The Hidden Cost of Betrayal Trauma in Friendship [Moon's Field Notes #2]

In this Field Note, I’m reflecting on something I didn’t have language for for a long time: the difference between continuity and intimacy in friendship, and how betrayal trauma can quietly train us to prioritize staying over being seen.

This isn’t therapy or advice. I’m not diagnosing anyone.
It’s me thinking out loud about patterns I learned in order to survive and how being “a good friend” can sometimes mean minimizing yourself, and how relationships can last a long time without actually being nourishing.

I talk about:
♥ how loyalty and endurance can replace intimacy
♥ why continuity often feels safer than being seen
♥ how self-erasure sneaks in through morality, patience, and being “low-maintenance”
♥ and what it looks like to start choosing nourishment over just staying

If you’ve ever felt proud that a friendship didn’t end, while quietly feeling empty inside it, this might resonate.

Take what fits. Leave the rest.
And be gentle with yourself as you notice what intimacy actually means to you.
Moon’s Field Notes is for us.
For the ones who weren’t taught but kept learning anyway.
For the ones who had to become their own caretakers, their own narrators, their own soft landing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVyl5xC15Tc