Have you ever been in an abusive relationship? Whether with an intimate partner, a parent, a family member, or even a friend. If you have experienced a persistent draw to your abuser, chances are you are undergoing trauma bonding.

Identifying Trauma Bonding

Trauma bonding, the formation of an unhealthy bond between a person living with abuse and their abuser. This kind of bond is created in a relationship that alternates between love and abuse. When your relationship experiences abuse and then you are showered with love and positive attention, it creates the feeling of heightened enjoyment of the love and attention. This creates that bond because the positive actions feel as if they override the negative actions.

The Cycle of Abuse and Love

When you find the love and attention to be satisfying, it leaves you longing for more. Some relationships are built and maintained on the feeling of fear, where someone may be scared to leave or speak up for themselves, and so they turn all of their focus on the positives parts of that relationship and block out the negative parts. This is often viewed as rationalizing the abuser’s behavior and sticking up for them when others may try to confront the issue. When this cycle begins, the relationship becomes a repeated pattern of abuse followed by love and attention, therefore it becomes a habit or routine that is excused, regardless of how unhealthy the relationship may be. 

Signs of Trauma Bonding

In an abusive relationship, trauma bonding is something that is hurting you in defense of the abuser, and it perpetuates the abusive cycle within that relationship. Some examples of trauma bonding signs are the following:

• making excuses for their abuse,
• putting up with the abuse to make the abuser happy,
• self-blaming for the abuse,
• changing your thoughts and opinions to match that of the abuser and,
• closing yourself off from others around you that challenge you about your unhealthy relationship.

Sometimes, you are not the one trying to take responsibility for the abuser’s actions, but they put the blame on you and use this as a control measure. If you have ever been in a relationship with a narcissist, you may have experienced trauma bonding. For example, someone who takes credit for things you have accomplished while also demeaning everything you do in private to you, this would be another form of abuse. There are many forms of abuse that are present in a trauma bonded relationship, and these are only a few examples.

Breaking the Bond – Taking the First Steps

In a trauma-bonded relationship, there’s hope for change. Don’t give up; you’re strong and worth the effort. The first step in breaking a trauma bond is to recognize the abuse in your relationship. Some abuse is not as apparent or obvious as others. One example of this would be emotional abuse. Emotional abuse can be in many different forms, but one that is very common is gaslighting. Gaslighting is when you are manipulated or tricked into doubting yourself and everything you do. This gives the abuser control over you, and is often times unnoticed by the person experiencing it. Recognizing the abuse is a powerful and often times, hard first step, but once you see it, this gives you the ability to put distance between yourself and the trauma bond.

In an abusive relationship, being the victim is very demeaning, and can often create negativity inside of the victim of the abuse. It is so important to recognize the positives in yourself. If you use positive self-talk, you will begin to see those things of value in yourself again and realize that all those negative thoughts you once had about yourself were not actually your thoughts at all, but those of your abuser.