When the High pretends to be Love

We inherit our first language of love long before we speak: a look that warms, a tone that cuts, a door that slams, arms that gather us back. When hurt is followed by sudden comfort, the body learns a dangerous equation—fear + relief = love. Many of us go on to chase that exact chemistry in adult life, calling it passion. Some of us meet partners who feel like home and hurricane all at once. Some wander toward dominance and submission, hoping that if surrender is chosen, it might finally feel safe.
This is a story about that delicate border—where play becomes harm, where intensity becomes addiction, where culture sells us second-hand feelings, and where humility can redeem love. I’ll walk with you as a counsellor would: slowly, clearly, with your dignity in the center.
“Love can be loud, but safety is quiet. If your body only relaxes after pain, the “high” may be relief—not love.”

1) Why intensity feels like love: the trauma-high

When a caregiver wounds and then soothes—a slap then a hug, a cutting word then a laugh—the child’s nervous system binds pain to tenderness. In adulthood, the pattern repeats: a partner shouts then turns soft; withdraws then returns; humiliates then holds. The relief that follows danger floods the body with chemistry we misread as passion. This is trauma bonding, a cliff-fall followed by mid-air rescue. Terror + relief becomes addictive, and soon we crave the fall just to feel the catch.
“Relief masquerading as passion is a common trauma echo. If the “best” moments follow harm, you’re likely chasing a nervous-system swing.”

2) Understanding Triggers, Limerence & Flashbacks: Learning to Re-wire your brain

Healing from trauma means learning how the mind and body respond to reminders of the past—and how to gently rewire those responses into resilience.

🔹 Triggers
Definition: Triggers are reminders—internal or external—that activate old wounds. They can be:
Internal: intrusive thoughts, sudden body sensations, strong emotions.

External: songs, smells, words, places, or even certain facial expressions.

Impact: A trigger signals the nervous system to prepare for danger, even if the present is safe. This can cause anxiety, withdrawal, panic, or anger.
Example: Walking into a coffee shop where a painful memory is attached. The smell of coffee or a familiar love song playing can suddenly bring heaviness or unease.

🔹 Flashbacks
Definition: Flashbacks are when a trigger overwhelms the system, leading to re-experiencing past events. Unlike ordinary memory, flashbacks feel alive and present.
Types of Flashbacks:
Emotional: sudden waves of fear, grief, shame.

Somatic: tight chest, stomach knots, trembling, migraines.

Mental/Visual: vivid images, voices, or replayed scenes.

Why They Happen: The brain cannot distinguish between past and present under stress. The body reacts as if danger is happening again—even if the person is safe.

🔹 Limerence
Definition: Limerence is an intense, involuntary infatuation or obsession with another person. It is marked by intrusive thoughts, euphoric highs when attention is given, and crushing lows when it is withdrawn.
How it Connects with Triggers & Flashbacks:
A song, place, or notification sound can spark longing.

Past experiences of rejection or abandonment may resurface as flashbacks.
The nervous system confuses fantasy with safety, pulling one into cycles of obsession.

Key Point: Limerence is less about genuine love and more about unmet needs, fantasy, and longing.

🔹 Depressive Tendencies
Depression can follow the exhaustion of repeated triggers, flashbacks, or limerent cycles. It may show up as:
Persistent sadness, hopelessness, or numbness.
Loss of interest in activities once enjoyed.
Sleep or appetite changes.
Difficulty concentrating or making decisions.
Feelings of guilt or worthlessness.
Depressive tendencies can worsen when flashbacks are frequent or when limerence leads to feelings of rejection or emptiness.

🌱 Rewiring & Healing Techniques

Grounding (For Triggers & Flashbacks)
Use the 5-4-3-2-1 method: name 5 things you see, 4 you feel, 3 you hear, 2 you smell, 1 you taste.

Press feet into the ground, place a hand on your chest, or gently tap acupressure points.
Focus on slow, deep breathing to calm the nervous system.
Flashback Protocol
Say internally: “This is a flashback. It will pass. I am safe now.”
Reorient by stating the date, your age, or what room you’re in.
Hold a grounding object (stone, pen, fabric) to remind the body of the present.

Cognitive Reframing (CBT)
Identify thought distortions and shift them.

“I’m unsafe” → “This is a memory, not reality.”

“I can’t live without them” → “What I seek is love and safety, which I deserve in healthy ways.”

Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Recognize inner parts that hold pain (child, protector, critic).

Speak compassionately: “I see you. You are safe. You don’t have to carry this alone.”

Narrative Therapy
Write your story with distance: “This happened, but it does not define me. I am the author of the next chapter.”

