Can a trauma bond actually do this?

[Lisacuddy]

I've been trying to understand this and Google has turned up "trauma bonds".

This relates to a situation that was over a year ago but which still makes me ill - PTSD and other problems.

I'm usually a bit allergic to psycho babble so I wanted to ask real people, maybe with lived experience... can a trauma bond make you do and feel these things?

Form very strong attachment to the abuser, not romantically, but almost like a complete dependency?

To want to get away from the abuser / make it stop but also to miss the abuser to a point of obsession?

Struggle with seeing the abuser as an abuser even when the abuse is cut and dried and other people might get hurt?

Feel a desperate need for attention and approval from the abuser even if they're ruining your life?

Be loyal to and defend the abuser, even while their abuse had spilled over into abusing your family too?

To grieve losing the abuser, even if you weren't in love with them and realise they did terrible things?

I am really struggling with understanding this and have buried it away, bbut can a trauma bond actually make you act like this? Even if it's incredibly destructive?

If so, why?

I wasn't in love with the abuser, but had an almost addiction that made me blow up my life and wellbeing and just can't understand it.

I know this is probably an unusual question most people won't know about but I feel I crisis with trauma today and if anyone can respond I'd be really appreciative.

Trauma bond is a particular term that defines an intense, co-dependent bond after an incident of trauma. Whether you use that term or not, I think that yes, abuse/trauma can make you do and feel all those things you described.

Yes, in my case anyway. Abusive marriage with wife, treated me awfully throughout but the cycle of nice and nasty messes with your head, you get conditioned into that cycle. Ended up isolated for years, no friends or family just that one person to talk to and live with.

Once out it was like nothing I have experienced in past relationships, it was like coming off a drug and took many months to calm down. Self doubt was strong, doing what always done, excusing behavior, defending it finding reasons for it to happen. Not so strong now but have momentary bouts of wanting to go back, dreams and nightmares still ongoing.

You are conditioned to lose your autonomy, to become a puppet for them, which makes you dependent on them and the longer it goes on, the harder that bond is to break. That's what I feels like anyway.

Thank you. Sorry, I have such bad anxiety today that I'm vomiting and the guilt over my attachment to this person and how much I let that hurt people makes me think I'm a terrible person

Aside from your connection to this abuser, do you think you're a terrible person in any other areas of life?

No. I don't understand why but in relationship to this person I did some bad things. I didn't even want to do them so I don't know why I did.

I can't even explain or understand it, and when they started abusing someone I love, I didn't stop them. I still felt loyalty and need towards them instead of the person I love. I just can't understand

No. I don't understand why but in relationship to this person I did some bad things

Then the toxin isn't you.

I thought about an abuser like a bad prawn. You can be perfectly healthy... you can be an Olympic athlete, in peak condition. You can be fully trained for a marathon, or ready for your Wimbledon final... absolute peak health. But if you eat a bad prawn, what happens? Your amazing, beautiful, strong, powerful, elegant body becomes utterly disgusting. Sweaty, red, sticky, puking, diarrhoea-squirting, quivering, stinking mess. It's in you, but it's not you. It's so bad that you think you're going to die, and sometimes so bad that you want to.

And then, because you don't carry on eating bad prawns, you get better. And the whole mess wasn't a reflection of you, or what you want to do, but of what happens to you when you are poisoned.

It's normal to feel very attached to and abuser. This is especially common when you've experienced poor treatment or neglect as a child: the way the abuser treats you reminds you of what home felt like when you were little. We all have a part of us that longs for home, it's pre-programmed into us.

I did have a neglectful childhood, but as an adult I had a healthy, loving family. So I can't really get to grips with why I became embroiled with thus ugliness. It makes no sense and being unable to answer these questions makes me feel unable to adequately apologise to those I hurt.

You got embroiled by mistake, didn't you? And you stayed because you didn't realise how bad it was until it was really bad, by which time you didn't know how to get out?

And all the time you wondered what you were doing wrong to deserve this, and how you could fix it?

