Love Without Emergency: I Want This but I Feel Like I'm Going to Die: Writings on Trauma, Attachment, and Polyamory

by Clementine Morrigan

Love Without Emergency: I Want This But I Feel Like I’m Going to Die is a collection of writing on trauma, attachment, and polyamory. For the first time, I have collected all my writing on the subject in one place. The pieces in this zine were written between 2014 and 2019; including my early writing on polyamory as well as my more recent work. This zine moves away from simple (and often judgmental/shaming) frameworks around managing jealousy, and toward a recognition of the distress traumatized and attachment injured people can feel when trying to navigate polyamory. Understanding distress as an embodied, nervous system experience, rather than simply a cognitive one, this collection of writing is trauma and attachment informed. Normalizing and validating distress while exploring the experience of earning secure attachment and developing nervous system regulation, this zine draws on both my personal experience as an anxiously attached polyamorous person living with c-ptsd, and my experience as a facilitator teaching my Trauma Informed Polyamory workshop. It’s a thick zine with fourteen pieces of writing covering topics such as non-hierarchical polyamory, queer platonic love, shame, anxious preoccupied attachment, avoidant attachment, desiring polyamory, and nervous system regulation. With a bright pink risograph cover, this zine celebrates trauma survivors and the hard work and great courage we put into love.

Genres: Polyamory, Nonfiction, Relationships, Queer, Psychology, Self Help, Feminism

Unknown Binding

About the author

Clementine Morrigan is a writer. She is the writer behind the zines Love Without Emergency, Fuck the Police Means We Don't Act Like Cops to Each Other, Fucking Crazy, and Fucking Girls. She also wrote the books Sexting, Fucking Magic, Trauma Magic, You Can't Own the Fucking Stars, The Size of a Bird, and Rupture. She has been writing and publishing for more than 20 years and has many more projects on the way. They are also a podcaster as one half of the podcast Fucking Cancelled and they're the creator of the popular Trauma Informed Polyamory workshop. They also teach other online workshops like Bisexual Girls with Baggage and Disorganized Attachment Is a Fucking Trip. She is an ecosocialist, an anarchist, an abolitionist, an opposer of cancel culture, a trauma educator, a sex educator, a person living with complex ptsd, a sober alcoholic, a polyamorous bisexual dyke, and a proud dog mom to Clover “the dog” Morrigan.

Reviews

[K]

I don't want to rate this low because it's a zine, but I honestly find Clementine's instagram more insightful than this? This felt very basic, could have used some editing (typos/phrasing etc), and also felt very very white. I think the foundation is good, and this is a good starting point, but I would have loved to see the main ideas filled out a little more. I found one of the essays helpful for a deeper conversation, but maybe I should stop reading stuff about nonmonogamy from white people.

[Chananja · Rating 2 out of 5]

i honestly think this just wasn't for me. don't want to give this 1 star because i think it could be helpful to others but really not for me.
just rlly didn't think this was insightful at all. i started reading this because i was looking for something to read on polyamory that isn't self-help necessarily and takes a critical look at the community. i thought the writer made a start with that in about every essay, then sort of never finished that thought, ending the essay prematurely by writing "yeah. someone should fucking think about that!" and then the next essay that just happened again. it introduces some stuff i want to think and read more about, such as the call for intersectionality and sensitivy towards personal situations complicating polyamory, the exposure of the suspiciously neo-liberal tendencies of the community (such as its obsession with self-reliance, its move away from mutual care, especially when dealing with these emotions, that you should own, etc), the special place femmes and their bodies hold in this, etc. but to say this zine even started to explore them beyond mentioning them is a stretch.

i guess the zine does excell at being compassionate towards the more difficult feelings that might come along with polyamory and why people might be finding themselves in such a situation. however, i thought it was also lacking here as the only one of these feelings mentioned is jealousy jealousy jealousy hey have you heard about jealousy? again, this feeling is only mentioned: i don't think its explored at all. it does manage to be super compassionate and not diminishing the writer's strength while talking about this. i think that's cool, and can be helpful to some, especially to those struggling with jealousy and who have rarely encountered compassion from their community or themselves about that. however, i am really just not that person, and i don't think this zine does more than that.

