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.

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

This is exactly what happened, but I'm confused why I felt a sense of belonging with this near stranger when I had good people who really loved me. I'm not sure why that dangerous person made me feel so safe.

They felt very familiar and comfortable. Like me. Does this mean I'm an abuser too?

My childhood was neglected but not abusive. Never any behaviour similar to the abuse. My parents just ignored me and left me to fend for myself completely like an orphan.

But I had healthy love as an adult and seem to have turned away from it in favour of this.

You're so insistent on fault. Life doesn't work like that. If we're tortured, we'll do or say anything. If we're abused, we'll say and do things that are out of character. If we're respected, we'll do what we think is right, according to our own morals.

You've been manipulated by threats. You've done out of character things. How much torture would you need to have suffered to let yourself off the hook for this? Your willingness to see yourself as 'at fault' is causing the problems for you now, and caused you to stay with the abuser as long as you did. Your willingness to see yourself as 'at fault' is the problem, now. The abuse isn't a problem. Your relationship with your loved one isn't a problem. You are your problem. Getting off your own case is the first step here. What good is it doing anyone to continually beat yourself up for your faults? Surely such a corrupt person as you see yourself to be wouldn't give a shit about any of it, anyway? So your conscience is showing you who you really are, and what was altered in you whilst you were being abused?

It's because I dont know how to make it right or even to adequately explain it

Absolutely yes to everything you said op

Yes a trauma bond can do what you describe. Exactly what you describe. My FIL is extremely abusive and my MIL, an absolute gem of a person, is addicted to him. It has caused great harm in her children’s lives and more particularly in her life but it is best to see it as an addiction because that is exactly what it has been like.

My childhood was neglected but not abusive. Never any behaviour similar to the abuse. My parents just ignored me and left me to fend for myself completely like an orphan.

You may have seen things subconsciously in your abuser which was familiar to your previous neglect, we are programmed to look for familiar for safety.

It doesn’t make you an abuser, but it suggests that maybe you need therapeutic support.
You have low self esteem which is why you keep looking for fault, it sounds like you are the victim as much as anyone else. You possibly made one mistake and then did what you did out of fear and manipulation.

A few years ago my best friend was having a bit of a mental health crisis. A guy appeared that apparently, according to her, offered her all the support she ever needed. He was there for in a way that no one else was. He absolutely understood her.

He also got crazy enmeshed in her life very quickly whilst both confirming it was a 100 percent friendship - neither of them liked each other romantically. Yet weirdly it was the most intense, fast moving and involved relationship I have ever seen in my life with absolutely zero romantic energy at all. He was suddenly there, in everything and the centre of her universe without question

I honestly think she would still be blindly in his clutches if he had not 'had to leave' with a friend off the family who needed 'his help' more than my friend did.

She suddenly woke up and realised she was friendless, bankrupt because she had been paying his bills before her own, hooked on over the counter medication and so was her sister who got entangled in the whole mess. There was no violence or even overt coercion, but he managed to garner a cult like obsession with him, that was not love, but a weird need to please on a level that was wildly disturbing. She confirmed he never sulked, raised his voice or made demands, it was all very very subtle - mentioning he liked the look of a phone on a TV ad or the beach destination in a show - she just wanted to please him so would buy it or book it without hesitation just to make him happy.

Sometimes if a person is very attractive people can become spellbound by their beauty, or they are charming they can make you feel enamoured with them......but he was a charmless, partially toothless (and several broken rotting teeth), BO smelling, lank haired gamer who had no job..... so i don't think it was that.

While she was in the thick of it she wouldn't hear a bad word. We all were very concerned but she was having none of it.

I m on the receiving end of an abuser and 2 cult like devotees, BIL, Sister and mother, and I m considering reporting my abusive brother in law to the police. It will cause havoc but I feel the relationships are not savable as a result of the endless, base abuse.

You will never be able to explain, because the way you behaved will never make sense to you.

LET. GO.

A few years ago my best friend was having a bit of a mental health crisis. A guy appeared that apparently, according to her, offered her all the support she ever needed. He was there for in a way that no one else was. He absolutely understood her

He also got crazy enmeshed in her life very quickly whilst both confirming it was a 100 percent friendship - neither of them liked each other romantically. Yet weirdly it was the most intense, fast moving and involved relationship I have ever seen in my life

This is exactly what happened. Although it did turn sexual because he wanted it to and even with the benefit of hindsight I don't know why I did because I genuinely didn't have a romantic attachment.

His abuse initially was not that bad: angry outbursts, checking my phone, gaslighting me, criticising me.

Later it got very bad indeed: frightening me, forcing me into a car, breaking into my house, threatening me constantly.

Always following up the next day he was so sorry, he'd nurse me and say it was only because he loved me so much.

If you think of a trauma bond as similar to Stockholm syndrome, where people can have literally been held hostage, sometimes for years, and still have an attachment to their captor, you might better understand the power of a trauma bond

I've read up on Stockholm syndrome. I think because it's so illogical it feels not really. Im trying, I suppose, to make sense of feeling so brainwashed

No sane person can make sense of the way they behave when abused. Stop trying. It doesn't need to make sense.

Later it got very bad indeed: frightening me, forcing me into a car, breaking into my house, threatening me constantly.

I've no experience of that but it sounds absolutely terrifying, it sounds like an escalating situation which got out of your control.
I'm so pleased that you have got away from him.

