Background: Young guy with alcoholic mom and parents always fighting - says he doesn't even remember whole days of his childhood. Severely traumatised and no therapeutic intervention to date.

Is this behaviour fairly typical for a guy who's been through this kind of traumatic family experience? He had a major crush on me, then ran away from me. We became friends (just friends) as I realised he had major issues. We would chat for hours and hours. He messaged me on Valentine's Day (at night). I once told someone I might move to another town (it was actually a joke) and he got so upset he didn't speak to me for a week. If another guy flirts with me, he looks incredibly hurt and also retreats from me. Many times, he returned my friendliness with suspicion, fear and misery until we made a significant breakthrough and he decided to trust me. Since then, we have been getting closer and closer and even talking about overnight hiking trips (both love hiking). Then he suddenly shut down and didn't respond to my messages. Eventually, after a month, he came back and said he just doesn't have feelings for me and we can only be friends. He did this once before when we got closer. This despite the fact that he has shown clear signs of caring for me as well as being attracted to me (remembers my birthday, takes me for coffee if something bad happens in my life, etc.). I guess he's just unable to take that step? I'm going to gently introduce him to the ACOA group in our area when the time is right (and only if he opens up about needing help, which he sometimes does)...but I guess what I'm asking is: is this fairly typical behaviour for adult children of alcoholics who have been severely traumatised and may even have PTSD? He said he was an unwanted child, practically raised himself and doesn't know what a normal family is like.