Where trauma disguises lust as love
How old wounds shape desire
Introduction: the core of confusion
When desire and love come together in safe conditions, a natural interplay arises between physical attraction and emotional presence. But in relationships marked by trauma, attachment insecurity or inner emptiness, these two phenomena become entangled. What is in essence a response of the nervous system is interpreted as evidence of connection. And what is becomes less important than what is hoped for. This gives rise to a form of confusion that is not superficial, but deeply rooted in the body and the psychological system.
At the heart of this confusion lies the way the body responds to tension. The nervous system does not distinguish between a relationship that is healthy and one that is intense. Tension, in the form of uncertainty, longing, idealization or rejection, activates powerful neurobiological systems. Dopamine responses increase, cortisol production rises and the body experiences a mix of arousal and anxiety that can easily be interpreted as attraction. Within such dynamics, closeness feels urgent, while safety is absent.
Attachment psychology shows that people with a background of inconsistent care are often particularly sensitive to this confusion. Unpredictability is experienced as a signal of meaning, because it mirrors earlier experiences. The body recognizes tension as familiar and therefore as important, even when it's in reality harmful. As a result, a relationship that is unsafe or dysregulating can still feel as though there is a deep emotional bond. Not because the relationship is healthy, but because the system is responding from old patterns.
Trauma adds another layer to this. When someone has grown up with emotional absence, neglect or fragmentation, an inner longing develops that is not only directed toward love, but toward the repair of an early deficit. In adult relationships, this deficit is easily projected onto people who are themselves unavailable. The intensity of the longing is then mistaken for love, while in essence it's an attempt to heal an old wound through someone who cannot provide that healing.
In my own experience, this confusion became visible in a relationship in which physical attraction and emotional insecurity converged. The intensity of the beginning felt meaningful, but that intensity was primarily a response to tension, not to mutual love. Moments of attraction coincided with moments of dysregulation, and it was precisely this combination that reinforced the illusion that the relationship was special. I interpreted my desire as connection, while it was largely a response to the feeling that I had to chase something that remained just out of reach.
This second essay within the theme Lust or Love explores that dynamic: how trauma, attachment patterns and neurobiological processes can distort desire into something that resembles love, but is not. Not to disqualify desire, but to clarify what happens when tension plays a greater role than reciprocity. The aim is explicit: to understand why relationships that hurt us can sometimes feel the most convincing. And why real love ultimately carries a very different tone than intensity that arises from trauma.
Attachment insecurity and the body that keeps hoping
Attachment forms the blueprint for how we desire, connect and lose. What we learned in childhood about closeness and safety later determines how our body responds when we encounter someone who activates something within us. In secure relationships, this process unfolds relatively steadily: the body opens gradually, the nervous system remains regulated and desire is held by trust. But when attachment has been insecure, desire takes on a different charge. It becomes driven by hope, longing, anticipation and fear, often all at once.
People with an anxious attachment style experience closeness as something that can disappear at any moment. Because love in the past was unpredictable, adult desire is easily colored by the fear of being abandoned again. The body responds with an intense focus on the other, as if that closeness is necessary to maintain inner stability. Desire is then not nourished by reciprocity, but by the need to obtain certainty where it was never guaranteed.
With an avoidant attachment style, almost the opposite happens, yet the confusion returns just as strongly. Avoidantly attached individuals maintain emotional distance as a form of self-protection, while at the same time they can respond strongly to external validation and desire. Sexual attention or flirtatious tension can become a way to feel involved without truly opening up. The other then becomes a means of maintaining control rather than a partner to connect with.
What connects these two attachment patterns is that they attract one another in relationships where lust is mistaken for love. The anxiously attached partner becomes preoccupied with the fluctuation between closeness and distance; every form of attention feels like a sign of meaning. The avoidantly attached partner, in turn, feels affirmed by the longing of the other, without it leading to real intimacy. Both systems reinforce each other: one seeks closeness, the other sustains tension, and the body confuses this dynamic with love.
In my own process, it became clear how strongly the body holds on to what is familiar, even when it causes pain. The longing I felt in an unsafe relationship was not evidence of love, but an echo of old structures. The body kept hoping that closeness could be restored, that absence would be filled, that unpredictability would turn into safety. That hope felt intense and real, yet it did not arise from mutual love. It was an attachment response clinging to the illusion of change.
