WHEN TRAUMA FEELS LIKE LOVE | TRAUMA BONDING & THE POLYVAGAL RESPONSE | NERVOUS SYSTEM

When Trauma Bonds Keep You Stuck

Trauma bonds play tricks on our minds. From gaslighting to manipulation. It’s crucial to recognise this and break free

Photo by Elle Cartier on Unsplash

Trauma bonds are complex, manifesting in ways that aren’t always understood. I discuss the polyvagal nervous system and how trauma bonds affect us physiologically and psychologically. I describe the seven stages of trauma bonds in toxic and abusive relationships, and how to break free from them, healing ourselves and our inner child.

Misunderstanding What Trauma Bonds Are

When someone talks about trauma bonds, they may not fully recognise their origins and how they manifest in their life. It’s not only about cognitively understanding the psychological aspects, but also the physical. Our nervous system (Autonomic Nervous System) is also affected.

Trauma bonds keep you stuck in dysregulated states, as the cycle of abuse, intermittent reinforcement, and dependency in trauma bonds affects your behaviour and emotional responses. When the nervous system is triggered to fight or flight mode, the feeling of safety is absent. It’s easier to form unhealthy connections, and abusive patterns are reinforced.

Breaking Trauma Bonds — Emotional Regulation and Our Nervous System (ANS)

Breaking trauma bonds requires more than cognitive understanding and support to leave abusive relationships. It also requires emotional regulation and an understanding of the role of the ANS in trauma. All trauma affects the nervous system, resulting in dysregulation. That is when individuals become stuck in patterns of behaviour and abusive cycles, as they are unable to break them.

Stephen Porges developed the polyvagal theory, which explains how trauma affects the autonomic nervous system (ANS), influencing behaviour and emotional responses. Having experienced trauma as an adoptee, I underwent Therapy-Informed Therapy, which used the Polyvagal Approach. I wrote this story about it.

[embed]Spotlight on Trauma-Informed Therapy and the Polyvagal Approach What makes this therapy unique and valuable? A personal perspective and discussion of the therapy.medium.com

The Abusive Cycle in Relationships

I learned how important the nervous system is when I underwent Trauma-Informed Therapy. Even though I didn’t immediately put it into practice and stayed stuck in repeated cycles, I learned that my nervous system was affected by trauma. As I had also had abusive relationships, it was a very helpful form of therapy, enabling me to recognise how trauma dysregulated my nervous system.

I struggled to make sense of relationships and why I stayed stuck in them. I continued staying stuck and tried very hard to get unstuck, and this is where I realised that a holistic approach to breaking trauma bonds was the only thing that worked. Without understanding the connection between our mind and body, it’s very difficult to break free from trauma bonds.

Holistic Approach to Breaking Trauma Bonds

Abusive patterns of relationships don’t change — only people change. Those who abuse us don’t change unless they choose to, which is unlikely to be the case. In fact, the longer you stay in abusive relationships, the worse they get. They rarely get better. Going ‘No Contact’ allows your nervous system to recover and heal, as well as your mind.

That is the holistic way to break trauma bonds. Recognising the connection between mind and body is vital. Abusive relationships have both psychological and physiological elements, and both need to be recognised to break trauma bonds. Just realising that you’re in an abusive relationship isn’t enough. It doesn’t stop the abuse, as the cycle continues.

Nervous System — AI image (DALL-E)

What is the Polyvagal Nervous System?

The Polyvagal Nervous System consists of:

• Ventral Vagal (Safety & Connection) — Feeling regulated, safe, and being able to navigate relationships, etc. Not feeling threatened.
• Sympathetic (Fight or Flight) — Feeling anxious, hypervigilant, fearful and trapped. Unable to navigate relationships. Feeling threatened.
• Dorsal Vagal (Shutdown & Collapse) — Feeling powerless, hopeless and numb. Unable to leave relationships.

Emotional responses in relationships can include fight, flight, freeze, and fawning responses in relationships.

Survival Instinct and Trauma Bonds

As humans, we’re born with a need for survival, and having caregivers in our lives is part of our nature, whether these are parents, spouses, partners, etc. The bonds we create in our lives have their origins in our biology and stem from survival needs. As children, our survival depended on our parents or caregivers.

We attach to other humans so that in times of danger, we can turn to them for safety, support, and comfort. This bonding and attachment produce oxytocin (the ‘love’ hormone) in our brains, so we naturally seek this. Attachment and survival are closely linked. When we grow into adults, our caregiver is often our ‘other half’, partner, or husband.

