I often find myself second-guessing my ability to determine who is safe and unsafe in relationships. My experiences with my parents, particularly my mother’s hot-and-cold behavior and my father’s emotional unavailability, have skewed my perception of safety. I tend to either be drawn to people who are emotionally distant and invalidating or those who are overly clingy and potentially abusive. This makes it hard to trust my gut feelings about safety, as I worry that truly safe people might feel unsafe to me simply because they are unfamiliar.

How can I distinguish between someone who is genuinely safe and someone who only appears safe because their behavior mirrors my past experiences? What strategies can I use to retrain my subconscious mind to recognize and trust truly safe individuals, especially when I often find myself drawn to unhealthy dynamics that feel secure due to their familiarity?