[Florian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely wonderful resource for exploring complex PTSD, various levels of trauma triggers interactions, attachment styles and how polyamory can intersect and affect all the above. Not many guidebooks on polyamorous relationships are this compassionate nor sensitive towards the distress that loving without limits or social norms can bring. It felt like so much of my mental health recovery is easier to notice and navigate with self-compassion and validation thanks to Love Without Emergency!

[cosima concordia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most radical thing that Love Without Emergency does is acknowledge that polyamory can make our nervous systems freak out and make us feel like we're dying. Through this simple idea she builds an approach to polyamory that honors every complexity of our trauma histories in a way to move into a non-traditional relationship style that may have previously felt closed off to us.

[b (tobias forge's version) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I needed this after More Than Two left me feeling scared, broken, and more than a little hopeless. I wish that more people would write about polyamory with Clementine Morrigan's honesty and compassion.

[Carlos Gurpegui · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es un zine muy interesante (y muy duro, así que TW). Esta pequeña colección de ensayos de Clementine se mueve entre la teoría queer, la resistencia y sanación a traumas del pasado y su relación con el poliamor tanto como disparador de antiguos miedos como herramienta de curación.

Es difícil hablar de ello, pero sin lugar a dudas es una lectura de lo más interesante (y necesaria). Es uno de los pocos textos, o colección de textos, que he leído que aborde las no-monogamias desde el trauma y el dolor (tanto el que muchos llevan encima de base como el que puede generar una relación fuera de la monogamia).

[PC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished a very timely reread of this. It grounded me and helped me along a very tough time.

[Ava · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s hard to know how to rate a zine, but I know that I learned so much about polyamory, cried in the library a couple times. This stuff resonates. I’m very grateful for Morrigan’s words.

[xenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very entry level, which is not necessarily bad.

Incredibly affirming for those of us who suffer from cPTSD and experience intense jealousy, insecurity, and shame, despite our desires for decentralised autonomy and love. Too often interdependency is derailed by (co)dependency, a pattern of survival we develop from neglect and abuse. Childhood trauma teaches us that love is scarce, fickle, and violent. Because our abusers are often our caretakers, we learn to hate ourselves as a survival mechanism (because to lash out at the abuser would be to lose the only source of care one has). This self-hatred persists even when we enter into a loving relationship later on. Morrigan is fantastic at taking these insights from attachment theory and applying them to polyamory, a practice that can trigger hypervigilance, possessiveness, worthlessness, and shame in those who suffer from cPTSD. Even if we align with polyamory, our bodies may read multiplicity as duplicity, and respond in controlling ways.

So all this shit is cool and useful for contextualising your behaviours as socially-contingent. This is the first step towards healing. Morrigan is not great at articulating the rest of this process, saying stuff like 'be compassionate to yourself'. This is fluff. If your caregiver never taught you compassion, you literally don't know what that means. I didn't know what it meant when I was twenty. I fucking hated myself, and I resented anyone who tried to shill their positivity shit on me. It felt invalidating, because they never engaged with my incapacity to feel compassion and love. This wasn't a genetic or neurological fault, but a psychosocial one. I was raised by two narcissists, and it took me years of struggle to realise how much I was trapped in my own self-destructive narcissistic hellhole.

Healing is incredibly painful, because it involves seeing yourself as your abuser and your own victim.* It involves seeing your complicity in your condition of suffering, even though it was forced on you. Worse, it involves reaching out and showing another human being how utterly fucked you are, bearing the terror that they'll spit on you, hate you, and abandon you for simply asking for help. And you have to do all this because it's the only way you will ever learn to trust again, and therefore be compassionate to yourself. Morrigan doesn't go into this and I wish she did.

