Are You Trauma Bonded to a Narcissist?
Why you feel so addicted to the person who harms you the most.
Written by ©️ Shahida Arabi, MA.
A trauma bond is a toxic and dysfunctional attachment that forms out of seduction, betrayal, danger, a power imbalance, and hot and cold behavior. You feel addicted to the person who has harmed you, compelled to seek their approval, and you fight to maintain the relationship despite the severe risks and psychological burdens involved. This is because a trauma bond with a narcissistic person trains you to look out for your sense of survival rather than your best interest. You become dependent on the toxic person because of the intense ways they have love-bombed you, only to withdraw from you.
This is intermittent reinforcement—interspersing periods of pleasure with pain in a cycle of destructive chaos and crazymaking, creating a euphoric dopamine high that is akin to a dangerous drug addiction. You fear retaliation from the abuser and are conditioned to believe that you “need” the toxic person.
Betrayal can paradoxically strengthen the bond with a narcissist as a survival mechanism.
Our brains process these betrayals as signals that we must fight for the relationship to retain access to vital resources for perceived survival. This can include access to financial and emotional resources, along with the shared fantasy and false promises of a loving relationship, which narcissists encourage you to believe in early on so you invest in them and the relationship, chasing a false future that they don’t plan to bring to fruition.
To break the trauma bond, you must break the destructive conditioning imposed on you by the abuser with diverse healing modalities, stop centering the abuser and start centering yourself, and connect to the authentic outrage you were taught to suppress in order to maintain the relationship.
Copyright ©️ Shahida Arabi, MA. 2023.