Polyvagal theory helps to further understand this. The nervous system continuously scans for signals of safety or danger. In unsafe relationships, this system becomes dysregulated: there is just enough closeness to activate a sense of connection, but too little consistency to bring the system to rest. As a result, the body remains in a state of heightened alertness. That alertness is then interpreted as attraction, while in reality it is a biological survival response.
Attachment insecurity therefore does not only make desire stronger; it also makes desire less reliable. The body keeps hoping, reaches out again and tries to gain a sense of control over a dynamic that is fundamentally unsafe. Love is then not experienced as calm, but as tension. And it is precisely that tension that makes it difficult to see that what feels intense is not the same as what is good.
Trauma responses that distort desire
Trauma does not only affect how we think and feel, but also how we desire. The nervous system does not respond neutrally to closeness when someone has been shaped by early childhood insecurity or later relational trauma. Instead of calm and openness, closeness may evoke tension or confusion. The body is constantly trying to assess: Is this safe? Should I run? Should I stay? Should I adapt? This underlying tension distorts the way desire is experienced.
Within polyvagal theory, this mechanism becomes visible. The autonomic nervous system consists of different responses: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. In intimate relationships, the fawn response is often most apparent: a tendency to please, to soothe, to adapt or to lose oneself in the other. Paradoxically, this response can be experienced as attraction. The tension it generates feels intense and directed and is therefore easily mistaken for chemistry or passion.
Another trauma response that shapes desire is dissociation. Dissociation arises when the nervous system becomes overwhelmed and temporarily loses connection with feelings and the body. In intimate situations, this can lead to a form of closeness that is physical, but emotionally empty. Sexuality then feels alienating: the body participates, but the inner world remains closed off. This creates a dynamic in which lust is experienced as an escape, rather than as an encounter.
When someone who is prone to dissociation enters into a relationship with someone who seeks excitement and validation, a hopeless cycle can emerge. One seeks intensity to numb inner emptiness, while the other adapts to avoid conflict. The desire that arises between them has little to do with love and much to do with dysregulation. The body responds to tension, fear and unpredictability, not to reciprocity or safety.
In my own experience, I noticed how my body sometimes responded to stimuli that, in retrospect, had nothing to do with love. Uncertainty made my longing intensify, as if the relationship depended on my attention. Periods of distance or emotional unavailability activated old patterns of striving and hoping. It felt like attraction, but in reality it was a repetition of old trauma responses: an attempt to gain control over something that was never truly available.
Trauma causes the body to read tension as meaning. If someone had to learn to survive in unpredictable environments, the nervous system begins to confuse unrest with connection. Intensity is then interpreted as depth, while it is merely a response of a system that fears being abandoned or rejected again. As a result, one continues to invest in relationships that are not nourishing, in the hope that the dynamic will eventually shift into stability.
Understanding these trauma responses is essential in order to place desire in its proper context. Desire that arises from trauma is not less real, but it carries a different structure. It seeks the repair of something old, not the construction of something new. It reaches toward someone not because that person is safe, but because they activate a pattern that feels familiar.
When this dynamic is recognized, space emerges to reinterpret desire. Instead of a signal of love, it can be seen as an invitation to self-inquiry: Which old movement is being activated here? What is my body actually responding to? And what do I need in order not to remain trapped in this repetition? These questions form the first step in restoring the relationship between desire and truth.
Intermittent reinforcement: the neurobiology of addiction to the other
In relationships characterized by fluctuating closeness and distance, a dynamic emerges that profoundly affects the nervous system. Unpredictability is one of the most powerful triggers for dopamine, the neurotransmitter system associated with anticipation and reward. When someone displays inconsistent behavior — warmth followed by coldness, attention followed by silence — the body responds with heightened alertness. This alertness is then experienced as attraction. As a result, the relationship becomes not only psychologically, but also biologically addictive.
This mechanism, known as intermittent reinforcement, has been extensively studied in behavioral psychology. The principle is simple: a reward that is given only sometimes creates much stronger conditioning than one that is consistently present. In intimate relationships, this means that moments of distance actually strengthen the bond, because the body intensifies its search for the next sign of validation. Love is then not built on safety, but on unrest.