For those looking for practical techniques of self-compassion, I highly recommend Polysecure: Attachment Theory, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy.

—

*Just to be clear, trauma survivors do not 'do this to themselves'. They are caught in a cycle of intergenerational hatred, shame, and powerlessness. However, they have to take responsibility for their own lives, because their abusers will not, and inexperienced supporters may enable their maladapted behaviours, trapping them in a nightmare world of dependency and fragility. This is where I was—for a long, long time. Others may be to blame, but blaming others doesn't heal you. Accepting your condition, no matter how unfair, then learning to change it, is what heals you.

[T · Rating 5 out of 5]

this zine contains some really precious insights on shame, on being activated/ in distress and on the potential of relationships. its really helpful to read that others experience similar things or have similar struggles and about input to meet these needs and challenges. inspiring, helpful, cute and fierce.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very validating and tender for any polyamorous queer with C-PTSD.

[fionnagán · Rating 5 out of 5]

(the second volume of this zine is not listed on GR, but i want to record that i read it. also, it was better than the first volume, and the first volume already had 5 stars from me.)

[Ari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Big rec for people who are interested in polyamory from a trauma perspective, and for everyone else. Everyone should read this. So good.

[ash | songsforafuturepoet · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to rate a zine. I took some photos of some pages and kept them with me on my phone. I appreciate that this zine exists. It did not leave me with enough of my initial questions answered, though it did leave me with more questions for reflection.

I am reading Jessica Fern currently and it's been a lot more illuminating.

[Jack Lyell · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are objectively good and true facts about attachment and polyamory, which I fully agree with. It is harder to engage in polyamory after experiencing especially relationship-based violence or really any situation which leaves you inclined to feel like people are perpetually gaslighting you about caring about you (a situation that would reasonably create lasting after-effects for a lifetime regarding jealousy, even in non-polyamorous relationships). I feel like all of the text in here is good, and my big complaint is that most of the writings are a solid two or four pages in large font. I think it might just be coming off of theory (and there are a lot of good additional readings here) or just that there's so little on the topic of attachment styles specifically for non-monogamous people or on the topic of non-monogamy when it comes to attachment styles, that some part of me was just yearning for more content. I can't ask one author to fill a canon, and some of the moments in Love Without Emergency (titular writing) are very moving even if they are brief. A good book of affirmations for people who need or want that kind of attentiveness to an underserved niche.

also: "There is a way do polyamory that is neither the neoliberal individualist
bullshit of "everyone is always solely responsible for their own feelings"
or trying to manage other people and their relationships through endless
rules."

based

I just wish the book had gone deeper into concrete strategies even though I know how individualized those strategies must be...

[Carlo Faggiotto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ho letto questo libro e una zine chiamata "Trauma informed poliamory" sempre della stessa autrice nel giro di pochissime ore. Poche altre volte nella vita mi sono sentito cosí rispecchiato come in questo caso, con la raccolta di esperienze traumatiche (e non) che altre persone hanno dovuto affrontare per riuscire ad avvicinarsi con cautela al mondo del poliamore e in generale delle NME. Cominciare a mettere in discussione il proprio modo di vivere le proprie relazioni interpersonali non è facile, e ci si va spesso a scontrare con il blocco massiccio di trigger personali che spesso sembrano dei muri altissimi quasi impossibili da superare. Tuttavia, ascoltandosi e condividendo le proprie esperienze personali si puó creare una rete di supporto in grado di trasformare quella muraglia chilometrica in una barriera piú piccola, fino ad arrivare (chissá) alla sua completa distruzione, mattone dopo mattone. Ma il punto di tutto questo non è quello di diventare supereroi impossibili da stoppare, quanto piú di riuscire ad aprirsi con il mondo esterno e con una propria cerchia di affetti costruita ad hoc per poter essere fragili in modo meno alienante e isolat. L'intero obiettivo non è quello di far scomparire le paure, ma di viverle in un contesto collettivo di supporto. Clementine Morrigan parla di tutto questo in modo diretto e chiaro, consiglio molto le sue zines e in generale il suo lavoro quasi quotidiano sui social network.

