How Our “Inner Parts” Keep Us Trauma Bonded to Narcissists

Experiencing a dysfunctional attachment? It may be your other “parts” clinging on.

Photo by Danylo Harmatiy

Written by Shahida Arabi, MA, trauma and psychopathology expert and researcher

You may wonder why you have so many conflicting emotions, thoughts and behaviors when it comes to relational trauma, especially if you’ve been traumatized by a manipulative narcissist. 

Why do you vacillate between longing for them one moment, only to resent them the next? Why does your brain seem so attached to memories of the love bombing they subjected you to, despite their mistreatment? Most people talk about the wounded “inner child” being at play — but did you know you may actually have multiple inner parts that could be causing these internal conflicts and heightening the trauma bond with the narcissist?

The Internal Family Systems model, created by therapist Dr. Richard Schwartz, posits that we all have “inner parts” that fall into three main categories: exiles, managers, and firefighters. These inner parts are discrete facets of our personalities or “subpersonalities” that serve vital survival and protective functions. These create an “internal family” inside of our mind.

When these inner parts are healthy, unburdened, and are able to contribute to our well-being and survival without using maladaptive strategies, this internal system can be led successfully by the core “Self,” the compassionate, calm, centered, connected and grounded self we all have within us.

Each inner part wants something positive for the core “Self” but can go to extreme lengths to do so or use maladaptive strategies to achieve their goals, especially if they have been shaped by trauma. These inner parts can reveal themselves through behaviors, thoughts, emotions, images, sensations and more, and provide feedback to the “Self” that can guide the decisions the “Self” makes.

When they are burdened with traumas and triggers, these inner parts can act out in extreme ways that harm us, even though their intentions are usually to defend, protect, and guide us back to safety.

This evidence-based model of psychotherapy is groundbreaking, especially when it comes to conceptualizing the impact of childhood trauma on our behavior. However, less has been spoken about how this model can also inform our relationships with narcissistic or psychopathic individuals.

When we’ve been traumatized by narcissistic individuals, these inner parts can come into conflict and “fight” with each other for control, causing our inextricable trauma bond with the narcissist (a bond that develops as a survival mechanism) to become even stronger in some cases.

Here is how our inner parts can influence our attachment to narcissists:

Exiles carry the pain of childhood traumas and search for a rescuer. These younger inner parts often hold the burdens of childhood traumas, including the original terror, pain, shame, wounds, memories and fear from those traumas. Exile inner parts are especially vulnerable and fragile; they may seek validation, reassurance, comfort, and feel a need to tell their story and have it heard.

Exile inner parts can hold an intense desire to avoid abandonment and attach to the narcissist out of fear of being abandoned again and having to confront their childhood trauma alone. These parts can become especially trauma bonded to the abuser and come to view the abuser as a “rescuer” figure even though the abuser is also the source of their present pain and trauma. Since the narcissistic or psychopathic abuser creates a cycle of hurt-and-rescue and intermittent reinforcement with their victims, your “exile” inner parts may be severely triggered into making frantic attempts to avoid abandonment and seek validation from the abuser, even though you know this person has harmed you chronically.  This can cause you to return to the relationship repeatedly even when it becomes unhealthy and destructive.

Managers are the protector inner parts that proactively try to control situations and relationships to prevent the pain of exiles from being experienced in the first place by mitigating the risks of triggers. They attempt to “shield” the younger parts and their wounds from being exposed to the dangers of the world. These are the CEOs of our mental landscape, avoiding situations that could trigger the pain of your “younger” exile inner parts to come into consciousness and disrupting your daily life. They may do this through perfectionism, caretaking, overachieving, constantly striving toward goals (for example, through excessively exercising or overworking), people-pleasing, codependency or by engaging in hypercritical and aggressive behaviors toward others in order to control them.

In a relationship with a narcissist, your manager inner parts may try to suppress any core wounds from surfacing by internalizing the abuse and engaging in self-blame or trying to control the narcissist. They may take on a caretaker role with the narcissist to try to “nurse” or educate the narcissist back into being an empathic person, an effort that often proves fruitless…