The neurobiology of this dynamic reveals how deeply it operates. The alternation between reward and deprivation activates both dopamine and cortisol. Dopamine generates desire and anticipation; cortisol increases stress and tension. Together, they produce an emotional state that feels intense, yet is easily mistaken for passion. The body becomes dependent on the cycle of arousal and relief, even when that cycle is psychologically harmful.
In relationships where lust is used as a form of validation, this dynamic can be amplified even further. Periods of distance followed by sudden physical closeness create a pattern that the nervous system interprets as meaningful. Physical proximity then feels liberating, not because it is grounded in love, but because it temporarily suppresses the stress response activated by the preceding distance. The body experiences relief and that relief is interpreted as connection.
In my own experience, I noticed how powerful this cycle was. Moments of distance intensified my longing for closeness. When that closeness did return, it felt as though something essential had been restored. But what was restored was not love; it was the stress balance of my own body. The reward felt significant because the deprivation had been painful. The intensity of the longing was, in fact, a response to dysregulation.
This pattern is all the more confusing because it subjectively feels like depth. The tension feels as though something meaningful is happening between two people, while in reality it is largely driven by neurobiological responses to inconsistency. Passion then becomes a byproduct of unsafety. This is what makes intermittent reinforcement so dangerous: it makes relationships appear special precisely because they are unpredictable and unstable.
Recognizing this dynamic is an important step toward liberation. When you understand that the body is responding to fluctuations in closeness, it becomes clear why certain relationships are so difficult to let go of. It is not the other who is so unique, but the pattern that operates with such intensity. The addiction is not to the person, but to the cycle.
Clarity emerges when this pattern is seen for what it is: a neurobiological response, not a sign of love. The relationship feels intense because the nervous system is dysregulated, not because there is emotional reciprocity. Insight into this dynamic breaks the illusion that unpredictability equals depth. It creates space for relationships in which closeness does not depend on tension, but on stability, and in which love is not a rollercoaster, but a calm and grounded presence.
The role of emptiness and self-fragmentation in lust without love
Relationships in which lust is used as validation rather than as an expression of connection are often rooted in a deeper psychological deficit. When someone does not possess a stable sense of self, a form of inner emptiness emerges that constantly seeks external stimuli. Lust, attention, and desire then cease to be a free exchange between two people and instead become ways to stabilize a fragmented inner world. In such a dynamic, the other is not granted subject status, but functions as a mirror in which a sense of existence is sought.
Within object relations theory, this phenomenon is extensively described. Kernberg argues that individuals with a poorly integrated self have limited access to enduring, reciprocal love. Instead, the other is used as a regulatory mechanism: as a source of idealization, excitement, power or admiration. Sexual attention, flirtatious behavior or a constant need for validation then serve as temporary solutions to a deeper underlying emptiness. The other does not become a partner, but a container for disordered inner processes.
This dynamic directly affects the quality of intimacy. When someone primarily seeks stimuli that soothe a sense of emptiness, sexuality becomes disconnected from emotional presence. Physical closeness may be intense, but the self remains closed. The touch is real, but the encounter is not. The partner feels the tension, the excitement and the hunger, but not the reciprocity. This creates a form of intimacy that appears powerful on the surface, yet is existentially hollow.
In my own experience, this became painfully clear. There were moments in which physical attention was abundant, while emotional presence remained absent. Beneath the intensity, there was no genuine seeing or recognition. The attraction felt strong, but the emptiness in the other was stronger still. The body was used as a means of obtaining validation, yet the relationship offered no inner grounding. That combination of intense physical closeness with little emotional depth completed the confusion. It felt as though I was present in a relationship that existed only on the surface.
The philosophy of Buber helps to clarify this. He distinguishes between I–Thou relationships, in which two people meet each other as whole beings and I–It relationships, in which the other is used as a means to an end. Lust without love almost always belongs to the latter domain. There is interaction, but no encounter. The other is reduced to a function: someone who relieves tension, provides admiration or offers temporary existential relief.
The partner who is emotionally available is thereby placed in a vulnerable position. The intensity of the physical relationship can create the illusion of connection. Yet each time emotional contact is sought, one is met with emptiness. This creates a cycle of longing, hope, and disappointment. The body continues to respond to the intensity, while the heart repeatedly experiences that nothing is returned.
