Are You Trauma Bonded To A Narcissist?

Trauma bonding is an intense and inexplicable experience that can be truly terrifying and confusing for people.

You will be driven to stay connected and do everything possible to fix a relationship, regardless of how much this person is hurting you.

This may shock you because you know you need to stay away.

You will probably be asking yourself, “Why do I love you so much when you abuse me like this?”

It feels like love … yet I promise you it is not.

Today’s Thriver TV episode is all about the insidious ties that occur with the narcissist, ties that feel almost impossible to sever.

But don’t give up hope of finally being able to disconnect from this toxic person because I will also explain how to get out of this terrible powerless state so you can dissolve the bonds and live the abuse-free life you were meant to live.

 

 

Video Transcript

Today I want you to understand exactly what trauma bonding is and how it’s been affecting you because it’s really key for your recovery.

From a psychological level, and maybe if you’re going through some sort of cognitive therapy, the depth of this probably hasn’t been explained to you.

Perhaps you really need to hear about this from somebody who deeply went through it, which I did. And you also need to hear about the true healing path out of it, which humbly and thankfully, I totally discovered.

 

What Is Trauma Bonding?

Trauma bonding means that you stay connected to somebody who is hurting you badly. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re still physically connected to them, even though of course you could be.

It may just be that you’re not able to stop obsessing about this person, even if it’s been weeks, months, years or decades afterwards. You may feel like this person is living on inside of you, in your head and in your body. You may even feel like you can’t have a life without this person. You may feel addicted. You may feel like a literal drug addict and every time you pull away, you’re going through horrific withdrawals, where you feel like you’re losing your mind.

You may feel like you love this person so much, despite everything that they’ve done to you. Maybe you’ve never realized that these incredible obsessions and pulls and feeling of undying love that you have with a narcissist are not actually about love. Maybe something much more sinister is creating these powerful feelings of attachment and addiction.

It seems ludicrous and insane to believe that somebody who’s treating you so poorly, even horrifically and abusively could make you want them, love them, and keep you attached to them so powerfully.

This could be what you’re feeling for any narcissist. It doesn’t have to be in a love relationship. It could be a family member. It could be a friend, it could be a therapist. It could even be or own child. So let’s find out why it’s happening.

We’re going to have a look at the different types of trauma bonding and in this article I’m going to take you through five specific, separate and different aspects of trauma bonding.

 

Number One – Stockholm Syndrome

Stockholm syndrome has actually been widely documented and it’s proven to be a very real deal. The conditions of narcissistic abuse are ripe to create this phenomenon. What Stockholm syndrome really is in the traditional sense, it’s a captor takes a victim and threatens their life and holds them hostage. And the hostage actually feels like they’re in love with their captor. It doesn’t make sense until you look at it at a deeper level.

First of all, if you are in a narcissistic relationship, you may feel trapped in the relationship. You feel like you can’t leave it. It may be because you don’t want to let go because this relationship was something that you want so much and you are projecting your dreams onto it. This is your dream person, or this is the person who’s supposed to love you or care for you. There’s that part of it.

You may also feel terrified about how nasty and destructive things are going to get if you try to leave – how much you’re going to be smeared or destroyed, or they’re going to take the kids or all of the property off you. So you feel trapped.

Now you’re in the role of prisoner with the persecutor who is the narcissist. I really want you to understand, that in this role you are on high alert. You are detached from the real world and what’s going on because you have to be so focused on the narcissist’s moods, demands, emotions – this becomes front and center in your life. It’s all consuming.

Additionally, you may be isolated from many people and interests. Maybe the narcissist is so controlling and doesn’t permit it and it’s just not worth fighting for, because of all the trauma that comes with that. Or you feel so broken and depressed and full of shame about what’s happening to you, that you don’t want to be around people because you want them to believe that everything’s okay and it’s just so mental and crazy.

As the prisoner, because this is what you are emotionally, your well being depends heavily on how the persecutor is treating you. There’s a very real threat of cruelty and pain being inflicted by the narcissist.

So you focus a great deal of attention on the enemy, trying to find a connection or a way with a narcissist to procure nicer, safer treatment. The narcissist is the deliverer of good and bad treatment. When good treatment comes, there’s much hope and relief that the pain is going to end.

You say … I can breathe again, the danger is over for now … and it feels like intense relief. It’d be like if you were walking around in shoes with sharp jagged stones, and then you sat down and took them out, your feet feel incredible. It feels like intense joy, love and appreciation because of the high of relief. It’s such a contrast to the abuse and it’s a very powerful peptide cocktail that you’re experiencing.

Stockholm syndrome in those times of relief can feel like love. It’s a deep attachment to another person for emotional and literal survival. That’s what’s really going on.

 

Number Two – Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is a term that gets used in abuse communities a lot. It’s a situation that occurs when there’s tension created as a result of two opposing realities. So there’s something that’s really going on emotionally and then there’s another story going on in your head. This is because a bridge needs to be made with the reason in your head to accept what’s really going on with you emotionally.