Expressive Arts Therapy
Journal: write down what the trigger/flashback felt like and how it shifted.
Draw or paint the feeling and transform it into a new image of safety.
Use movement or dance to discharge stuck energy.

Re-anchoring Triggers
Reclaim painful associations by creating new ones.
Example: If a song once meant heartbreak, sing it loudly alone or play it during a joyful activity.
If a café holds painful memories, visit it with new company or try a new drink to rewrite its meaning.

3) The lure of BDSM: harm, healing, and the missing scaffolding

Pop culture paints BDSM as glamorized danger, but the real practice is a craft of ethics: negotiation, consent, safe words, aftercare, and equality outside the scene. In healthy D/s (dominance/submission), the submissive holds the true power—the right to stop. The dominant doesn’t own; they borrow trust inside a negotiated container.
Abuse is different: no consent, no negotiation, control that leaks outside the bedroom, and a steady erosion of dignity. Think in images: abuse is a storm that throws you around; conscious BDSM is dancing in the rain under an umbrella, with whispered check-ins—are you warm, do you want to keep going?
“Abuse takes power away. Ethical BDSM gives it back—even in surrender. Study SSC (Safe, Sane, Consensual) and RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink).”

4) Fantasy vs. reality

Fantasy is a laboratory—risk-free space to try on meanings. Many survivors eroticize echoes of the wound as the psyche’s way of seeking mastery. That’s not a moral failure; it’s a creative survival strategy. Keep fantasy as fantasy until you have a partner who can hold it with ethics. In the wrong hands, enactment becomes reenactment & re-traumatisation.
“Fantasies aren’t confessions of harm; they’re clues to unmet needs. Safety determines whether they heal or hurt.”

5) Undoing “you belong to me”: reclaiming the body

Ownership language can sound intoxicating when you’re starved for belonging, but “you belong to me” is theft, not love. Healthy dominance says: you belong to yourself; if you choose me, I will guard your freedom while I lead this one dance. Try an embodied reset: one hand on chest, one on belly—My body belongs to me. My desire belongs to me. No one owns me. Replace intrusive claims with You are free. You choose only if it feels safe.
Metaphors help the body believe: abuse is a thief stealing your keys; safe dominance is a dance partner who steadies you when the music stops. Abuse is a cliff; safe dominance is a guided climb with a harness and constant checks. Abuse is a storm; safe power is summer rain you can step out of anytime.
“You never belong to another person. In ethical play, the “dominant” only borrows power you freely lend—and only while consent remains.”

6) Pacing the urge: the burn-wound rule

After a breakup or boundary, your system may rush to find a “safer high.” That rush is the body trying to recreate familiar chemistry. Touch fire too soon and you’ll reopen the burn. Learn warmth first: slow breath, grounded touch, clean nourishment, kind company. Desire isn’t the enemy; the pace is. Fantasy can be healing; acting it out with someone unsafe repeats the wound. Know your triggers.
“If you feel frantic, slow down. What heals is warmth with safe hands, not fire with old patterns.”

7) Music as intoxication: second-hand feelings

Songs are beautiful, and like alcohol, they’re designed to intoxicate. We borrow someone else’s ache or obsession, then pour it over our own love story. Lyrics can glorify possession (“you belong to me”), normalize jealousy, or romanticize cruelty. Rhythm can drown out your body’s own tempo. Music can heal, but it can also seduce you away from your truth. Take music fasts. Compose your own rhythm—unique, imperfect, yours.
“Don’t let playlists ghost-write your love. If a lyric pushes you toward harm, turn it off and listen to your body.”

8) R-males and unprocessed boyhood; women and the digital Cold War

Many men are taught that command equals care. In the r-male loop (reactive, role-driven masculinity), control, mockery, or withdrawal get misread as strength. Harm, apology, affection, repeat—oscillation sold as passion. This isn’t adulthood; it’s unprocessed boyhood projected outward. Healthy masculinity speaks: you belong to yourself; I will honor your freedom, even if you choose me.
Women are not exempt. When direct expression feels unsafe, women can weaponize ambiguity: cryptic statuses, pointed lyrics, curated silences meant for one person to decode. It feels like justice, but it’s a digital Cold War. Pain performed replaces pain spoken. Respect withers.
“Control isn’t care, and hints aren’t honesty. Grow up together: clear speech, clean boundaries, repair in daylight.”

