When the people who were supposed to protect you also hurt you, your nervous system learns: closeness is dangerous. This is a conversation about what it takes to finally let yourself receive the love you’ve been craving your whole life — without running from it when it shows up.

Paul Gilmartin is a comedian and writer best known as the host of The Mental Illness Happy Hour, a podcast that’s been exploring the messier side of the human mind for over a decade. He shares about his own path through addiction, recovery, and learning how to build a healthy relationship after a lifetime of avoiding intimacy.

Key Takeaways

• Why Avoidants Pull Away – How childhood trauma wires your nervous system to see closeness as unsafe, even when you crave connection.
• Overcoming the Fear of Intimacy – Paul’s path from avoiding commitment to building a secure, deeply connected relationship.
• Dating with Boundaries – What happens when you create a plan for slow, intentional dating… and what it means when you throw it out the window.
• Breaking Old Attraction Patterns – How Paul stopped chasing red flags and learned to spot emotional availability.
• Healthy Love Without Losing Yourself – Building a relationship where both partners have full, independent lives and connection feels like “the ice cream on top.”
• When Vulnerability Changes Everything – The surprising power of disclosing your story early on, and why the right person won’t run.

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