You might be treating your own emotional needs less consistently than you manage your Sim’s, revealing how deeply ingrained relational patterns from early attachment quietly run your relationships without your conscious permission. Relational trauma is not about one-off hurts but about repeated emotional injuries from key caregivers that shape your automatic beliefs about love, trust, and worthiness, leaving you stuck in cycles that don’t honor your real needs.
Relational trauma is the emotional injury that arises when the people you depended on for safety and connection—usually early in life—consistently failed to meet your needs in ways that left lasting, invisible wounds. It is not about isolated bad moments or simple misunderstandings, nor does it mean you were abused in an obvious way; it’s about the repeated experiences of neglect, inconsistency, or emotional harm within close relationships that shape how you trust, love, and see yourself today. This matters because relational trauma silently influences your beliefs about worthiness and connection, often keeping you stuck in patterns that don’t reflect your true desires. Naming this trauma is a powerful step toward understanding how your past interferes with your present relationships and toward beginning to heal those patterns with clarity and care.
You might be treating your own emotional needs less consistently than you manage your Sim’s, revealing how deeply ingrained relational patterns from early attachment quietly run your relationships without your conscious permission.
Relational trauma is not about one-off hurts but about repeated emotional injuries from key caregivers that shape your automatic beliefs about love, trust, and worthiness, leaving you stuck in cycles that don’t honor your real needs.
Recognizing your relational patterns through the lens of The Sims allows you to see how trauma-informed therapy can help you rewrite outdated survival strategies into conscious, compassionate ways of caring for yourself and others.
A relational pattern is a repeated way you show up in relationships — the automatic feelings, behaviors, and responses that feel like ‘just how you are’ but are actually learned strategies shaped by your earliest attachments. It’s not about being flawed or broken; it’s about the survival tactics your mind and heart developed to manage what was available to you emotionally as a child. This matters because these patterns often replay without your conscious permission, steering your relationships in ways that feel frustrating, confusing, or stuck. Recognizing your relational patterns is the first step in reclaiming choice and creating new, healthier ways of relating that truly serve you now.
You might notice that your relational struggles stem from early relational trauma, which silently shapes automatic patterns in how you connect, leaving you feeling stuck in cycles that don’t serve your true needs or desires.
Understanding relational patterns as repeated, unconscious dynamics formed in childhood helps you see how your real-life attachment strategies mirror the social mechanics you unconsciously play out—just like managing needs in The Sims.
Recognizing these patterns opens the door to trauma-informed therapy, where you can begin to rewire your relationship blueprints, learning to respond to yourself and others with more consistent care and conscious intention.
It’s clear to me now that The Sims taught me a lot about relationships.
DEFINITION RELATIONAL TRAUMA
Relational trauma refers to psychological injury that occurs within the context of important relationships, particularly those with primary caregivers during childhood. Unlike single-incident trauma, relational trauma involves repeated experiences of emotional neglect, inconsistency, manipulation, or abuse within bonds where safety and trust should have been foundational.
The Sims, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is a video game from Electronic Arts which was released in 2000, the same year I became a freshman at Brown University.
Relational Pattern
A relational pattern is a recurring dynamic in relationships — a predictable sequence of feelings, behaviors, and responses that tends to replay across different people and contexts. Relational patterns often develop in response to early attachment experiences and operate largely outside conscious awareness, feeling like ‘just the way I am’ rather than a learned strategy.
SUMMARY
The Sims — that deceptively simple simulation game — turns out to be a surprisingly useful lens for understanding relational dynamics. What happens when you watch your Sim’s ‘needs’ bars and realize you treat your virtual character with more consistent care than you treat yourself? Or when the game’s social mechanics mirror the attachment strategies you use in real life? This post uses The Sims as a playful but pointed entry point into understanding your own relational patterns.
During that first year, to escape from the stress of a double major course load (and the stress of being in almost constant relational contact with others – something that was super hard for me back then), I discovered this game and it quickly became a great nightly stress release, a way to escape when real life felt like too much.
I played the game on my colorful, blue iMac (remember those?!). Inventing people and scenarios that entertained me to no end. Feeling like a master of my pixelated little Universe while cloistered in my Keeney Quad dorm room.
While I played The Sims for entertainment back then, in hindsight and with a clinician’s mind now, I can see that The Sims actually served as a kind of subversive, psychoeducational tool on the very early stages of my healing journey. It helped me to rewire and re-form some maladaptive beliefs I had about relationships. A result of my very dysfunctional upbringing.