This dynamic makes clear why lust without inner presence can never be sustainable. The body may be touched, but the self remains alone. The relationship does not revolve around reciprocity, but around regulation. The intensity conceals the emptiness, but does not heal it. For the one who loves, this means that desire is continuously confused with resilience: one tries to reach the other, to fill, to heal, something that is inherently impossible when the other cannot meet themselves.
Recognizing this emptiness is confronting, yet also liberating. It reveals that the desire itself was not misguided, but the place where it was directed. Lust without love is not connection, but a circular movement of someone seeking validation that will never be enough. Only when this becomes visible does space emerge to choose relationships in which the self is not used, but truly seen.
The personal case: longing, confusio and the soulless dynamic
In my own relationship, the confusion between lust and love did not emerge as a theoretical insight, but in concrete moments where body, psyche, and relational pattern intersected. What initially felt like strong attraction gradually unfolded into a dynamic in which longing, hope, and dysregulation became intertwined. The intensity of the physical contact masked the absence of emotional depth and it was precisely this combination that made the relationship deceptively powerful.
One of the most defining elements was the inconsistency. Periods of warmth, physical closeness and intimacy alternated with moments of distance, coldness or emotional absence. These fluctuations repeatedly activated a deep longing within me. The body responded to moments of closeness as if there were genuine connection, yet that response was largely a discharge of stress that had built up through prior distance or coldness. The relief felt like intimacy, while in reality it was a neurobiological reset.
There were also moments in which sexuality was engaged in without inner involvement. The physical acts were present, but the emotional tone remained flat. The touch was there, but the encounter was not. Beneath the desire, there seemed to be no reciprocity, but rather a need for validation and a sense of existence. The other appeared primarily to be seeking regulation; the feeling of being desired, admired, seen. The gaze did not seek depth, but response. As a result, the closeness often felt soulless: a body making contact without a heart resonating within it.
A crucial insight emerged in situations where sexual encounters outside the relationship were described in a flat, almost casual manner. It was not the act itself, but the way it was narrated that revealed how sexuality was being used as validation. The tone was cool, rational, detached. There was no reflection, no empathy, no sense of its impact. This absence of inner movement made it clear that lust was not intertwined with love, but with emptiness. It was a strategy to feel real, not a sign of connection.
For me, this created a profound sense of confusion. My body continued to respond to the intensity, while my emotional world remained unacknowledged. I longed for connection, yet was confronted with a dynamic that revolved primarily around the needs of the other. Moments of intimacy felt like a reward after deprivation, leading me to interpret them as meaningful. Only later did I see that the meaning resided in my interpretation, not in the reality of the relationship.
This case illustrates how easily lust and love become confused within a context of trauma, dysregulation, and inner emptiness. The intensity of the beginning, the fluctuations in closeness, the soulless sexuality, and the absence of emotional presence together form a pattern that feels familiar to the body and is therefore powerfully compelling. Yet that intensity is not a sign of depth. It is a response to tension, not to reciprocity.
Recognizing this dynamic was a painful, yet liberating process. It made clear that my desire itself was not misguided, but that it was activated by a relationship that offered no inner safety. The insight that lust without inner presence does not constitute love was essential in freeing myself from a pattern rooted more in old pain than in genuine connection. It is this insight that forms the foundation for healing, and for a different kind of desire than once seemed possible.
How the nervous system heals: from longing to clarity
When a relationship is dominated by tension, unpredictability and emotional absence, the nervous system becomes chronically activated. The body then exists in a state of searching, hoping, anticipating and repeatedly trying to gain control over something that has no grounding. Longing feels like love, because the system has become dependent on it. Yet healing begins precisely here: with the realization that what feels intense is not always true or safe and that calm is a more reliable indicator of love than excitement.
The nervous system needs time to recover. When the source of unsafety disappears, the body does not immediately return to balance. On the contrary, there is often an initial period of dysregulation. A system that has become accustomed to tension does not immediately know what to do with stillness. The absence of drama is interpreted as emptiness, even when relief is simultaneously present. This transitional phase can be confusing, because the body continues to search for stimuli that were once experienced as meaningful.
