Name: Why People with Trauma Struggle in Relationships
Uploaded: 2024-04-17T16:33:12.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Why People with Trauma Struggle in Relationships' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-04-17. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Why People with Trauma Struggle in Relationships' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-04-17. Transcript available.

and one of the toughest places for me too was it was relationships and it still
is you know um
it still is uh a really tough space for me it that also goes to unrealistic
expectations
you know i i don't if things get tough i'll leave yeah you know um you know i i
you know
i heard you talk about fake intimacy once do you know what i'm talking about
what were
you talking about about it i resonated with that so every child longs for
connection yeah just
built but if you can't get it you try to connect with dad but he's always too
busy mom's always
depressed or angry you can't connect so you assume it's my fault i must be
something wrong with me
but i'm still driven for connection but i don't want deep genuine connection
now because that's
always led to rejection so let's try bar room intimacy let's try fake intimacy
let's just
have fun all the time and sports pervert yes yeah pornography that sort of
thing yeah
because it gives the feelings of connection without the true intimacy yeah but
it doesn't satisfy no but
but and it sets up addiction um and that's where most people end up sadly straying
into that fake intimacy
world yeah like would you do you think it's safe to say that complex trauma
makes um having a healthy
relationship impo like like like it's got to have a huge effect yes very much
and impossible even no
makes it almost impossible for a healthy relationship yeah so everybody that i
deal with um as long as they're single
they don't think they need to work on their trauma because yeah just me i'm i'm
surviving as soon as they
get in a relationship then they start damaging the other person then they have
kids they're damaging their
kids and all of a sudden they go i gotta start working on my crap um but then
they go okay i'll just change
change this i'll change this but it's not working why is it not fixing the
relationship and it's because
you're trying to fix the symptoms you're not dealing with the root issues that
deep shame that deep lack
of trust that deep fear of intimacy and fear of abandonment and as long as
those are still there
they're going to keep getting in the way of true healthy relationships um and
so a lot of people
as long as the relationship's going along smoothly it looks pretty good but as
soon as there's the
slightest thing that triggers their fear of abandonment or triggers their shame
big explosion they go back
to old behaviors all of a sudden they're in fight flight or freeze mode they're
lashing out they're
running away and that's when all the damage happens um and after a while there's
so much baggage from all
the damage that you just can't repair it yeah yeah yeah i mean personally i
like i would yeah i've had
problems i mean certainly problems with uh not cheating in relationships i've
never i've always
i think i've cheated in every relationship i've ever been in sadly you know um
uh
let me think oh um like like would have problems with sex and stuff but if the
person was gonna leave me
then i could have it was like my body would then entertain it you know but
otherwise uh like um
yeah if it was with a stranger it was easier you know uh not a complete
stranger like somebody at a mall
or something but like um you know with somebody you you know a bar sex or
somebody like that or just
somebody you met at a service area or whatever but um yeah that kind of stuff
uh oh staying with somebody
man this is this is this staying with somebody uh
big because i didn't want them to have somebody else who would really care
about them yes
or that could care about them better than me yeah um even though i knew i was
doing a bad job yeah
man it makes me feel uh i'm not proud of that and i didn't know but some a lot
of it man i didn't
know until later you know i just couldn't see it yeah i would just think i was
bad at relationships
for a long time i would just think that um you know and i was i mean i was just
think that i was a
philandering man you know kind of deal gypsy whatever it is i don't even know
what they call
it gypsy boy or whatever and then um but yeah i was like i and i still don't
know how i'm gonna do
it like if i think about like being in a marriage a long term i don't know how
i'll could do it right
you know i mean i know for a while i resorted to pornography for a while
and uh but that lost it so you know i just learned through other 12 steps just
how negative it is for
you and so that's not a solution i mean i still date and everything but i don't
know if i when i think
about that it's like oh that feels harrowing yes but it used to be like if i
saw a family that was
functioning i was like what the is this this is the dumbest thing i've ever
seen that's where i started
at yes and that's exactly that's a real thing yeah and and to even get to the
point now where i can even
think about being in a marriage or something for me that's it's been a while
you know it's been a
it's been a it's been a ride you know because here's where i found myself i
found myself in a place
for me where i couldn't understand why i wasn't able to do certain things like
especially like with
relationships and stuff like that i kept thinking that it would change and um
