The Delicious Ache of Pain Bonding

There’s something undeniably seductive about pain bonding—especially among women. We meet in the scar tissue. We speak in survival. We recognize each other not by our shine, but by the ways we’ve learned to walk with our broken pieces. And it feels… delicious.

Yes. I said that. Because it is.

It’s the moment your story cracks open in someone else’s mouth. It’s the sacred nod, the “me too,” the quick catch of breath when someone gets it—before you even say the hard part. It’s being seen in your darkness without having to tidy it up for the room.

Women have met this way forever—around fire, in kitchens, in bathrooms at parties, in hushed late-night texts. We bond through heartbreak, grief, anger, betrayal. We braid our pain into belonging.

And sometimes, it’s easier to stay there.

Because pain bonding doesn’t ask us to change. It doesn’t require us to outgrow the identity of the wounded one. It says: Stay. Sit. I’ll stay with you. And that is a holy thing.

But eventually… something in us wants more.

There is a turning point. Where the pain has been named, honored, held— and now it’s time to rise.

Can we meet each other in joy? Can we laugh just as loudly as we once cried? Can we be mirrors for our thriving, not just our suffering?

Pain bonding is real, and it is tender, and sometimes it’s the only way we survive. But it doesn’t have to be the only language we speak.

There is also joy bonding. Desire bonding. Wild, powerful, I-made-it-out bonding.

Let’s not abandon our pain. But let’s not forget that our pleasure is just as sacred.

I hope there is something here for you.

Loving you from the high desert,

Pamela Madsen

Teaching with the Back to the Body Team in the High Desert Photo by Sway