Relational trauma histories can often lead to maladaptive ideas about relationships.
TAKE THE QUIZ
What’s driving your relational patterns?
A 3-minute assessment to identify the core wound beneath your relationship struggles.
I’ve written about this extensively before but, to reiterate, those who come from relational trauma backgrounds may experience a host of complex biopsychosocial impacts that linger long into adulthood as a result of their early childhood.
One example of these impacts can include having maladaptive beliefs about and maladaptive behaviors in relationships.
This is a particularly common impact because relational trauma takes place in relationship. And those relationships in trauma backgrounds are often dysfunctional and extremely abusive.
And if we form our ideas about ourselves, others, and the world in response to our earliest relationships, the less functional and healthy those models were, the less functional and healthy our ideas and patterns of behavior in relationship may ultimately be.
What can examples of maladaptive patterns and beliefs about relationship look like?
For example, this can look like holding maladaptive beliefs about how others perceive you – having a mindset of grandiosity. (“Everyone should want to be my friend, I’m the best.”) …to a mindset of self-loathing (“I’m too broken to have good relationships. No man would ever want to marry me if he knew about my past and my crazy family.”) …and even alternating between these two mindsets on the same day.
Signs You May Be Carrying Relational Trauma
FREE GUIDE
A Reason to Keep Going
25 pages of what I actually say to clients when they are in the dark. Somatic tools, cognitive anchors, and 40 grounded, honest reasons to stay. No platitudes.
Take this 5-minute, 25-question quiz to find out — and learn what to do next if you do.
START THE QUIZ
(function() { var qs,js,q,s,d=document, gi=d.getElementById, ce=d.createElement, gt=d.getElementsByTagName, id=”typef_orm_share”, b=”https://embed.typeform.com/”; if(!gi.call(d,id)){ js=ce.call(d,”script”); js.id=id; js.src=b+”embed.js”; q=gt.call(d,”script”)[0]; q.parentNode.insertBefore(js,q) } })()
This can also look like conscious or unconscious maladaptive beliefs.
About what it takes to build and maintain relationships (“We’ll be friends instantly!” or “I don’t have to make time for her and invest in that relationship as much anymore, she’ll always be there for me.”).
And these are but a few of the thousands of ways maladaptive beliefs and behaviors might show up if you come from a relational trauma background.
Now, at this point in the essay, some of you may be thinking, “Well, yeah, Annie, that’s really obvious. I *know* relationships don’t work that way.”
And while it may seem obvious for you, for many of those who grow up with mood- and personality-disordered parents (or who experienced relational trauma for other reasons), this may not seem obvious to them.
Certainly, it didn’t feel obvious to me some 20-odd years ago.
But whether this feels obvious to you or not, the good news is that maladaptive beliefs and patterns of behavior can be changed.
And there are many different tools and resources that can help us begin to change these beliefs and patterns.
And yes, The Sims was one of those tools for me.
How The Sims challenged my maladaptive relationship ideas.
As I mentioned, I didn’t set out with the intention of using it as a psychoeducational tool (in fact, at that point in college I was still totally oblivious that I came from a trauma history and had healing to do – I didn’t know what I didn’t know).
Back then, I played The Sims purely for entertainment.
But still, subversively, the game still taught me some valuable, rooted-in-reality relationships principles such as:
Strong, supportive relationships don’t just happen; they need to be initiated and then cultivated consistently (invested in with time, energy, and care) for them to be solid and sources of comfort, joy, and help.
Not doing this, not actively investing in others, causes relationships to wither, to move into the “Red Zone” and eventually to break and end.
Having relationships that aren’t being well-tended to can be sources of stress and life depletion to The Sims and can more easily lead to conflict between characters when and if they encounter each other.
Having low-quality or no relationships will deteriorate the well-being of your Sim (even as you try to counterbalance this with other variables/pursuits in life).
If you push hard on something else in the game (for instance, advancing your career or hobbies or skill development) it will mean that you have less time for the relationships and you will run the risk of those relationships suffering. These competing priorities are a tricky trade-off.
Some characters seemed harder to bond with than others (friendship could be forced, but it was far easier with some).
How I responded to hard-to-maintain relationships mirrored what was then my IRL relational default: dismissing them and walking away versus confronting the challenges and actively working to repair them.
And these are just a few of the rooted-in-reality relationship lessons The Sims taught me.
(Again, in hindsight, and again, subversively.)
