Water Cooler Trauma Bonding

Kelley, For over a year, I have liked a man that I meet everyday at work. I am separating from my husband, for reasons unrelated. I feel I need to either engage with this guy at work or somehow get him out of my head. Even if I am successful with this for a few days, I see him and I am hooked again. I know nothing about his personal life. Can you please help me regain my mind? Will I get to know him better? Anita

Thanks for your note, Anita. My sense of where you are at the moment has the greatest bearing on how you relate to this man at work. You stopped speaking your intimate needs long ago at an emotional, sexual and energetic level. This introversion has created a deficit in connecting with others and aspects of yourself. It bubbles persistently within you, irritating everything you do. Because this man has fallen into the same pattern, you feel viscerally attracted to him. Sharing that deep need to be able to speak anything you need to, to ask for any need to be filled, is the bond you share. I don’t see that this bond is karmic, realization of a shared soul group, or the markers that I generally see when people are otherwise soulfully bonded. You aren’t necessarily attracted to him, but to the similar need you feel in him. Acting on that frenetic attraction could be both fulfilling and explosive at the same time.

This attraction seems to be emotional and energetic trauma bonding. It’s possible that a healthy, sustaining connection exists under the need, but you won’t find it until the heel-nipping desperation has been quelled for both of you. If you need to explore filling those needs by pressing forward with him while both of you are under this emotional infatuation spell, that’s one way to quiet the uncontrollable urges. To keep the emotional and psychological shrapnel at bay, I’d rather suggest doing some energy and spiritual work on yourself to balance how you are reacting to this unexpressed need, and by doing so make peace with the wayward attraction to him, feel comfortable with yourself, and possibly attract someone who is also at peace with his needs.

My best to you, Anita.