and it and it just
hasn't it's gotten better things have gotten better i'm a lot more aware i don't
make a lot of the
same mistakes as i used to i don't get people into situations that i'm leading
them to believe that
there's something that you know if there isn't something you know like but i
still have just a
severe fear of a lot of it um and as you get older it's like well how the heck
i'm ever going to have
a family then you know will i ever be able to have that or should i just you
know keep to myself more
you know not in a negative way but in a positive you know it's like so i would
and i say this all the
time to people that come to our program there is hope but be prepared it takes
a lot of work and
it's not a quick fix this is going to take a lot of time um because this
started in childhood and you
don't undo that overnight but there is hope yeah i heard you talk on one of
your thanks thanks for
saying that to me and just didn't know anybody that's listening you know and i
believe that
um i believe that when i go into meetings and you see guys that like two years
ago were like
addicted to prostitutes and now they're getting married and they're having
children it's like
you see people change their lives or guys who had never even been on a date in
two years
and were just addicted to pornography and didn't even realize they were
addicted it was just a pattern
of comfort yeah i remember when i found my wiener dude when i was probably i
don't even know
once i found something that could make me feel good yep self-soothing i yeah
you could play all the uh
you could play all the madden you wanted i was like i had my own game exactly
you know what i'm saying
dude and i was two-point conversing and all the time but i was doing it it was
like that was unbelievable
to me i would bike across town to go look at pornography at my buddy's house
going and digging up pornos over
there man it was just because it was the first time i also had a relationship
with a woman even
it was just on a damn page or drawing we had to do to withdraw you some ovaries
or something for the
weekend oh thinking that my partner a woman if my girlfriend or whatever if
they did something wrong
then it was me doing it wrong yes like um yeah oh gosh if they if they're a
little off or something or
they uh do things a way that people don't like that's a reflection of me
totally yes you know
those are some symptoms that i had you know so can i talk scientifically again
100 you can talk in any
ask if you want about it so to me it's so interesting especially living in the
west is so much of our
dating and attraction in relationships is really what we've come to understand
is the limbic or the
emotion part of the brain and the chemical oxytocin which is what makes me feel
in love and so that's
released through when i see somebody pretty when i touch them when i kiss them
when i have sex all of
that releases those feel good chemicals and i feel in love i feel it's going to
last forever i feel
intimacy though it's not true intimacy it's the feeling of intimacy
so that's a great starting place for a relationship the problem is you can't
sustain
that just through sex just because you still got life you got to communicate
you gotta
learn to accept and love and respect each other but if you've never been taught
how to do that you
don't so you just keep trying to have sex keep trying to have fun but the
feelings are dying it's not
releasing the same oxytocin and so the relationship is designed to start there
but it's designed then to
move to the cortex which is the thinking part of the brain which then releases
all of the serotonin
that comes through safety through connection through acceptance wow and that's
through building a life
working through issues resolving problems really respecting trusting each other
that takes a lot of
work that takes time and most people from complex trauma are scared to death to
go there so the sex is
just or the the that that intimate connection up top is just like a fuse kind
of exactly and then the
other part is like a fire exactly yeah man i just yeah and but most try it with
complex trauma i just
think i can live up here on the fuse yeah i'm a huge monkey i'm up here yeah
and that's going to be
great it just never satisfied yeah never and then it's yeah i just and then the
second piece to me
is what comes out of complex trauma are you familiar with the term gaslighting
yeah but what does it
mean i always hear people say it but i'm just too bored or just too lazy to
look it up i think so if dad
is angry instead of him being honest and saying i'm sorry i'm having a bad day
you didn't do anything
wrong it's all on me he goes you're a bad kid it's all your fault that's gaslighting
he's twisting it
and making you believe a lie and so what happens in complex trauma is constant
gaslighting of a child
so that whenever any parent or authority is having a bad emotion the child is
made to feel it's their
responsibility to fix that emotion no it's not they can't fix their dad's anger
only dad can fix his
own anger but they're made to feel if they just did more chores if they weren't
making noise if they were
more agreeable more obedient then dad would never get angry but that always
gets angry but you keep
believing the gaslighting lie yeah so now when you go into relationships soon
as your spouse is a little
bit sad what did i do wrong oh maybe i should do something here maybe i should
do this you still
take responsibility for everybody else's emotions and that sets up
relationships to be codependent
Thank you.