes the prison: the danger is gone, but shame keeps shrinking you anyway, blocking connection, opportunity, and vulnerability.

2. Continued in comments

08/12/2025

‼️ Here’s what people misunderstand:

1. Limerence is not love, it’s a childhood survival pattern.

It forms when a child grows up with inconsistent, unpredictable, or conditional attention. Your brain learns that uncertainty = connection.

So as an adult?

• The anxiety feels like chemistry
• The hope feels like intimacy
• The inconsistency feels like “this must mean something”

Your nervous system is not addicted to them.
It’s addicted to the unpredictability.

2. Trauma bonding is different but it feels the same.

Trauma bonding forms through cycles of hurt → repair → hurt → repair.

Every time they withdraw and come back, your brain releases more dopamine, making the bond stronger, the same mechanism behind addiction.

You don’t bond to the person.
You bond to the relief that comes after the pain.

3. That’s why you can’t let go.

One good day.
One sweet message.
One moment of effort.
Your brain stores it as proof, and you keep waiting for it to return.

It’s not weakness.
It’s survival wiring.

4. So which one is it…limerence or trauma bond?

It’s limerence when:
• You obsess over what they could be
• You chase the fantasy
• You’re addicted to the highs

It’s trauma bonding when:
• There’s a cycle of hurt → apology → hope
• They break you down and then comfort you
• You feel punished for walking away

It can be both when your childhood already trained your nervous system to confuse inconsistency with connection.

That’s why the pull feels so powerful.
You’re not broken, your brain is repeating what it learned keeps you “safe.”

The truth?

The hardest people to let go of are the ones who replicate your earliest emotional wounds.

Once you heal the wound,
you stop craving the person who activated it.

If this hit you deeply… it’s not by accident.

I Didn’t Choose To Be Born will help you understand why your nervous system reacts this way — the childhood patterns, the unmet needs, the emotional environment that shaped how you attach.

Chasing Love That Hurts will help you break the cycles these wounds create in adulthood — the limerence, the trauma chemistry, the pull toward emotionally unavailable people.

If you’re ready to understand yourself with compassion, both books are in the link here whenever you’re ready: https://linktr.ee/traumatorecovery 💛

05/12/2025

If you knew this about trauma bonds it could save your life…or someone you know. Trauma Bonding is not love, it’s an unconscious addiction to an affliction. When you're so heavily attached to a toxic person, that you are willing to maintain a relationship even at the expense of yourself for the few and far between highs, that’s not love, that’s a drug of choice. Stay with me…For those who’ve experienced or are experiencing a trauma bond, it’s important that you not allow emotions to confuse or equate a trauma bond with love. Becoming conscious and aware that a trauma bond is an addiction to an affliction versus an affection for a healthy connection will shift your mindset towards a path of healing. Not overnight but over work, and time. Here’s why:

Intermittent Reinforcement and Neurochemical Highs caused by abusive cycles typically follow a pattern of tension building, a crisis or abuse incident, reconciliation ("honeymoon phase"), and a period of calm. The unpredictable nature of rewards (the "few and far between highs") makes the brain hyper-vigilant and highly receptive to these moments.

The intense relief and affection during the "honeymoon" phase trigger surges of attachment hormones (oxytocin) and reward chemicals (dopamine), creating powerful psychological conditioning, similar to an addiction loop.

The rewiring of neurological pathways makes the brain associate love and connection with this specific pattern of intensity and relief. Your brain gets highly addicted to the habitual ups and downs of oxytocin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, that even when the relationship ends, you will seek and crave the person or become obsessive or seek similar people, in order to get your fix. It's the rewiring of the neurological pathways of love, turning against itself.

The loss of the love, makes you crave them more. When the relationship ends, the brain experiences withdrawal, leading to intense cravings, obsession, or seeking out similarly dysfunctional relationships to replicate the familiar dynamic. You're dependent in the same way a he**in addict is.

Reiterating, repeating and believing the false positive feelings of love and affection (filling your head with lies about loving them or them loving you) seduces the mind into the addiction loop…you aren’t in a relationship you’re in an addiction-ship. healing from a trauma bond is not healing from a relationship with them, it’s healing from a relationship with an addiction within yourself that causes them to become your drug of choice to medicate unresolved traumas — generational, relational and developmental, a wounded inner child and emotionally dysfunctional grooming.

Repeat these words…and then, consider getting the right help to heal the pain: I am not in love with them, they do not love me. This is not love, this is not affection, this is not a bond with them. I am not in a relationship, I am in my addiction. I must heal the internal pain that I’m addicted to, bonded with, that causes my intense withdrawals and desire to medicate with my drug of choice — them.

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