9) Red flags you can feel; green lights you can trust

Red flags often arrive first in the body: sudden freeze, shrinking, nausea, tunnel vision, dissociation, shame that demands compliance. In life they look like: contempt for consent, mocking your gifts, pressuring you to lie or to cross values, humiliating you “as a joke,” punishing your “no,” leveraging status or stories to hurt you, isolation, forced sex or shaming after sex, and that old refrain—you belong to me.
Green lights feel expansive: your “no” is treated as holy, curiosity about your limits, mid-scene check-ins, aftercare that is offered not bargained, humility when harm is named, equality outside scenes, and protection of your dignity—especially when no one is watching.
“Your body notices before your mind admits. Tight = pause; spacious = proceed slowly. Believe the feeling, then check the facts.”

 

10) Pain is not Punishment : Learning & Moving on

For centuries, humans have been conditioned to believe that pain—whether emotional or physical—is a form of punishment, often attributed to divine will or moral failing. Scientifically, however, pain is not retribution but a signal. It functions as the body’s messenger, alerting us to an area that requires first aid, care, and focused attention so that healing can begin. Emotional pain works much the same way: it does not mean you are being punished, but that something within you needs acknowledgement and restoration.
As children, many of us were taught to deflect or misplace the source of hurt. If we bumped into a table, caregivers might scold the table; if we tripped on a stone, the blame went to the stone; sometimes even a sibling, relative, or servant became the one to “take the fall.” These seemingly harmless gestures conditioned us to look outward for blame rather than inward for understanding. As adults, this often shows up as a tendency to externalize responsibility instead of tending to the injustice or wound itself.
This dynamic is especially visible in relationships. Ending them on a cordial note helps prevent unnecessary trauma for both yourself and the other. Ghosting or silence may seem like a quieter option, and demeaning, blaming, or making excuses may feel like a way to reclaim the injustice done to you. Yet, choosing to close a chapter respectfully, with honesty and etiquette, allows you to move forward more freely. Even if the other person does not mirror your grace, the dignity you uphold ensures that you are not burdened by unfinished pain.

11) Solo first, then shared: rewriting desire safely

Begin with sovereignty. Anchor daily: My body belongs to me. My desire belongs to me. No one owns me. Explore pleasure at your pace—my hand, my touch, my rhythm—so the nervous system learns chosen arousal. When/if you invite a partner, start light: voice, slow restraint, simple rituals. Agree on safe words (green/yellow/red), negotiate before, debrief after, and treat aftercare as sacred: water, warmth, reassurance, reflection. Outside the bedroom? Equality, always.
“Learn your yes in your own hands. If you share it, share it slowly—with ethics wrapped around it like silk.”

12) Somatic safety: the body as compass

When arousal spikes, ask: do I feel expansive (safe, open) or contracted (small, afraid)? Practice orienting (name five things you see, three you hear, one you feel), pendulation (move attention between a tense place and a neutral place), and long exhales (in 4, out 8) to down-shift. Gentle acupressure can help:
PC-6 (Neiguan): inner forearm, 3 finger-widths from wrist crease—eases panic.
HT-7 (Shenmen): wrist crease under the pinky—settles agitation.
Yintang (third eye): between the brows—quiets racing thoughts.
CV-17 (center chest): softens constriction.
KD-1 (sole of foot): grounds scattered energy.
(Stop if uncomfortable; avoid LI-4 in pregnancy.)
“If your body says “too much,” it’s gospel. Slow down, ground, or stop. Safety first, story later.”

13) One-minute ritual + 24-hour craving plan

One minute, anytime: feet on floor; in 4, out 8 (×5 breaths). Press PC-6 lightly while repeating: I am safe enough now. Look around: five sights, three sounds, one sensation. Close with: My body belongs to me. My desire belongs to me. No one owns me.
When the high calls (next 24 hours): hydrate and walk; write an unsent letter to “The High” (what it promises vs. what it costs); switch to instrumental music only; text one safe friend; list three non-negotiables required before any contact or play.
“Have a plan before the craving knocks. Good rituals make good choices easier.”

14) Therapy doors that actually open

IFS (Internal Family Systems): Let the Intensifier (who wants the high), the Protector (who wants safety), and the Child (who remembers helplessness) all speak. No part is the enemy; trauma is.
CBT (Cognitive-Behavioral): Map Trigger → Thought → Feeling → Urge → Action → Outcome. Replace “intensity = love” with “consistency = love; intensity = arousal.”
Narrative therapy: Name the antagonist (“The Storm,” “The Script”). Rewrite scenes where consent and care lead.
Expressive arts: Draw the two voices; build a small altar of consent; craft a pocket “permission card”: Safe word honored. Aftercare guaranteed. My choice, my pace.
Somatic therapy: Regulate first, reflect second. The thinking brain comes back online after the body feels safe.
“Insight matters, but the body votes last. Pair understanding with regulation and new, safe experiences.”

