251 - Attachment Blindness: Why You Miss Real Betrayal & See Harm That Isn't There251 - Attachment Blindness: Why You Miss Real Betrayal & See Harm That Isn't There
Adult Child
Andrea Ashley breaks down betrayal blindness and attachment blindness, linking childhood relational trauma to how people misread harm and safety in adult relationships. She shares personal and clinical examples to show why safe people, shame work and nervous system healing are key to seeing others more clearly.
52:38•7 Oct 2026
Why You Miss Real Betrayal and See Harm That Isn’t There
Episode Overview
- Betrayal blindness arises when someone you depend on hurts you, and your mind and body protect you by keeping you from fully seeing it.
- Childhood experiences in dysfunctional families teach self-blame, distort trust, and set the stage for tolerating harmful behaviour in adulthood.
- Attachment blindness can make you project past wounds onto current relationships, seeing cruelty or abandonment where there may be none.
- Safe, honest relationships are crucial for breaking both betrayal and attachment blindness, because "seeing" usually requires a witness.
- Working with the nervous system and body is essential, as your state often drives the story you attach to other people’s actions.
“You were never going to see it by yourself. And that's not a flaw in you. That is just how this shit works.”
Curious about how others make sense of their sobriety journey? This Adult Child episode zooms in on why so many people misread relationships, miss genuine harm, and sometimes see danger where there isn’t any. Host Andrea Ashley goes solo and brings her trademark mix of raw honesty, humour, and swearing to two big concepts: **betrayal blindness** and **attachment blindness**. Andrea starts with a gripping story behind the term "betrayal blindness," coined by psychologist Jennifer Freyd.
You’ll hear how Freyd’s own parents responded to her memories of childhood sexual abuse by creating the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and how Freyd went on to develop ideas like betrayal trauma, betrayal blindness, and DARVO. From there, Andrea breaks down what betrayal looks like in dysfunctional families: parents putting their needs first, emotional unavailability, minimising feelings, or forcing kids into caretaking roles.
As she puts it, "What makes all of this betrayal is who it's coming from." She then links childhood betrayal to adult behaviour: staying blind to how badly you’re being treated, dismissing clear red flags, or treating repeated violations as one-offs because facing the truth would mean risking the relationship. Andrea reminds you, "You were never going to see it by yourself. And that's not a flaw in you.
That is just how this shit works." Attachment blindness flips the script. Here, trauma makes you misread safe people as threats. Andrea explains transference, emotional reasoning, and black-and-white thinking, sharing a candid story of a friendship that collapsed when someone repeatedly projected past wounds onto her and insisted she was a "bad person" despite her intentions. She shows how this kind of lens can actually recreate the very dynamics you’re afraid of.
Grounding it all, Andrea points to nervous system work, safe relationships, and unpacking family patterns as core ingredients of healing. If your read on people often feels confusing or extreme, could this episode help you see what your trauma’s been telling you about others—and yourself?
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