What is A Trauma Bond?

“You cannot circle around the pain and discover the happiness you deserve. You must travel through the pain and embrace all of the challenging feelings and difficult ups and downs that are the essence of the grieving process. For a long time, it may seem as if you will always be hurting . . . until one day you will find that you turned a corner and found a lovely new world you never could have imagined.” -Jackson MaKenzie

A trauma bond is an abuse addiction.

I am not a doctor

For the record, I am not a medical or mental health professional. I have a bachelor’s degree in communication with an emphasis on interpersonal relationships. A few of my electives were in family studies and I think I took one psychology course. College was a long time ago, and thanks to parenting, work life, divorce, self-esteem issues, and a couple insanely toxic relationships, my memory is not great. I use to call it brain fog and blamed it on pregnancy. Then I started reading about trauma, so now I’m wondering if it’s Complex PTSD. That’s a little too heavy, so I’ll stick with the fact that I’m a mom to three incredible little humans and my brain is on overdrive 100% of the time. As I said, I’m not a doctor, nor do I have any formal training or certifications, yet.

Unapologetically sharing raw truths

Anything I post on my blog comes from research, books I’ve read, or most creditably, my life experiences that include early childhood trauma, relationship issues, and my ongoing existential crisis. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve got some baggage, but I’m not afraid to talk about it.

You are here for a reason

Chances are, you didn’t stumble on my blog for fun. If you did, not sure what kind of fun you are into, but if you need a source of entertainment to get through your day, then I hope whatever you find here somehow serves someone in your life.

The feelings, questions and behavior you are experiencing is very common

• Are you desperate for answers? 
• Are you trying to find ways to get over them? 
• Are you lost and overwhelmed? 
• Are you questioning your sanity? 
• Are you wondering how you will get through your day?  
• Do you feel like no one understands and everyone is judging you? 
• When you open up, are you quick to shut down because the people you trust and love can’t understand why you stayed or went back?
• Are you sick of people telling you to “get over it?”  

Your pain is real

If you answered yes to any of these, then you’re in good company. I promise it will get better. Everything you’re feeling is normal. People are judging you because they have no idea what you’ve been through. Your emotional and physical pain is real. It’s debilitating, but trust that it can go away. It will take time and a lot of introspection. It will be uncomfortable and quite possibly the hardest thing you will ever have to deal with. The moments will turn into hours, then the hours get easier and soon become days. One day, you will realize you are a survivor.

There is hope and healing is possible

I’m an early-stage survivor. The past few years of my life almost broke me. I’ve lost, loved, and lost again. Recently, I ended up so badly bruised and broken that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull my shit together. But here I am. The bruises have healed and I’m growing. What was once broken, is coming together, and I’ve finally got some clarity. As we know, there is “no time like the present,” so I figure my experiences are more valuable in real-time than they will be in hindsight. I want my readers to feel connected, understood, and hopeful. 

The first step is admitting you are attached to your abuser

Let’s get back to the original question, what is a trauma bond? This is not a question I randomly came up with. It’s something I learned about as I desperately searched for answers on how to get over my abusive boyfriend. My rational mind couldn’t understand why the hell I felt like I was going to die. My emotional mind was embarrassed and ashamed of the relationship, yet missing him on a visceral level. As I began to educate myself, I realized that he is a textbook narcissist. Everything I had experienced and was feeling was normal under a trauma bond. I didn’t break up with my boyfriend, I escaped a violent and toxic relationship with a narcissist. 

A trauma bond is an addiction to the cycle of abuse

Trauma bonding is a physiological reaction caused by chemicals in the body that leaves the victim addicted to the abuse cycle. The trauma bond is formed through seven stages that impact oxytocin, dopamine, and cortisol levels in the body causing anxiety, depression, memory loss, and other mood disorders. 

The abuser uses the trauma bond to manipulate, control and abuse

The psychopath, narcissist, sociopath, or any toxic person uses the trauma bond to fuel their disorders, creating an unbreakable attachment through a vicious cycle of abuse

The victim is groomed through intense, obsessive validation that develops into dependency under the guise of trust and love. Once the victim has poured all their trust into the abuser, they are psychologically manipulated over and over again. The highs are incredible, the lows are destructive and this process is recycled. That’s when the victim loses everything and becomes captive to the relationship and the addiction sets in. It never ends well. In most cases, the abuser abandons the victim emotionally, financially, physically, and spiritually.

The victim will be trapped by love bombing, gaslighting and dependency, then recycled and eventually abandoned

All trauma bond victims will be brutally rejected, abandoned, and broken. Tragically, many victims end up dead. It’s the survivors that find the strength to escape or claw their way out of paralyzing despair, with their grace and dignity barely intact. The survivor will take on their pain, overcome their consequences and find their purpose to live and cure their addiction.

The only way out is to detach from the intolerable obsession

After suffering from physical abuse and years of emotionally abusive relationships with narcissists and other toxic people, I’ve had enough. I’ll never again be both, figuratively and physically thrown onto a pedestal, forced into positions I never saw coming, brainwashed into a toxic belief system that shamefully isolated me from everyone and everything that I knew and needed, then torn apart and discarded. The only way to break this bond is to practice a new cycle of self love and boundaries, disqualifying anyone who fucks with your growing process. Once you recycle the new process, the bond will no longer have any authority in your life. Now my trauma has purpose as a resource and service to others. 

“SERVICE IS THE CURE TO MANY OTHER ADDICTIONS. WHEN YOU GET OUTSIDE OF YOURSELF, A LOT OF THE NEGATIVE THINGS THAT SHOW UP IN YOUR LIFE, DISAPPEAR. “

-Rory Vaden