Trauma-induced reward miscalibration” means this:
When someone experiences long-term emotional neglect, inconsistency, or survival-based relationships, their brain’s reward system gets retrained.
What should feel normal—
mutual effort, consistency, shared time, emotional safety—
starts to feel boring, unfamiliar, or even suspicious.
Meanwhile, what’s actually unhealthy—
crumbs of attention, emotional distance, being valued only for usefulness, financial control, or sex without intimacy—
can register as rewarding, because it’s familiar.
So people end up:
- Accepting less than they deserve
- Confusing intensity with intimacy
- Mistaking availability only when convenient for connection
- Feeling guilty for wanting a full life shared
It’s not a character flaw.
It’s a nervous system that learned to survive, not to receive.
The recalibration happens when you start saying things like:
- “If you don’t want weekends, shared experiences, or a real life together, walk on by.”
- “I’m not interested in being useful. I’m interested in being chosen.”
That’s not “too much.”
That’s a healed reward system coming back online.
