The False Safety of Withdrawal

Growing up in environments where our parents or caregivers were volatile and unavailable can teach us that silence equals safety. When we have complex trauma (CPTSD) from childhood, it's because our earliest relationships were fundamentally unpredictable and didn't provide the nourishment, guidance, and safety we needed.

Instead of getting that safety and care from our parents, we have to learn how to self-source it for ourselves, an impossible task for a small child, but we do our best.

When emotionally immature parents center their feelings and don't know how to contain their emotions, we don't learn how to navigate our own inner intensity.

When parents have substance use or addiction issues, a mask of silence helps us pretend everything is okay and keep the family "secret."

Silence becomes a way to withdraw and stay safe, even if that "safety" means maintaining a precarious and painful status quo.

It costs us, as children, when we hide as a way to stay safe and keep the peace. It prevents us from getting the help and support we need from friends or others in our communities. It teaches us that it's not safe to share or be vulnerable and makes us susceptible to manipulative and exploitative relationships.

This is already bad enough.

But another problem with the strategy of silent withdrawal is that it massively backfires in adult relationships, keeping us at arm's length from the closeness and connection we long for to heal and thrive.

When distance is the only way we know how to create safety, closeness naturally feels risky and vulnerability codes as "unsafe."

We need to unlearn this if we want to heal from complex childhood trauma.

And although healing might feel terrifying and unknown, we all deeply long to heal.

Withdrawal is a Symptom of Complex Trauma/CPTSD

We can't enjoy healthy, happy relationships from behind a wall. We can't threaten to leave relationships anytime our emotions start to get intense. We can't retreat into numbness, shutdown, or dissociation whenever we feel activated.

Withdrawal is a type of flight, an automatic stress response that our bodies activate whenever our nervous system picks up cues that someone, something, somewhere, is potentially unsafe.

When we have complex trauma from childhood, that "unsafety" is anything that reminds us of the emotional and psychological abuse we experienced as children. It could be a sideways glance from our intimate partner, a shift in an authority figure's tone of voice, or even the smell of certain colognes that remind our bodies of the past.

The flight response happens faster than we can be consciously aware of, because the body's synapses are much faster than the mind's. We can't will ourselves not to shut down, go silent, and withdraw.

We have to work with this trauma response, not against it.

In childhood, this flight response or withdrawal was a safety play to remove ourselves from a painful situations as best we could. It was often the only strategy we could figure out on our own, as we self-parented without the support and guidance of reliable caregivers.

Now, that same withdrawal feels natural and self-justified in our adult relationships. We might fantasize about finding a new job during a conflict with a colleague, directing our anger at escape instead of resolution. We might avoid a friend who said something hurtful, questioning the future of the relationship instead of using it to initiate repair. We might dissociate when our intimate partner makes a request that we change our behavior, spiraling into shame instead of letting them know that we're feeling overwhelmed and shutdown.

What We Get Wrong about Withdrawal (with CPTSD) 

When we carry unresolved complex trauma in our bodies and nervous systems, it's easy to make meaning out of the weight of the past.

Conflict feels "unsafe" because we never get a change to practice when our primarcy strategy is retreat.

If our only move, when we feel activated, is to initiate a complex trauma strategy we learned from the past, we allow the past to continue to shape the present.

And that's usually the last thing we want. But we can feel stuck because we're not consciously going into silence and withdrawal.

We want to find another way; we just don't know how.

If we don't learn how to move beyond the false security of withdrawal, we risk sabotaging the relationships and opportunities we have worked so hard to create in our adult lives — vibrant friendships, work we love, and an intimate partner we feel committed and deeply connected to.

When we do the work to heal our withdrawal, seeing it as the complex trauma response it truly is, our relationships become places of ongoing trauma healing and real safety. We learn the skills we were never taught in childhood: how to sustain ourselves through intensity, self-advocate without collapse during healthy conflict, and reset when relationships require repair.

Healing withdrawal becomes transformational for our intimate partnerships. When we can stay present for the discomfort of misattunement and misunderstanding, new pathways to connection open up. We’re suddenly available for intimacy in a way we weren’t before. And the partner who felt abandoned and alone in the face of so much distance can finally also start to feel safe.

How to Shift Withdrawal (as a Trauma Response) in Relationships

1. Learn how you "do" withdrawal.

We all constellate our withdrawal differently. Get curious about what your withdrawal patterns look like, for you. What do you say and do? What, or who, sets you off? Notice when you find yourself creating distance between people, places, and things as a reflex. We're looking for the times you shut down or step back because you're activated by something in the external world.

2. Notice your withdrawal stance.

Now, map what withdrawal feels like internally. What do you say to yourself? What justifications arise? What kind of emotions accompany the experience — anger, rage, numbness? Do you become hyper-rational, your mind working overtime to scaffold your safety response? What physical sensations do you notice in your body? Clenching, bracing, racing pulse, darting eyes, and urgency can be one internal stance. But feeling numb, icy (especially in your hands, chest, throat, or legs), and heavy with dread is also normal. Your body is holding layers of valuable information in these thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations when you allow yourself to notice them.

3. Where did you learn this?

This withdrawal response is there for a good reason. You likely learned it in response to early childhood experiences that were painful and overwhelming. It can be helpful to see what you remember, about the origins of this strategy. Did you see someone else in your family withdraw in response to conflict? Did someone withdraw from you? Or did you withdraw during intensity, and no one stopped to help you? You don't need to dig too deeply here, just do your best to get a basic understanding of what the withdrawal was a response to, or if you saw it modelled in your home growing up.

4. Turn towards the experience of withdrawal.

Differentiate your adult, present-moment conscious awareness from the stance (thoughts, emotions, physical sensations) of your withdrawal. Do your best to stay curious about it and to turn towards it with care. Befriend it and treat it with respect for the safety it's trying its best to create for you. Start doing this when you're not activated. In the future, with practice, you'll be able to stay present with the experience when it's happening.

5. Notice the withdrawal as a trauma response and stay present with it.

When you're next activated to automatically withdraw, do your best to create enough curiosity and compassion for your inner experience that you can turn towards it. Remain the adult in the room, with all your adult resources and understanding. Offer this strategy, that has been working hard for you for so long, your presence and care. Notice how scared this part of you is, and how it's trying to create distance to keep you safe. Comfort this part of you and offer them nurture and gentle guidance. Let them know you'll be leading yourself into different choices, with new tools, and that you're the one who will be taking the lead to keep yourself safe from now on 

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These encouragements are simplified versions of the trauma healing work I do with individuals and couples in my trauma resolution practice, focused on healing complex trauma in relationships. I hope they give you a good start for ways to explore healing withdrawal. And if you're curious about what working together might look like, reach out and we'll connect about that.

No matter how much distance you've created between yourself and the people you care about, you can always learn how to make closeness and connection feel safe.