Trauma Bonds and Toxic Emotional Connections
The invisible bonds that cause trauma and heartache are often buried under the surface of our psyche
Hello and welcome to my weekly newsletter.
This week, I discuss Trauma Bonds, how they manifest, and how they are misunderstood. I also discuss the seven stages of trauma bonds, and how to break them and heal.
Misunderstanding What Trauma Bonds Are
When someone talks about trauma bonds, they may not fully recognize their origins and how they manifest in their life. It’s not only about cognitively understanding the psychological aspects but also the physiological. 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 affect your behavior 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 behavior and abusive cycles, as they are unable to break them. Having experienced trauma, I underwent Trauma Informed Therapy, which used the Polyval Approach, as an adoptee. I wrote about this story on Medium. Stephen Porges developed the polyvagal theory, which explains how trauma affects the autonomic nervous system (ANS), influencing behavior and emotional responses.
The Abusive Cycle in Relationships
I learned how important the nervous 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 abusive relationships also, it was a very helpful form of therapy, enabling me to recognize 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 realized 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. Recognizing the connection between mind and body is vital. Abusive relationships have both psychological and physiological elements, and both need to be recognized to break trauma bonds. Just realizing that you’re in an abusive relationship isn’t enough. In my experience, it doesn’t stop the abuse, as the cycle continues.
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 produces oxytocin (the ‘love’ hormone) in our brain, 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.
Cognitive Dissonance and 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. It 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 rationalize this in our minds, by creating bonds, ignoring or making excuses for other’s lack of care and harmful behaviour.
Being Stuck In Unhealthy Relationships
We become ‘stuck’ in a cycle of abuse where there is intermittent reinforcement (ie) 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.
The 7 Stages of Trauma Bonding
Love Bombing: This is when someone showers another with praise, admiration, gifts, admiration, and attention. This can later turn to gaslighting and emotional abuse.
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.
Criticism: This can include devaluation, insults, put-downs, back-handed compliments, and attempts to gaslight and emotionally blackmail.
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. You can read my story about gaslighting and lying on Medium.
Resignation (Giving In): This is the stage where you just give in for peace safe and it can be hard to realize how abusive the relationship is. This is also known as ‘fawning’, whereby people pleasing to avoid conflict is easier than confronting the truth.
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.
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 rationalizations and cognitive dissonance to convince themselves 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 themselves to staying in an abusive relationship than leaving.
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.
Breaking free requires more than just recognizing the abuse—it demands an understanding of how our nervous system keeps us trapped in these cycles. Emotional regulation, awareness of the polyvagal system, and a holistic approach to healing are all essential steps toward true freedom.
I hope this topic resonated with you and helps you understand trauma in your own life, how and why it happens, and how to cope. Healing is possible, but awareness is the first step.
References:
Breaking the Cycle of Toxic Relationships
What's Next?
Stay tuned for next week’s newsletter, where I’ll continue exploring topics that inform, empower, and support healing.
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Fascinating, well written and something to ponder over - Tho, I have never been great at attaching fully, which obviously is no surprise to you knowing my history :-D
Thank you for writing about this critical and sensitive topic so clearly and transparently. I also found and read your excellent story about gaslighting published on Medium.