What is trauma bonding?
Trauma bonding takes place in abusive relationships.
Abuse isn’t always physical and quite often there is no physical abuse which is why a person may not recognise their relationship as abusive or toxic.
A trauma bond isn’t only in romantic relationships. A trauma bond can take place between a child and parent.
In a controlling relationship, the abuser can be “good” to the other person up to 90% of the time. It is this imbalance that leaves the other person having feelings for them even if the good times are only 10% of the time.
When the abuser is controlling, yelling, and or being manipulative, the victim will make excuses for the behaviour such as “They’re just having a bad day”, or “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have asked for a lift to work” or “I shouldn’t have asked to stay longer at my family’s house.”
The victim becomes obligated to their abuser because of the positive things the abuser does for them.
They don’t realise what is being done for them is controlling, e.g,
Their partner or parent may insist on driving them to work and picking them up. The victim sees this as the other person caring about them.
In fact, it’s the other person keeping track of them because they have abandonment issues.
Their partner or parent may check in with them through out the day every day while the victim is at work and tell them it’s because they care about them.
In extreme cases, the partner won’t just drive them to work but will sit outside their work all day waiting for them to make sure they don’t go anywhere else.
Or a parent may insist on driving their adult daughter every where, even when she is going on a date and say it’s because she cares about her though the adult child can drive herself.
If the victim wants to go out with friends, the abuser may start yelling to create a scene to make the victim regret going out.
Make the victim feel guilty for leaving them at home.
May park the victim in, hide or refuse to hand over the keys.
Eventually the victim may get tired of being controlled and start to put boundaries down.
Once the victim starts exerting their rights for freedom to go out, the abuse will escalate beyond anything the victim has witnessed so far.
The abuser may demand to take them to where they want to go but create a scene in the car, pull over and continue the screaming.
If the victim escapes from the car, the abuser may try to either stop them with the car or chase them to run them over.
If the victim escapes, the abuse won’t stop. The abuser may call their work or walk into their place of employment to cause a scene so they lose their job.
The abuser may also call their family and friends and cause trouble in these relationships.
If the abuser is a parent, the parent may set out to break up the daughter’s relationship.
By this stage the victim needs to report this to Police but will not because of everything good the abuser has done for them over the course of their relationship.
Welcome to trauma bonding.
If you recognise these behaviours or similar and accept you need support to leave, click on the link below for a booking today.