 

15) The children test: the future is watching

If you had children, would you raise them inside this love? Children don’t learn from speeches; they learn from air quality. Dominance without consent teaches fear as love. Passive-aggressive wars teach silence as intimacy. Abuse followed by affection fuses harm and tenderness into one terrible meaning. Let this question unmask illusions.
If the love you share with your partner outside the intimacy is unfit for a child to breathe, it’s unfit for your nervous system. Love that cannot nurture the future will starve the present.

16) Denial, remorse, and the only proof that counts

Most people who harm don’t want to be villains; they either go into denial or assume the role of villains only to silence their conscience as the guilt, shame & accountability become overwhelming; many are replaying what was done to them. Some re-enact what content they consume out of curiosity without understanding the repercussions of their actions on others as they haven't built in self-awareness & cannot hold someone else's experiences. However, Compassion only explains the why—it does not excuse what.
The line is bright: no remorse, no change; real remorse, real change. Respect for “no,” direct accountability, behavior that evolves—these are proof. Words without change are performance. When words don't match action, always bring in caution. Ensure you too walk the talk & honour the dynamics.
Apologies are auditions. The role is earned by action.

17) Education & reading that anchor the work

Bessel van der Kolk — The Body Keeps the Score (trauma is an imprint on the body; healing must be embodied).

Judith Herman — Trauma and Recovery (a clear map of safety, remembrance, and reconnection).

Esther Perel — Mating in Captivity (desire, autonomy, and closeness in long-term bonds).

SSC and RACK (the practical ethics of BDSM). Read them as vows, not trivia.

“Let knowledge be railings, not rules you hide behind. Ethics are love’s exoskeleton.”

18) From “belonging” to “choosing”: a vow for grown love

Strip away the movie myths, the lyric highs, and the performative stories, and love gets quieter and stronger. It stops claiming ownership and starts practicing care. It trades fireworks for warmth, possession for freedom, chaos for steady breath. In ethical BDSM, power is borrowed, not stolen; surrender is chosen, not coerced; both partners emerge more themselves, not less.
““I will not harm you for my high. I will not hide behind silence or songs. I will not confuse pain with passion.””

 

The Spiral of Unprocessed Pain

When emotional pain is left unattended, it often manifests not only in the mind but in the body. People may feel tightness in the chest, disturbed sleep, unsettling dreams, chronic fatigue, or somatic tension. Psychologically, this can take the form of intrusive thoughts, repetitive thought loops, negative self-talk, and a darkened outlook on the world. These cycles often deepen into loss of faith, loss of purpose, and a lingering sense of victimhood, leaving one disconnected from meaning.

 At the heart of this is grief. Pain is not only about the present moment—it carries the echoes of past cycles of hurt, the sharp sting of present wounds, and the imagined future that will never be. Left unprocessed, this grief reinforces cognitive distortions such as catastrophizing or black-and-white thinking, and may even intensify through vicarious trauma, where others’ suffering compounds our own.

 The temptation, then, is to escape: to drown oneself in work, substances, distractions, or the chase of another high. But these are only detours that delay healing. True recovery requires learning to sit with what at first feels uncomfortable—the ordinary rhythm of stability and the seeming dullness of normalcy. Anchoring in this quiet ground is not resignation; it is the soil in which resilience grows.

 The path forward lies in gentle awareness, reframing, and anchoring practices—whether through grounding exercises, mindful routines, journaling, or compassionate self-talk. Rather than erasing pain, these practices allow it to be held, understood, and integrated, so life can be rebuilt not on avoidance, but on steadiness and truth.

Closing: Humility & Humanity—the heart that keeps love human

No one makes it through childhood unscathed. No couple avoids conflict. But intimacy begins where humility begins: I can be wrong; I can learn; I can change; I will respect your no. If the love you are living would be safe for a child to grow inside, keep tending it. If it would not, change the air. Not tomorrow, not after the next high—now.
“You belong to you. Your desire belongs to you. No one owns you. When you choose, choose from safety—and let the future be proud of the love you built.”

Resources

Daily Self-Regulation
Movement: 10–15 minutes of light exercise, yoga, or stretching.

Breath: Practice paced breathing (inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 6).

Nature: Spend at least 10 minutes outside in natural light daily.

Recommended Books
The Body Keeps the Score – Bessel van der Kolk (trauma-body connection)

Feeling Good – David D. Burns (CBT tools for depression)

Lost Connections – Johann Hari (social & emotional roots of depression)

Digital Tools
Insight Timer / Calm – guided meditation & relaxation.

MoodMission – CBT-based coping exercises.

Daylio / Moodfit – mood tracking apps.

Professional & Crisis Support
Therapies: Trauma-focused CBT, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, IFS.