Thank you. So am i

I did a bit of reading on it, and a website said the craving during withdrawal is "Cravings, usually for the feelings that come after conflict".

So it's that feeling of anxiety, panic, terror and horror they created - and then the relief afterwards when they're being nice again?

So it's not the abuse you're craving, it's more the feeling afterwards when it's stopped? The soothing?

So that feeling of compulsion to break NC is like an addiction to a feeling of being soothed by them, and yet they created the need for soothing in the first place?

I'm confused why I felt a sense of belonging with this near stranger when I had good people who really loved me. I'm not sure why that dangerous person made me feel so safe.

They felt very familiar and comfortable. Like me.

He or she will have mirrored you, that's how they bond with their victims so quickly.

and appeared when I was vulnerable.

It was ever thus.

You're essentially talking about coercive control. To which the trauma response is to fawn - ie: strongly attach to the abuser and cooperate with their coercion.

"The most effective way to gain cooperation is through subversive manipulation of the mind and feelings of the victim, who then becomes a psychological, as well as a physical, prisoner."

You can read more about it here.

https://avaproject.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Joanna-Sharpen-2016.pdf

When you are rescued from danger you are hugely relieved to see the rescuer. You get a surge of stress relief hormones. Even when the rescuer is also the person who inflicted the danger.

When you are subject to an abuser, you know you need to appease them. Your survival depends on them being pleased with you. When they are pleased with you the relief you feel from the avoidance of danger is overwhelming.

You were caught in a trap of appeasement and relief from fear that your abuser created. Your survival depended on your submission to them, and they were the only rescuer in sight. They were your biggest fear and your greatest security wrapped up in one screwed up package.

It's not you, it was him. He created your situation.

It’s real. Mine gave me Ptsd, anxiety and broke me crushingly to a suicide attempt and absolute despair.

mine was / is my father.

From a young age I wanted to be loved. I was brought up in a miilion pound house and went to a private school. He sabotaged everything, my friendship, my Heath even controlled my health length.

I moved away and it continued but much less silent treatment of I didn’t do as I was told. Called thick and stupid daily despite a phd. I married my father - on type and we divorced and he abused me through the courts for years - I suddenly realised how identical they were except a court gave me a restraining order.

I ran back to my parents who dished put love and persuaded me to relocate and sell etc and move in with them with my children .

it took 8 weeks and my head fell out, I had heart problems, I couldn’t work etc my kids in pieces.

I left with them and sorted my own place etc my punishment for leaving is he won’t talk to me. But I wanted to do anything to be loved but I wouldn’t beg and got myself counselling - 3 years on - I still love him and want him to be my loving father but he’s a nasty poisonous piece of work and I must keep away and so I do - I don’t contact him even though I’m 5 minutes away. I won’t go to a funeral or around if he is ill.

I want him to be loving kind normal father that adores his daughter and grandchildren but he hates us? That my fault isn’t it? Well yes it is because I developed a backbone and he can’t stand to see us thrive he can’t stand to see us as it remind him that we have nothing to do with him and he’s just sad and alone

if he phoned and begged would I go around - yes probably

This rings a lot if bells @pickledandpuzzled

When you are subject to an abuser, you know you need to appease them. Your survival depends on them being pleased with you. When they are pleased with you the relief you feel from the avoidance of danger is overwhelming

Question for anyone: I desperately wanted to get away from him. Leaving was hard as he had me more or less blackmailed but I was desperate to go.

Once I did, he stalked me for months. I desperately wanted him to stop, but I also missed him. I also wanted his favourable opinion. Simultaneously I was genuinely scared he was going to kill me.

He finally stopped stalking me about 6 months later because he met someone else. That's the point I felt almost desperate for him. I was like a crack addict and felt like I'd die. I was jealous of the new woman. I even reached out to him to try and lure him back.

I'm so ashamed of that. Was this maybe because I needed him to be pleased with me?

@Peacendkindness

Thank you and I'm so sorry. I wanted to say I identify so much with you.

I've been there, it was as everyone says, like getting off a drug, the emotional pain & bewilderment was horrific, nightmares & awful realisation of what he had been doing to me & behind my back. For me the only way forward was no contact, blocking & changing my number. I know it's not always possible if you have kids with them. It was the only way I wasn't tempted but at times I still get a craving to see him. Crazy after everything he put he through but I totally relate. Have you tried any support groups, therapy?

How could you know you were safe if he wasn't pleased with you? If you weren't pleasing him?

I imagine it feels like living under a volcano, wearing a blindfold.

You know he's out there. You can no longer buy his restraint by grovelling and appeasing him. How terrifying. Much better to have him where you can see him and know whether he's about to blow so you can try a few incantations and sacrifices to delay the eruption.

Yes, it's your craving for external validation. You have it already, then the abuser comes along and plays on it, enhances it, makes it more and more extreme, until you don't recognise yourself.

What's happened to you is extremely common, @Lisacuddy , in fact you're a textbook case, right down to the way you're viewing it all now. You still haven't started self-validating, so you still seek for others to help you understand why you are so faulty/wrong/messed up etc, when really, all that you need to know is that you are not faulty/wrong/messed up. You're completely normal, like the rest of us here who have been through abuse. We are sane, sensible, decent, respectable people, who have had a period of not recognising ourselves because an abuser bent us all out of shape.

And then, we stopped punishing ourselves. We recognised that it's ok. We understand that the only thing wrong with us was our belief that something was wrong with us. And it all goes into the past like a puff of smoke, when you do that.