In the case of narcissistic abuse, the reasoning for the horrific abuse being emotionally suffered is any kind of series of justifications. And we all did it. I did it as well.

These justifications are stories that you’re saying to yourself, such as, “I know that he or she really does love me and this person is doing their best, it’s just that he or she had a shocking childhood.”

Or it could be, “I know this relationship is meant to be. I know because I feel so intensely about it and I am going to stay and see it through no matter what.”

Or worse, you may be saying to yourself, “I know that she really is a great girl or he is a great guy. I know it’s me that’s got all the problems. And I know that I make this person behave like this because of my issues.”

Or you could say to yourself, “I know that love will win the day. I know that if I just love this person enough that I can heal him or her.” or, “I’m the only person that understands this person, I can’t leave. It’s my duty to stay and love them with everything that I’ve got.”

Absolutely these justifications seem real to the victim. There can be other ones like, “I don’t want to split up the kids from their family and there’s too much to lose and I’m going to lose everything.” But I promise you even people without kids and attachments still go through these trauma bonds of cognitive dissonance.

You might think it’s just because of the kids and all of the property and the businesses and the bricks and mortar, but it happens to everybody, whether they have those things or not.

What happens in these justifications, this cognitive dissonance, is it creates even greater feelings of attachment, devotion and love. Because you’ve made up your mind and you’re not listening to your body. The truth in cognitive dissonance is, you’re not going to get free of this trauma bond until the truth is accepted.

 

Number Three – Repetitive Compulsion Disorder

Repetitive compulsion disorder is hugely interesting. Narcissists are so unpredictable in nature. They’re like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to unwrap. And it brings on a new repetitive compulsion disorder.

I’m going to use this example because it’s been worked out at a scientific level with lab rats. When they are in a cage and they have a button that releases food pellets that they need to push with their nose, and it’s programmed for three pushes, the rats know, three pushes – I get my pellets. They work it out very quickly, push the button, get the food, eat it and everything’s good.

However, if the button is set on random … no defined set amount of pushes … the rats go into a frenzy, pushing the button continuously and the floor of the cage is littered with pellets. It’s been discovered that they forget about things like their self-care and water because they’re so addicted to pushing the button. What it really means is they’re trying to get a predictable result out of complete mayhem.

This is actually what gets gamblers hooked on poker machines. Trying to get a result, a payoff for the money they’ve spent on a completely random chaotic system. This is what happens with a narcissist, you’re in a chaotic random system. The goalposts change. The conditions change. You’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t.

One moment they’re loving and beautiful and really delightful, the next they’re off the charts ridiculous. So there’s no way for you to have stable, sane, safe behavior from the narcissist. So you’re hooked onto trying to get it. That’s why you’re obsessing about them and you can’t take your focus anywhere else. It’s a trauma bond. It’s very powerful.

When life is dangerous, our psychological and emotional survival wiring compels us to put all of our energy into trying to find relief from the danger.

So if the addicted gambler wins a jackpot she’ll experience temporary relief that she’s won back her money that she’s been losing. Yet, if she’s removed from the poker machine, she’s going to start obsessing about getting back to the poker machine, as soon as she can.

If the narcissist attends to your needs and feigns an apology and acts like he or she is reformed and validates you and is going to care for you, you feel incredible relief that you’ve been removed from the war zone. Yet, when the narcissist walks out the door and is no longer reassuring you, you suffer severe separation anxiety, which is a repetitive compulsion disorder that feels akin to a heroin addict deprived of their next hit.

Repetitive compulsion disorder creates intense addiction and anxiety, which can only momentarily be relieved by these jackpots, but it never takes long for the anxiety to reach an intense peak again. Of course, when we don’t know better, we think these feelings of, “I can’t live without you and I can’t think about anything else” must be because we’re meant to be together or it’s love. Or you may know you’re going crazy, but you don’t know why. Repetitive compulsion disorder is a huge part of it.

 

Number Four – Peptide Addiction

I’ve written about this in an exclusive article and done some presentations on this. I really recommend that you Google my name and peptide addiction and look into this deeply because it’s very important.

I’m going to simplify it today. There’s a chemical that our brain creates for every emotion. And this is known as a peptide and it’s an actually a amino acid chain. It’s a literal chemical compound.

The larger the amount of peptide – the heavier a dose of it that the cells in our bodies get used to receiving. If you’ve been receiving large and regular doses of a peptide chemical created in your hypothalamus (the part of your brain that manufactures it) of ‘betrayal’ as an example, which is a specific peptide and there’s one for every emotion, then this is regularly being produced in your brain. It’s released into your bloodstream and the cells of your body are taking it up.