How Cognitive Dissonance Relates to Trauma Bonds

The formation of trauma bonds is created in how we biologically and psychologically attach to our primary caregivers. Therefore, it makes sense that we transfer these same attachments to others in our lives, who may or may not behave accordingly. This is why trauma bonds are so complex and confusing, as we rely on the very people who abuse us.

As we’re already hard-wired to attach to caregivers when threatened, we naturally seek the same as adults. Our brains don’t understand how those we ‘love’ or who claim to ‘love’ us could also abuse us. We try to rationalise this in our minds by creating bonds, ignoring or making excuses for others’ lack of care and harmful behaviour.

Being Stuck In Unhealthy Relationships

We become ‘stuck’ in a cycle of abuse where there is intermittent reinforcement (sometimes the person who abuses us can be nice, kind, supportive, etc, but this is short-lived). This behaviour causes confusion and doubt. It results in cognitive dissonance, whereby we know on the one hand someone is being abusive, but still stay attached to them in the hope they will change or that the abuse will stop, or that even we are to blame. When the same person we depend on for support also abuses us, we create powerful reasons to stay in the relationship and feel unable to leave it. The trauma bond keeps you stuck in unhealthy relationships.

Seven Stages of Trauma Bonding

1. Love Bombing: This is when someone excessively praises, admires, and gives gifts and attention to another. This can later turn into gaslighting and emotional abuse, which makes it confusing.
2. Trust & Dependency: This is when trust is formed, and you rely on a partner, etc, for many aspects of your life. They may also make you financially dependent on them so that you can’t leave. They may appear reliable, but it’s short-lived. Sources of outside support may be shut off, and when you’re dependent on them, they abuse you.
3. Criticism: This can include devaluation, insults, put-downs, back-handed compliments, and attempts to gaslight and emotionally blackmail.
4. Manipulation & Gaslighting: This is the stage where someone abusing you uses tactics such as gaslighting and emotional abuse, making you doubt yourself and your worth. You may question your reality and even your sanity. They may insist they didn’t say or do something and try to ‘trick’ your mind, or lie to others about what they did, making you to blame. They may blame you for things that have gone wrong, isolate you from others, control what you do and where you go, control how you spend money, etc. I wrote this story about Gaslighting and Lying.

[embed]The Startling Immorality of Gaslighting and Lying to Others. Ways in which gaslighting and lying can be damaging.medium.com

5. Resignation (Giving In): This is the stage where you just give in for peace safe and it can be hard to realise how abusive the relationship is. This is also known as ‘fawning’, whereby people pleasing to avoid conflict is easier than confronting the truth.

6. Loss of Self: This results in losing yourself. You’ve become totally dependent on the person abusing you and isolated. You’ve lost your identity. You need help to leave the relationship immediately. Staying stuck at this stage has serious mental health repercussions.

7. Addiction and Recycling: Trauma bonding can happen repeatedly. It can be an ongoing cycle of abuse. Even after the love bombing turns to abuse, people can go back into the cycle, and it starts all over again. This happens to those who stay stuck and can’t leave. They use rationalisations and cognitive dissonance to convince themselves that next time will be better. It’s important to understand the origins of why people cannot leave abusive relationships. Often it is because of childhood attachment — fear of abandonment, being alone, etc. It can become easier to resign oneself to staying in an abusive relationship than to leave and risk having no one.

Key Takeaways

Trauma bonds are complex ways we connect to others, based on our primal attachments to caregivers. They are deeply rooted in our psyche and become ‘natural’, even when the relationship is abusive. Our biological roots of survival and seeking safety and comfort in caregivers produce oxytocin in our brains. Trauma affects our nervous system (ANS).

It produces extra cortisol (stress hormone), increases blood pressure, and has other health implications. Emotional regulation is key to severing trauma bonds. Otherwise, the cycle can’t be broken, as the nervous system is implicated. Understanding how our minds and bodies connect our emotions, thoughts, and reactions is vital. Awareness of the polyvagal approach to trauma is a crucial step in self-regulation and toward freedom.

🤔 Let Me Know Your Thoughts 🤔

• How has trauma affected your life?
• Does understanding the biological origins of survival in childhood and how trauma manifests as an adult help in understanding trauma bonds?

References:

Breaking the Cycle of Toxic Relationships

What Trauma Bonds Are and How to Overcome Them

Trauma Bonds and Breaking Them

Thanks for reading 📚

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Note: If you’re into psychology, you may be interested in following my publication — Psychology Hits | Decoding the Mind. I am hoping to start adding writers interested in writing for this publication soon.

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