Trauma Bonding: Why You Still Love a Narcissist

“Trauma bonding feels like you’ve broken me into pieces but you’re the only one who can fix me.”

Does this sound familiar?

Trauma bonding happens when an abuser provides the survivor with intermittent rewards and punishments – a psychological conditioning develops, the survivor becomes snared into the relationship, ever hopeful of the next reward and a reprieve from the suffering.

A trauma bond typically follows a cycle and rests on an imbalance of power. Recognizing the bond for what it is and getting help may help you break it.

In fact, there are stages of trauma bonding. The stages of trauma bonding include gaslighting, love bombing, emotional addiction, criticism, loss of self, and trust and dependency. Understanding the phases is necessary for victims to realise their situation and learn how to break trauma bonds.

Gaslighting: Gaslighting is where the abuser denies and makes the abused question their reality, beliefs, and sanity. This technique of psychological manipulation typically occurs in abusive relationships.

Love bombing: Love bombing refers to behaviour patterns in which someone overwhelms another person with displays of affection and admiration usually at the beginning of a relationship. It uses loving words, flattery, and excessive attention as tactics to manipulate the recipient into making them feel dependent and indebted to their abuser.

Emotional addiction: Emotional addiction means that the highs and lows of the relationship become addictive to an individual. Their body constantly produces cortisol (stress) and craves dopamine (pleasure). This results in a cycle of dependency that experts say closely resembles drug addiction. The abused person may know that they are in an unhealthy relationship yet feel like they cannot leave it.

Criticism: Criticism is a stage where the abusive partner criticises and blames the other person for things they fully know are not the latter’s fault. The showering of over-the-top attention and affection previously displayed is slowly replaced with criticism.

Loss of Self: Loss of self happens when an individual settles for anything just to keep the peace at the expense of their self-confidence and sense of self. When one tries to push back against the destructive behaviours of their abuser, the situation gets worse.

Trust and dependency: This stage involves winning over an abused’s trust to try and manipulate them into being dependent on their abuser for validation and attention. This dependency bond develops as a result of the prior displays of love and affection that only serve to reinforce the power that the perpetrator has over the victim.

Resigning to control: Resigning to control transpires when an open discussion does not work anymore and only ends with the abuser creating a litany of complaints meant to shift blame onto the victim. This gets frustrating and exhausting over time, so victims compromise to resolve conflict by giving in to their abusers. In this situation, the victim may convince themselves into thinking that their partner will change.

Other key signs may include:

• You feel unhappy and may not even like your partner any longer, but you still feel unable to end things.
• When you do try to leave, you feel physically and emotionally distressed.
• When you say you want to leave, they promise to change but make no effort actually to do so.
• You fixate on the “good” days, using them to prove they truly care.
• You make excuses and defend their behaviour when others express concern.
• You continue to trust them and hope to change them.
• You protect them by keeping abusive behaviour secret.

And alas, the cycle continues. Trauma bonding, whilst not always named by an abuser or abused as exactly that, becomes the familiar flow of the relationship in crisis.

But you can break the bond. And here’s how:

Avoid self-blame: Believing you caused the abuse or brought it on yourself can make it harder to exercise your autonomy, effectively keeping you in the relationship.

Remind yourself that abuse is never your fault, no matter:

• what you may or may not have done
• how deeply you fear loneliness or a life without them
• how many times you’ve already gone back

You do deserve better. Replacing self-criticism and blame with affirmations and positive self-talk can help this truth begin to take hold.

Cut off contact completely: Once you decide to leave, if it is safe to do so, disrupt the cycle completely by stopping all communication if possible. If you co-parent, this may not be possible, and there are ways to maintain only necessary contact. Create physical distance by finding a safe place to stay, such as with a relative or friend. Also consider changing your phone number, if possible.

And importantly, seek professional help. You are not meant to do this alone, and it’s highly likely that intervention is required.