Now, like I said before, all of what I shared may seem super obvious to you. But growing up I had literally no models of healthy, functional adult relationships. (Romantic, friendship, professional, etc.) Or what it genuinely took to cultivate and maintain those relationships.
So in a way, The Sims became a psychoeducational tool. With teachable moments for me at that stage in my healing journey. Helping me to reform and rewire some otherwise maladaptive beliefs and behaviors. (Which I built upon with much more intentionality during my Esalen years after college.)
Healing tools and teachable moments can come in many forms.
Now look, this essay isn’t necessarily a love letter to The Sims.
(I actually don’t play video games anymore and haven’t since 2005 or so. I’m at a different stage where I don’t need or want anything other than work screen time these days).
Rather, this essay is a reminder that coming from a relational trauma history might lead to you having maladaptive beliefs and behaviors about certain areas of life that your peers from non-traumatized backgrounds don’t have to deal with.
And this essay is a reminder, too, that healing tools on our recovery journeys can come in many different forms at different points in our life (currently two of my best and most effective non-clinical healing tools are my Peloton Bike and Tread – more on the power of these tools in my life another time.)
I want to drive this point home. Because, as with that old adage – “All roads lead to Rome.” – there’s truly no one single way to do healing. Often healing requires a wide and robust variety of proverbial ingredients to be healing.
The recipe that heals and helps us is as unique as the person who needs and wants the healing.
The reality is that the quality of our lives is dictated by the quality of our relationships. So get the support you need to make having good, healthy, and fulfilling relationships feel more possible. If this is something you struggle with.
When you describe to your therapist how The Sims taught you more about relationships than your entire childhood, you’re identifying a profound truth about relational trauma—that early relational trauma damages the foundation of our house, leaving you without blueprints for how healthy connections actually work.
Your therapist helps you recognize that discovering relationship principles through a video game isn’t silly but significant, understanding that when your parents modeled only dysfunction, chaos, or neglect, you had to become an archaeologist of normalcy, excavating lessons about human connection from wherever you could find them. Together, you explore the specific maladaptive beliefs you inherited: that love should be instant and effortless (because conditional love felt so hard), that people will stay regardless of investment (because trauma-bonding seemed permanent), or that difficulty means abandonment is inevitable (because that’s what you learned).
The therapeutic work involves examining your current relationships through this new lens, identifying where you’re still operating from outdated software—perhaps pouring everything into work while relationships wither in the “red zone,” or dismissing connections at the first sign of conflict rather than learning repair.
Your therapist helps you practice what The Sims demonstrated: consistent investment, regular maintenance, tolerating the discomfort of tending to relationships even when other priorities compete for attention. Through role-play, communication exercises, and gradual real-world experiments, you learn to override the default programming that says you’re either too much or not enough, discovering instead the middle ground of being genuinely, imperfectly human in connection with others.
Most powerfully, trauma-informed relationship therapy validates that your unconventional teachers—whether video games, books, or TV shows—were acts of resilience, your psyche finding creative ways to learn what wasn’t taught, proving that healing comes in many forms and that sometimes the most profound lessons arrive disguised as entertainment, teaching you not just how to have relationships but that you deserve to have them at all.
And now, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below:
Did you play The Sims in the 2000’s (or now)? What’s one relationship lesson you gleaned from the game that helped correct a faulty belief you inherited from childhood? If it wasn’t The Sims, did some other Trojan Horse game, book, or show similarly help you develop healthier, more functional attitudes about relationships?
Please, if you feel so inclined, leave a message in the comments below. Our monthly blog readership of 20,000 plus people can benefit from your wisdom and experience.
Here’s to healing relational trauma and creating thriving lives on solid foundations.
Warmly,
Annie
Free Quiz
What’s Running Your Life?
The invisible patterns you can’t outwork…
Your LinkedIn profile tells one story. Your 3 AM thoughts tell another. This quiz reveals the childhood patterns keeping you running — and why enough is never enough.
How can a game like The Sims actually help me understand my real-life relationship patterns?
The Sims, in its simplified representation of social interactions, can serve as a powerful metaphor for understanding relationship dynamics. By observing the cause-and-effect of choices within the game, you might gain new perspectives on your own patterns, needs, and reactions in real-world connections.
If I experienced childhood emotional neglect, how might that influence my approach to relationships, even in a game like The Sims?
Childhood emotional neglect often leads to difficulties with emotional expression, trust, and intimacy. In The Sims, you might find yourself either overly controlling your Sims’ relationships or avoiding deep connections, mirroring how these wounds can manifest in your actual life as a driven woman seeking connection.
