What if the hardest part of leaving someone who hurt you wasn’t the loss of them, but the loss of yourself? Trauma bonding is one of the most misunderstood and devastating forms of psychological entrapment. All relationships with a narcissist will indeed be traumatizingly bonded. It doesn’t matter who the narcissist is in your life; if you have a significant relationship with one, it will be traumatizingly bonded. Therefore, it’s critical for anyone in this position to have a clear understanding of what a trauma bond is and what it consists of so you can appropriately address it once and for all. Trauma bonds are what keep strong, intuitive, intelligent people emotionally tethered to someone who breaks them. This is not love, and it’s not weakness either. It’s a survival response, a chemical, emotional, and psychological hook designed to keep you chasing closure in a relationship that was never built to offer it.
Today, we will take a deep dive into understanding trauma bonds: what they consist of, how they happen, and how to break them once and for all. Trauma bonds develop in relationships where one person subjects the other to intermittent reinforcement cycles, or what we call cycles of abuse, which include love bombing and devaluation. Sometimes the narcissist will treat you with love, compassion, respect, and kindness—these are the love bombing cycles. At other times, they will treat you with contempt, disrespect, and may become abusive or withhold love and affection—these are the devaluation cycles. And around and around it goes, from love bombing to devaluation, then more love bombing, and then more devaluation. This inconsistency is what causes a trauma bond to develop, and all narcissists utilize this form of control and abuse.
Now, let’s dive into some of the most confusing and damaging realities that a person experiences inside a trauma bond. We’ll start with what I call the emotional paradox of abuse. One of the most disorienting truths about trauma bonding is that you’re not just emotionally attached to the person who’s hurting you; you’re entangled with them in a way that feels like both survival and betrayal simultaneously. The very same person who wounds you is also the one who intermittently soothes you. That kind of inconsistency isn’t just confusing; it’s neurologically destabilizing.
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