As gamers, we grind for hours to master games and conquer environments rife with traps and enemies. But the same mental toughness enabling us to beat bios on insane mode can work against us in relationships. When childhood trauma has rewired our nervous systems for survival, seeing red flags in partners becomes much harder.
Complex PTSD hijacks the brain’s health bars, turning even romantic interest boss battles into struggles instead of co-op play. Luckily, there are cheat codes and power-ups we can unlock by healing past wounds. Equipped for healthier dynamics, we can avoid bad endings and progress to deeper intimacies.
Trauma Impacts the Brain’s Operating System
Childhood trauma doesn’t just dent armor, it gets down into the CPU and recodes instincts. Stress hormones and neural adaptations for extreme vigilance help endure awful “main quests”. But even when safely leveled up, the brain stays glitched in crisis mode, senses overloaded scanning for enemies.
- Emotional Dysregulation – Like burst damage slamming health to zero then instantly full, unfamiliar “safeties” trigger intense emote spam.
- Avoidance – Newbie zones feel safer than journeying with randoms who may ninja loot or gank at any time.
- Insecurity – Debuffed self-esteem quest log fills with repeatables seeking external buffs and rare mount drops to feed the void.
Our laggy trauma-coded OS crashes regularly trying to process healthy connections, stuck in a loop seeking attachments to those least available.
Common PvP Red Flags
Foes disguising themselves as allies are classic video game tropes. While most gamers easily spot patterns in programmed baddies, our glitched trauma brains can miss IRL red flags like:
- AFK Unreliability – Chronicles missing, idle, then hyperfocused grinding at random.
- Negging Crits – Chip damage comments that lower confidence stats.
- Loot Hoarding – Greedily amassing wealth/resources without fairly distributing.
- Alt Accounts – Present false persona then switch randomly to main toxic behavior.
- Camping – Spawn trap by staying unhealthily enmeshed without personal growth quests.
- Cheese Strats – Exploit psychological vulnerabilities instead of ethical play.
A well-honed eye for observing patterns makes gamers masters at picking up on red flags… in games. But our risk-assessing skills don’t transfer IRL if unhealed trauma keeps inviting PVPer’s to stay in our lane.
Healing Past Raids Before Future Duos
Gamers grind endless raids seeking epic loot to fill empty bars. But romance chloroforms rather than satiates trauma’s void. Finding wholesome partnerships relies first on fixing glitched coding driving unhealthy attractions.
Retraining our neural pathways means running repair tools like:
- Somatic Therapy – Getting familiar with our own HUD interface and meters again.
- Inner Child Questlines – Reliving past raids from a healthier perspective.
- Mindfulness Minigames – Training mental fortitude through meditation matches.
- Establishing Boundaries – Determining appropriate physic distances from others.
With time and intention, we can debug dysfunctional relationship subroutines so healthier connections naturally level up. But we must reroll previous encounters thatsabotaged our chance at genuine intimacies rather than rage quitting relationships indefinitely without addressing why we keeps selecting poor partners.
"There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." – Carl Jung
Warning Signs that Trigger Trauma Responses
Those who endured highly lethal early environments adapted by staying hypervigilant for threats and anomalies to feel safe. But false positives still plague trauma survivors identifying hazards IRL, especially in intimacy.
- Bidirectional Friendly Fire – Inconsistent chron friendly then enemy behavior.
- Mana Leeching – Emotionally draining conduct without reciprocal recharge efforts.
- Stealth Disabling – Using psychological dampeners to weakize boundaries.
- Crowd Control – Coercing others choices through imposed will (fear, doubt, guilt, shame).
- Combat Logging – Unexpectedly vanishing when emotional damage seems imminent.
- Ghost Kiting – Briefly entering then fleeing space upon contact.
Those healing CPTSD must run updated threat detection packs when engaging in relationships to avoid false negative assessments. Suiting up with secure attachment armor allows discernment of partners true natures by watching what loot they share over time rather than relying on their early game chatting.
Relationship RESPAWN Goals
Gamers appreciate opponents that challenge us to advance our skills. While trauma draws us to unevenly matched cronies, true intimates act as cooperative trainers pushing us higher. Healthy relationship goals include:
- Positive Team Chat – Communicates encouragement not just criticism.
- Balanced Synergy – Complements our play style instead of competing.
- Good Sportsmanship – Celebrates our achievements without envy.
- Strategic Support – Offers feedback to help counter weaknesses.
- Shared Resources – Reciprocates emotional and physical nourishment.
- Non-Toxic Culture – Creates a harassment free safe space to be vulnerable.
All players deserve connections fostering positive growth. But those still operating on a trauma-coded OS require additional protective measures while learning to trust again.
Protective Relationship Hacks
BTPS survivors often believe we must sacrifice boundaries in exchange for connection. Until we uninstall malware mindsets left from harmful human encounters, extra precautions can prevent retriggering.
- Party with friends first. Vet potentials slowly before choosing mains.
- Check reviews before contacting randoms. Look for red flags in their past raids.
- Block and report toxic behavior immediately. Don’t team up hoping to “fix” them.
- Don’t join new guilds when low level. Grind XP through self-care to avoid carry leeching.
- Test mods thoroughly before full integration. Don’t let your glitched brain “pay-to-win”.
"You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight." – Jim Rohn
Healing complex trauma takes time like mastering meta builds. But with the right tools and perspective shifts, we can debug disordered attachment programs so our damaged party member stops fleeing from or fixating on those who can never fill our empty health bars. Then perhaps we may discover true communion exists – if only we risks lowering walls that once protected us but now only isolate us.