I often feel anxious about controlling outcomes in my relationships. Does The Sims offer any insights into letting go of that need?
The Sims gives you ultimate control over your characters’ lives, which can highlight the stark contrast with real-life relationships where control is an illusion. This can be a gentle reminder that true connection flourishes when you release the need to dictate every outcome and instead focus on healthy boundaries and mutual respect.
As a driven woman, I tend to ‘optimize’ everything, even my relationships. Does The Sims show how this might be unhelpful?
driven women often bring their drive for perfection into personal relationships, treating them like projects to be optimized. The Sims, with its clear metrics and goals, can inadvertently reinforce this. However, it also subtly reveals that genuine human connection is organic, messy, and cannot be reduced to a series of tasks or achievements.
I struggle with feeling truly connected in relationships. Can The Sims, as a simulation, help me explore building healthier bonds?
While a game, The Sims can be a safe, low-stakes environment to experiment with different relational approaches. You can observe how various interactions impact your Sims’ relationships, offering a detached way to reflect on communication styles, boundary setting, and the building blocks of healthy attachment that you can then consider applying in your own life.
Further Reading on Relational Trauma
Explore Annie’s clinical writing on relational trauma recovery.
The Sunday conversation you wished you’d had years earlier.
Weekly essays, practice guides, and workbooks for driven women whose lives look great on paper — and feel heavy behind the scenes. Free to start. 20,000+ subscribers.
Helping ambitious women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.
As a licensed psychotherapist, trauma-informed executive coach, and relational trauma specialist with over 15,000 clinical hours, she guides ambitious women — including Silicon Valley leaders, physicians, and entrepreneurs — in repairing the psychological foundations beneath their impressive lives. Annie is the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she built, scaled, and successfully exited. A regular contributor to Psychology Today, her expert commentary has appeared in Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., NBC, and The Information. She is currently writing her first book with W.W. Norton.
25 pages of what I actually say to clients when they are in the dark. Somatic tools, cognitive anchors, and 40 grounded, honest reasons to stay. No platitudes.
What would it mean to finally have the right support?
A complimentary consultation to discuss what you are navigating and whether working together makes sense.
Annie Wright is a licensed psychotherapist, relational trauma specialist, and the founder and successfully exited CEO of a large California trauma-informed therapy center. A W.W. Norton published author, she writes the weekly Substack Strong & Stable and her work and expert opinions have appeared in NPR, NBC, Forbes, Business Insider, The Boston Globe, and The Information.
Games like The Sims can serve as "Trojan Horse" teaching tools, providing safe spaces to observe relationship dynamics and learn social principles you missed in childhood. They offer corrective experiences without real-world consequences, helping rewire maladaptive beliefs about how relationships work.
These include extremes like believing you're either the best person everyone should befriend or too broken for love, thinking relationships should be instant without investment, or assuming people will always be there regardless of your effort. These beliefs form when dysfunctional relationships are your only models.
If you had mood- or personality-disordered parents or experienced relational trauma, you likely had no models of healthy adult relationships. What seems obvious to others—that relationships need consistent care—may be revelatory to you because dysfunction was normalized in your family.
Absolutely. Healing doesn't follow one path—it requires various "ingredients" unique to each person. Whether it's video games, Peloton workouts, TV shows, or books, unexpected sources can provide psychoeducational moments that traditional therapy might not reach.
Signs include alternating between feeling superior and worthless, expecting instant friendships, neglecting relationships then being surprised when they fail, or consistently walking away from challenges rather than working through them. These patterns often feel normal until you learn healthier alternatives.
What's Running Your Life?
The invisible patterns you can’t outwork…
Your LinkedIn profile tells one story. Your 3 AM thoughts tell another. If vacation makes you anxious, if praise feels hollow, if you’re planning your next move before finishing the current one—you’re not alone. And you’re *not* broken.
This quiz reveals the invisible patterns from childhood that keep you running. Why enough is never enough. Why success doesn’t equal satisfaction. Why rest feels like risk.
Five minutes to understand what’s really underneath that exhausting, constant drive.
“You can outrun your past with achievement for only so long before it catches up with you. Strong & Stable is the conversation that helps you stop running.”
— Annie Wright, LMFT
×
Strong & Stable — Annie Wright, LMFT
Does your resume look better than your life actually feels?
You wake at 3 a.m. You manage everyone else’s crises. You’ve built something real — and underneath, the foundation isn’t stable.
Join 20,000+ driven women reading weekly essays on why rest feels like risk — and how to finally change that.
