Why Can’t I Feel Loved? A Trauma Therapist in Atlanta Explains
You know, intellectually, that the people in your life love you. They say it. They show it. And yet, deep down, you don’t feel it—not in a way that brings comfort or reassurance. Instead, love feels distant, like something you can see but not touch. You may wonder: What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just believe it and let it in?
If this resonates with you, know that you’re not alone. As a trauma therapist in Atlanta, I’ve worked with many people who struggle to feel love, even when it surrounds them. It’s not because you’re ungrateful or broken. It’s because past experiences—especially trauma and attachment wounds—can make it difficult for love to land in your heart. Understanding why this happens can be the first step toward changing it.
Why is it Difficult for me to Feel Loved: The Hidden Barriers
Sometimes, the inability to feel love has nothing to do with the people loving us and everything to do with our past. When early experiences teach us that love is conditional, unreliable, or even dangerous, our nervous system adapts to protect us—often in ways we don’t consciously realize.
Early Attachment Wounds
Our first experiences with love shape how we receive it later in life. If, as children, we experienced inconsistent affection, emotional neglect, or had to earn love by being “good,” our nervous system learned that love isn’t a safe given—it’s something uncertain. Even if we had loving caregivers, but they struggled to attune to our emotional needs, we might have developed a deep sense of being unseen or misunderstood. As adults, this can make love feel foreign, like something happening near us but not for us.
Protective Emotional Walls
Love requires vulnerability. If you’ve been hurt—whether through childhood wounds, betrayal, or loss—your nervous system may have built protective walls to keep you safe. These walls might look like independence, emotional detachment, or a habit of dismissing loving gestures (“They don’t really mean it” or “They’re just saying that”). While these defenses once helped protect you from pain, they can now block you from fully receiving love.
Negative Core Beliefs
Love doesn’t just come from the outside—it has to be felt on the inside. If you carry deep-seated beliefs like I’m not lovable or People always leave, your brain will filter love through these narratives, making it nearly impossible to absorb. You might logically know someone loves you, but your emotional system doesn’t believe it.
How Trauma Disrupts Your Ability to Feel Love
Trauma—especially relational trauma—can deeply impact the way we experience love. When our nervous system is wired for survival, it deprioritizes emotional connection, making love hard to feel even when it’s there.
Survival Mode vs. Connection Mode
If you’ve experienced trauma, your body may be stuck in survival mode. Hypervigilance, emotional numbing, or a constant feeling of unease can make it hard to relax into love. Your nervous system is too busy scanning for danger to fully receive affection. Love requires a sense of safety, but trauma often tells your body that safety isn’t guaranteed.
Hyper-Independence & Avoidance
If relying on others felt risky in the past—whether due to neglect, abandonment, or betrayal—you may have learned to rely only on yourself. Hyper-independence can feel like strength, but it often comes at a cost: keeping others at arm’s length, even when they care deeply for you. Love can feel suffocating, suspicious, or even like a trap when your nervous system equates closeness with potential pain.
Fear of Vulnerability
Letting love in means letting people see you—the real you. If past experiences have taught you that being fully seen led to rejection, criticism, or pain, you may unconsciously avoid emotional intimacy. Even in loving relationships, you might feel disconnected, unsure how to bridge the gap between knowing you are loved and actually feeling it.
Rebuilding Your Capacity to Feel Love
The good news? This isn’t a permanent state. The ability to feel love is not something you either have or don’t—it’s something that can be relearned. Healing starts with awareness and intentional steps toward shifting how you relate to love.
Healing Through Awareness
The first step is recognizing the barriers you’ve built—not with blame, but with understanding. When you notice yourself dismissing love, assuming it won’t last, or struggling to believe it, pause and ask: What part of me feels unsafe receiving this? Where did I learn that love wasn’t trustworthy? Awareness alone won’t change things overnight, but it’s a powerful start.
Regulating Your Nervous System
Since trauma keeps the nervous system on high alert, body-based approaches—like breathwork, grounding exercises, or therapy—can help shift you out of survival mode. Practices that encourage safety and connection in your body make it easier to feel safe in relationships, too.
Practicing Receptivity
Feeling love is a skill, and skills are built through practice. Try small, intentional steps:
Let a compliment land. Instead of brushing it off, pause and absorb it.
Allow physical affection. If safe and comfortable, notice how your body responds to a hug or a hand on your shoulder.
Express gratitude. Even if you struggle to feel love, acknowledging it can help bridge the gap.
Journal about moments of connection. Writing down when someone shows you care can help train your brain to recognize love more easily.
Therapy as a Safe Space
Sometimes, we need guidance in untangling our past wounds. Trauma therapy, especially approaches that focus on attachment and nervous system regulation, can help rewire the way you experience love. Therapy provides a safe, consistent space to explore your barriers to love and practice receiving care without fear.
Struggling to feel love isn’t a sign that something is wrong with you—it’s a sign that something happened to you. The good news is, just as our past shaped our struggles, our present can shape our healing. Love isn’t just something to understand—it’s something to experience, and you can learn to experience it fully.
If you’re ready to explore this journey, I’m here to help. Therapy can be a powerful space to reconnect with yourself and rediscover your ability to feel the love that has always been there, waiting for you to receive it.
Kristy Brewer is a therapist in Atlanta offering online therapy in Georgia helping people find peace amidst the chaos. Her specialties include trauma therapy, attachment therapy for trauma within toxic relationships, anxiety therapy, depression therapy, and parents raising a traumatized child.
Request a free 15-minute phone consultation today by clicking here.
