I keep my heart on my sleeve, so anyone in my life is someone I love. Though, the type of love is always agape or philia. I care deeply for people, but eros is particularly unraveling of my person. I’ve been digging into this a bit over time in this blog, in this post I’m going to dive into the connections that resulted in eros for me (because it has been so rare) in an effort to deconstruct the trauma bond and seek real love.

My therapist asked me to articulate my “type” one day. My type is more emotional than physical. My type is roughly: an avoidant man with a soft heart. I see their pain, I see their walls, but I also see someone with deep love inside them. The problem is that I don’t see the avoidant behaviors until it’s too late. The trauma bond is found in the desire to lower their walls and open their hearts.

I sought love everywhere. Everywhere. So, the work involved in lowering walls and opening hearts is very familiar to me. It’s a pattern, and it’s a magnetic draw that pulls at my emotions. I don’t realize I’m suffering because I see them as beautiful souls with kind hearts and some deep-seated part of my psyche believes that they would never hurt me. Unfortunately, from what I understand of avoidant attachment, they don’t want to hurt me. However, our solutions are far different. They protect themselves from that pain – first. So, as much as they want to be the person I see, they know they aren’t and that causes them to pull away to safety. My “solution” is, of course, for them to accept my love and open themselves to it. As they pull away, I get sad because I feel as though the lifeline my heart created to theirs is being pulled apart.

The people pleaser seeks to please – but underlying that work is a desire to be “enough.” There is absolutely a layer in the belief that opening them up is proof that I am “enough.” Underlying the desire to help them is also the sense of acceptance if they open to me. Much like the child version of me that was seeking the love and support in my family, the adult version of me has carried forward that same seeking of love and support.

“I don’t want you to change.” Words that broke open my own avoidant. The best thing any man has ever said to me. I spent so much of my time focusing on opening other avoidants that I didn’t see my own avoidant tendencies. That first time of acceptance, without needing to work for it, broke open my heart and made me face my own avoidance. I was avoiding my own acceptance. I wasn’t accepting the love offered to me; not just in that instance, but also in relationships before that.

I was stuck in the seeking of love and yet I was not accepting the love given. My “normal” was loving without accepting love in return. In effect, I was in love with being unloved. Which may be the saddest truth of my relationship history…

My story this week is about my cat, L.

In loving memory of my best cat, L. The cat I got as a little poof ball kitten that fit in my palm. The kitten that rode around with me in my car – that had no air conditioning. The cat that followed me around the house, chittering and purr-owling in full ten minute conversations when I got home.

He was my animal companion. We talked to each other in our own unique language and we had a true love bond between us. He was my family and he was my friend. I curled up with him in the living room while I graded papers and I took him outside on a leash to explore together and sometimes just to run errands. I would have shared so much more of my life with him, but now it’s time to bond with another cat.

I want a love like that again. I have been without a cat for over four years and my child wants one, too. I look forward to the soothing purrs and cuddles, I look forward to the bond and love that comes with that bond. Some people think cats aren’t loving, but mine were.

Cats are avoidantly attached, so we have to earn their love. We earn it with patience, kindness, and love. But, if you earn it, a cat can love you as adamantly as a dog. L did. G did. My cats saw the love in me, and I felt their love in return.

May we find that kind of love.

Love to you, -S.