Yes, trauma bonding can do all the things you describe. I know, because I've been there...and, eventually got away from the abuse. It's awful and others don't realise or understand the dynamics going on. Once you're wise to it, it all starts to make sense and you can get away from it. Not easy though. But the relief is enormous. It takes some processing and coming to terms with for a long time. Forgive yourself for however you've been influenced and probably manipulated.

They are very good at what they do. Manipulation. Little by little, it all seems so unremarkable in such small doses. When the doubts start to kick in you're already hooked. It's all down to manipulation.

Yes. I just thought it was a really friendly person who was clearly really interested in me, and appeared when I was vulnerable.

They became attached to me at the hip, I didn't really speak to anyone else, and If anything I felt sorry for them as they seemed vulnerable like me.

The abusive behavior was minor at first and they were so contrite and sorry and going back to nice stuff that I just sort of wanted to go back to things being nice.

The strage thing is that if anyone else behaved like that I'd have run, but by then I was so enmeshed and didn't know how to stop.

When it got worse and worse, I was - and partly remain - confused and unable to call it abuse. I minimise it.

All that bit I kind of understand, it's just thatcI made a firm decision to get them out of my life and then found it almost impossible.

I was also disloyal and didn't protect people I should have, even to the point of siding with the sbuser and I feel very guilty.

Looking back, I was just desperate for a friend at the time and really didn't want to to be so intense and enmeshed but they were quite forceful about it, or just pushed and pushed. They wanted to be almost all I had and it ended up being like that. That was never what I actually wanted though.

I don't really understand manipulation or how it can be that effective that you end up doing things you really do not want to do.

It's the same as Stockholm Syndrome you see in kidnap victims. Exactly what you describe.

Was it your child who you feel you didn’t protect?

I'm also ashamed to say I turned away from a few decent people to be loyal to my abuser who I thought had my back 100%. How wrong I was. The others saw things I didn't, were wary and puzzled and that put doubts in my mind that I didn't want nor wanted to think about. I was an idiot.

They say that kidnap victims form this kind of attachment to their kidnappers.

It's because the abuser offers you something that you have a deep need for. It's not your fault that you needed whatever they offered. It'll be in your upbringing.

It's like if you'd been bitten by a dog as a kid. You'd be jumpy around dogs now. Would you blame yourself for that? Would you feel yourself to be a horrible person because you weren't able to be near someone's pet chihuahua, or would you understand that that's how humans work, by having experiences, and then universally applying what we've learned?

No it wasn't my child, but it was someone I really love who's been badly traumatised too now because I didn't do anything.

@beachcomber70

Exactly that, they all saw what I couldn't. Or I did see it, I just couldn't really act on it

Are they responsible for themselves, then? As in, are they an adult? Because if they are, you can level all the same negative judgement against them for falling victim to this abuser as you are levelling at yourself, can't you?

Abusers learn ways of giving people what they want (friends, love, a sense of belonging) and give you this, which creates chemicals in your brain and make you feel good. When the abuse then starts your body with draws from the chemicals as they have been making you feel good. The abuser will then alternate between abuse and good behaviour just enough that you will keep wanting the good feelings.
Trauma bonds keep that cycle going, you may not know that this is what is happening.
Your difficult childhood may also be what lead to how this occurred. It is possible for trauma to feel safe and familiar, even when there are other options, because this is what you are used to. You are then more likely to minimise what is happening to you or others because of this.

@Watchkeys

No. I was responsible. The encouraged me mto do bad things, then threatened to "out me" if I didn't do what they wanted. They would threaten it on a weekly basis. Which I understand is my fault for doing the bad things.

They followed through on that threat when I said I was leaving and "outed" me. My loved one was so loyal, that they stood by me. They saw through the abuser immediately.

The abuser then harassed, stalked and messed with my loved one to the point of fear and made their life miserable.

Throughout that, I stayed in contact with and even defended the abuser at times. I brought this psycho to their door and then sided with the abuser. Which is beyond atonement really isn't it.

So it's nobody's fault but mine.

As its confession time, I also begged my loved one not to go to the police.

Partly because I was completely terrified of what the abuser might do. Make up false allegations about me? They'd threatened that too.

And partly because I didn't want anything bad to happen to the abuser.

This is really bad isn't it