In fact, your cells have been creating specific, receptive docking points to receive the particular peptide known as ‘betrayal’ that they’re wired to receive. Every time peptides such as ‘betrayal’, which is a nasty emotion, enters your cells, it hurts. It’s toxic and it damages your cells. It diminishes your cells’ ability to receive oxygen and nutrients and it’s making you sick.

It’s like when we have horrible emotions about people, it’s like taking poison and then wishing they would drop dead. It doesn’t work. What’s more, every time your cells are constantly dividing and doubling, they create twice the amount of docking points for ‘betrayal’. Now you need more of the peptide of ‘betrayal’ for your cells to get their fix. You are literally addicted to getting more ‘betrayal’ – the emotion of it.

This is why you can’t stop thinking about the ‘betrayal’, because this is making your hypothalamus create more of the peptide to fill your cells. This is also why you can’t stop yourself going back to the actual source of the ‘betrayal’, the drug dealer, the narcissist, to get more of this peptide coursing through your body.

It was so key for me when I learned about peptide addiction and what was really going on and that it was physiological. Because I thought, like you, that I was going crazy. Like myself, so many people when understanding how trauma bonding is in your body – it’s emotional, it’s cellular – they realized that a much deeper way of healing was needed. Which is about so much more than just missing somebody or thinking you’re going crazy. It’s a literal hard wire going in your body that needs to be reversed. Thank goodness there are ways to do that now.

 

Number Five – Infantile Regression

This one is so heartbreaking. In times of intense trauma, it’s so common to regress back to your most instinctual learnt helpless behavior in order to try to survive.

This is really akin to the child clinging to a parent to try to appease them. Believing that they’re capable of some kind of relief or clemency or decency, when you’re feeling abused, even if they’re the one delivering the abuse.

This is why in psychological terms, it’s well-known that usually the abusive parent is the one that the child seems to be the most clinging and loving towards. But for us as adults, if we haven’t learned how to Quantumly, emotionally, somatically heal our inner traumas up to completion into a whole solid adult, it means that when somebody is hurting you, you’re going to be inclined to go towards them. Instead of being mature and healed enough in your own body to pull away, get away, and take care of yourself.

Infantile regression is powerful. It’s unconscious. It’s a primitive survival program that operates at the very core of your being. At those times your maturity goes out the window and can be replaced by utter childlike helplessness. In this state, you may feel like you’re going to literally die if you don’t agree with a narcissist, if you don’t take the blame, if you don’t do anything to try to keep the peace and grant everything the narcissist wants in the primitive hope that the onslaughts will stop and that you will be allowed, by the narcissist, to avoid complete emotional annihilation.

This is why you may keep doing things and that you just think, “I’ve lost my mind. I’ve lost my Soul. I’ve lost all of my rights.” And you just keep handing away more and more and more and more power. You may literally be in self-loathing and self-disgust that you have stooped so low in your own love and respect for yourself. That’s infantile regression. Where your rights are completely withdrawn by yourself and numbed out in your hope and need for survival.

 

The Signs Of Trauma Bonding

You may have recognized that you’re going through much of what I’ve described to you with these five trauma bonds. I went through all of them. I know how painful they are and how mental they are.

In addition to this, the signs that you were trauma bonded is that you feel like you have a black ink inside you, you feel like you’re suffering this horrible psychic virus, that you’re psychically attacked, and that this person is still living on inside of you.

You will also be struggling with the symptoms of narcissistic abuse, such as complicated post-traumatic stress disorder, brain fog, fibromyalgia, adrenal fatigue, agoraphobia, depression, anxiety, diminished trust and faith in yourself and so much more.

I promise you, I know what it is like to have all of those severe narcissistic abuse symptoms, as well as the trauma bonds. In fact, my situation is not uncommon at all. It’s virtually all of you as well because this is all synonymous with narcissistic abuse.

I promise you that no amount of talk therapy and research about narcissists, and even what had happened to me, helped me get out of the obsession, the addiction, the regular breaking of No Contact and continually putting myself back on the path of being abused over and over again, to the point where I looked in the mirror and I could not even recognize myself.

It astounded me because I’d always been a strong, intelligent person. Trauma bonds are powerful. I couldn’t let go. I didn’t heal. And I was never able to recover my Soul, spirit and sanity and life until I dissolved the trauma bonds with Quanta Freedom Healing.

The most powerful message I want to share with you today is that there is a direct way to get out of this madness, to heal from all of this. The way I discovered was the healing processes that I use with NARP.

So many members of our wonderful community have been able to access that as well. That’s why we have a community that’s very successful in healing for real, from all of this.

I’d love to show you how this works. I’m going to invite you to my free workshop, which explains all of this deeply. And how in this community, myself and my team have been able to help thousands of people recover from this insidious phenomenon known as trauma bonding.

You can get started on this today for free, by joining my free workshop. I hope today has helped you understand what is really going on for you. And I want you to know that there is more than hope to heal from this.