[Reah · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do you love yourself and others through feelings of shame? Read these essays. Beautiful and genuine writing! Helped me to feel more understood in my own relationship journeys. A bit more cis-centered than I expected, but generally pretty great.

Favorite Quotes:
“I am afraid of not being seen, not being important, not measuring up. I am afraid of being left behind.”

“You need to find a way to love yourself and meet yourself where you are. It is from this loving and kind place that you can begin the work that will free you. Your love is powerful and grace, the depth and capacity of your feeling is a beautiful and good thing. You don’t have to hate yourself for it. And you don’t have to feel the way you’ve been you’ve been feeling. Your deep capacity for love can transform from a source of panic to a source of strength.”

“Love yourself through the shame. Let others love you through the shame… And remember, its ultimate purpose is to keep you safe. Keep showing yourself that you are safe. Keep refusing to attack or abandon yourself. And shame will begin to transform.”

[Rocío Lourdes · Rating 4 out of 5]

me parece una aproximación valiosa a cómo los apegos inseguros y el trauma pueden afectar en el proceso de establecer relaciones poliamorosas. amo que ésta interseccionalidad de elementos se ponga sobre la mesa, porque al tratarse de la configuración de las relaciones afectivas es muy existencial.

agradezco sobre todo la transparencia de compartirnos su vivencia del proceso tan sincera, personal, constructiva y acompañadora, entregando reafirmación sobre lo difícil que puede ser para las personas con trauma y apegos inseguros el amar.

como leí en otras reviews, coincido en que varios títulos podrían haberse desarrollado más!!! sentí que muchas veces se quedaba en un tipo de contextualización personal y creo que más teoría podría nutrir mucho más las reflexiones que realiza..

igual es un libro que le prestaría a todis mis amigis i amores 🌷💭💐🦋💌 agradecida de la lectura!!

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read the second version: a nice short read. Mostly short personal essays about polyamory and attachment, not a lot of concrete advice but still helpful. Felt like the personal essay version of polysecure. 4 stars because of the discussion of sex repulsion did not include ace scholarship which made me sad.

[Rahima · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly deep and naked exploration of love in all it’s uncensored glory and the pain of loving with and from a place of trauma. This collection of essays is raw and beautiful and gives an element of authenticity and empowerment I have never seen before. Incredible!

[Lindsay Wiggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was shared with me by a my very first true metamour as a means of connecting in a world that is very new for me. Each piece made me feel seen and not so doomed to failing as free loving poly person. This opened the floodgates of deeper healing for me.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was validating and reassuring to read about another queer person’s experiences of complex ptsd.
There were also some great thinking points and resources for helping to navigate complex trauma within non-monogamous relationships. An accessible and enjoyable read.

[Raf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gave me so so so much hope and helped me and many of my friends access love and compassion and a way forward. Clementine has a way of articulating the raw edge of living with trauma/anxious attachment styles while still offering a messy human way forward. Forever grateful for this read.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Immensely useful and intense collection of essays about the experience of the intersection between nonmogamous relationships and trauma. I felt seen and it has been very helpful in understanding the disalignment between what i know to be true and what my body feels

[Sage · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written and hits home honestly and empathetically, it has parts that are both raw and autobiographical and wise and instructional. Feels in conversation with The Body Keeps Score, The Ethical Slut, & Polysecure

[Maartje Hensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started reading this zine after reading about it in “The Anxious Person’s Guide to Non-Monogamy” and I have to say that I found this zine to be more helpful than the other book. Very relatable & helpful, even though it’s a quick read.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little zine is packed with artful and useful sharing. I'd buy ten copies of this to hand out to friends. I was deeply moved in the reading of this.

[Moniqa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, deep, honest, vulnerable, important, validating, affirming, resonant work.

[Adryan Corcione]

I loved how honest and raw this zine is.