Gradually, this begins to change. As the constant state of alertness subsides, the nervous system is given the opportunity to return to regulation. Polyvagal theory describes this recovery process as a shift from hyperactivation (the sympathetic system) to a more regulated state of connection (the ventral vagal state). In that state, space emerges for clarity, calm and reflection. What once felt intense becomes visible as dysregulation. What once seemed meaningful is recognized as tension. This shift marks an important psychological break from the past.
In my own process, this became clear when I first noticed that the absence of tension no longer felt like emptiness, but like relief. The relationship had conditioned my system so strongly toward unrest that silence initially felt unfamiliar. But over time, the pattern began to change. My body no longer needed to scan for signs of rejection. There was no unpredictability left to anticipate. The longing diminished, not because desire disappeared, but because the source of dysregulation was no longer present.
This is the point at which real processing begins. Neurobiology offers a valuable insight here: when the stressor is removed, the brain is able to form new connections. Patterns that once felt inevitable — striving, hoping, adapting, reaching — can be replaced by patterns of calm, self-regulation, and boundaries. The nervous system relearns what safety means. For the first time in a long while, an internal space emerges in which desire is no longer automatically linked to tension.
Healing does not mean that desire disappears, but that it returns to its proper place. Desire is no longer a survival response, but a conscious movement. It does not arise from the fear of abandonment, but from an openness to connection. The body is no longer driven by old deficits, but by what genuinely feels right in the present. This is the shift from longing to clarity: desire may remain, but it no longer carries the weight of trauma.
This chapter thus forms the bridge to the conclusion of this essay. When the nervous system comes to rest, it becomes clear what love truly asks: not tension, but stability. Not pursuit, but presence. Not the filling of emptiness, but reciprocity. It is this shift that makes it possible to understand lust and love anew, and to choose relationships that do not arise from dysregulation, but from mature connection.
Conclusion: why love never hurts, but trauma does
The confusion between lust and love does not arise because people are naïve, but because the nervous system and the psyche are shaped by experiences that precede the relationship itself. When someone has grown up with unpredictability, emptiness or emotional absence, tension feels familiar. The body responds more strongly to dynamics that hurt than to those that are safe. As a result, an unsafe relationship can feel intense, while a safe relationship may initially seem flat. Intensity is then mistaken for love and calm for a lack of meaning.
Love in itself does not hurt. What hurts are the parts within us that have not yet healed. Love does not confront those parts by reopening them, but by revealing that longing, fear and dysregulation cannot form the foundation of a relationship. In that sense, pain is not a signal of love, but of trauma being activated. A relationship that consistently evokes tension, uncertainty, or a rescuing response touches old wounds rather than creating new connection.
In this second essay, it became clear how this dynamic unfolds. Attachment insecurity leads us to desire what is familiar, not what is good for us. Trauma responses such as fawn, freeze or dissociation distort the way we experience closeness. Intermittent reinforcement makes relationships addictive through the alternation of tension and relief. And inner emptiness leads to lust being used to soothe fragmentation, while love requires inner presence.
In my own experience, this became visible in a relationship where intensity and emptiness went hand in hand. The attraction was real, but the emotional reality was absent. Physical closeness was used as validation, not as an encounter. Moments of warmth were rare enough to activate longing, yet never consistent enough to provide safety. This combination made the relationship intense, but not loving.
Healing only began when I realized that my body was responding to tension, not to connection. The longing felt deep, yet was in essence an echo of old patterns. Only when the nervous system came to rest did it become clear what love truly requires: stability, reciprocity, inner presence, and the capacity to see the other as a subject. Love is not a game of push and pull, not a search for validation or the consumption of the other. Love is a form of closeness that no one has to fight for.
The core of this essay is therefore simple, yet existential in its significance:
what hurts us is, by definition, never love; it is the repetition of old wounds.
And what heals is not the intensity of desire, but the clarity that arises when we see the dynamic for what it is.
With this insight, the essay comes to a close. It opens the way for the next essay, in which the perspective shifts from the personal and relational to the cultural context. There, the question will be explored of how our society — driven by speed, consumption, dopamine systems and constant self-presentation — contributes to a world in which lust is glorified, love is romanticized and genuine connection appears increasingly scarce.
The next essay thus becomes an extension of this insight: an analysis of a culture that sells tension and forgets depth.
