Relationships are all around us, whether our friends we connect with to vent, our family we see on holidays, someone we’re dating, or the people we work with.
While relationships can take on many forms, there are relationships that can be more difficult, such as abusive relationships or emotional attachments we’ve created through trauma bonds.
You may have heard these words used on social media or maybe even in your daily life, so let’s dig into trauma bonds, love, and everything in between.
What is a Trauma Bond, Exactly?
A trauma bond is a relationship that stems from an individual developing romantic feelings or emotional attachments towards someone who has hurt or abused them. Scenarios with spousal violence, intimate partner violence, various types of abuse, manipulation, or power struggles, can lead to individuals moving away from genuine, true love relationships and into trauma bonded relationships. Trauma bonds are a component of abusive relationships and may look different for everyone.
Many times individuals believe that trauma bonded relationships can only stem from romantic relationships between two people. Unfortunately, trauma bonds can form in relationships from all different realms, and it is not uncommon for children or parents to develop a trauma bond with someone in their family who is consistently hurting or abusing them.
Relationships can switch from genuine and authentic to abusive and scary over time, and oftentimes there are cycles of positives and negatives. You may be wondering how trauma bonds happen and impact us, so let’s explore some more details of these relationships.
What Happens to the Brain With a Trauma Bond?
Brain chemicals play a huge role in our emotions, thoughts, and who we are as people. The main chemicals impacting our feelings are dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, which can also be referred to as neurotransmitters. Each of these chemicals in our nervous systems have varying levels that change when we experience something positive, negative, or even neutral.
For example, if someone looks at a picture of their pet, the “feel good” chemicals described above get released and that person feels happy. Other stimuli that may impact the release of these neurotransmitters are kissing, hugging, fighting, yelling, and more.
Trauma bonds develop through something called a positive feedback loop, or in more simple terms, positive reinforcement.
A positive feedback loop or positive reinforcement releases dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin in our brains which makes us feel all of the positive emotions, including love. We want to experience those feelings more and more, so we look for ways to reinforce that positive loop, which releases the chemicals.
Humans need connection and love which is why we form friendships, keep in touch with our families, having partners or spouses, or even why we have pets. Although trauma bonded relationships may have key components to them that are negative and hurtful, they also have components that elevate our neurotransmitters, causing us to want more.
Characteristics of a Trauma Bond
In a relationship where an individual has formed a trauma bond, there is usually emotional abuse and at the same time there is validation, support, and love that occurs intermittently throughout the relationship.
Humans naturally want validation and support, so we look for our next “dose” of situations that can release the feel good brain chemicals.
Validation is acknowledging others’ feelings and understanding how someone could feel the way they do, even if we don’t necessarily agree with it. This is a key factor in relationships and if we think about those we are closest to, we probably can identify many times we’ve felt validated.
We also can probably think about times we were invalidated, which can be a characteristic that points to the potential for emotional abuse.
Emotional abuse can take on many forms, but for simplicity it can be described as situations where individuals create negative feelings within another person by ignoring them, putting them down, or using mean language, name calling, or invalidating their experiences. It is important to be able to identify when someone unintentionally invalidates us and when it is a pattern that continues to come up in relationships.
Trauma Bonds and the Cycle of Abuse
Trauma bonds can be looked at further by using information from the cycle of abuse. Clinical psychologists, therapists, psychiatrists, peer support specialists, primary care doctors and other professions in the healthcare field use the cycle of abuse to help explain what abusive and trauma bonded relationships can look like.
The cycle of abuse includes the following:
- Love Bombing: Love bombing is the act of showering someone with affection very early on in a relationship. When someone uses the love bomb technique, their goal is to create a deep connection with another person. Love bombing = “happy” chemical release in our brain.
- Gaslighting: Gaslighting occurs when someone works to have another person question their sanity, worth, or value in the world. Oftentimes, people may question the experiences they’ve had or question if situations have been their fault.
- Reconciliation: Reconciliation is one of the biggest pieces of the cycle of abuse. This is where the perpetrator or abuser will try to reconcile for gaslighting, emotional abuse, or any other form of hurt.
It can often take the form of stages:
- Building Tension: The stage where tension is building in the relationship. The victim may be noticing feelings of fear of the other person and can be described as walking on eggshells.
- Act of Abuse: The act of aggression towards someone. This can be yelling, physical aggression, sexual aggression, withholding necessities for survival, psychological abuse and more.
- Apologies: The perpetrator apologizes for what occurred and promises not to do it again. This is the reconciliation described above.
- Down Time: The relationship returns to normal with minimal issues. Love bombing may occur at this stage, which releases our feel good chemicals.
Another important thing to note about trauma bonded relationships and the cycle of abuse, is the dynamic of power and control. Similar to the cycle of abuse, there are visual tools called the “power and control wheel” that highlight various ways an abuser or perpetrator may try to gain control or power over their partner, spouse, child, parent, or friend.
What are the Effects of a Trauma Bond?
Trauma bonds can have serious impacts on individuals and the longer someone is in a trauma bonded or abusive relationship, usually the more serious those impacts become.
Common effects include struggles with self-esteem and worth, which can be related to psychological and emotional abuse from the relationship. Those who have formed a trauma bond may place a lot of blame on themselves for what happened, however it is important to understand that in any time of abuse, the survivor is not to blame.
Because abusive relationships and trauma bonds are an unhealthy attachment, people who have experienced this may struggle to identify healthy attachment styles with others. Lastly, it can be difficult for an individual to separate themselves from their abuse or trauma bond, creating a dissonance of their sense of self.
Is a Trauma Bond Stronger Than Love?
Some people may question if trauma bonds are stronger than love. When it’s looked at from a scientific and biological standpoint, we see that dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin are released in both situations.
If you have been in love before, you know that you can have stronger love for certain individuals compared to others. Trauma bonds can be the same way depending on the duration, severity, and frequency of the abusive relationship.
What Does Healthy Love Look Like as Compared to a Trauma Bond?
Relationships that include trauma bonding are toxic and survivors will often share they felt like they were walking on eggshells. Many times, there is constant fear of upsetting the other person and feeling like no matter what, they will have a negative reaction.
When it comes to healthy love, both individuals should have a say in the relationship.
Reciprocity of support, validation, affection, and communication occur when two people are engaged in a healthy relationship. Although conflicts come up in every type of relationship, if it is healthy, the individuals will be able to work through it together while maintaining respect and support for one another. I’d invite you to think of healthy relationships you’ve seen in your own life, on TV or in movies, or even read about in books or online. What components make those healthy?
Can a Trauma Bond Be Broken?
With the help of a trained professional and/or supportive individuals, trauma bonds can be broken. It can be extremely difficult for someone to leave a trauma bonded or abusive relationship, and sometimes their safety is at risk. A victim may also experience trauma bond withdrawal symptoms.
Mental health professionals, doctors, and other professionals in communities are able to provide resources that protect and maintain the safety of someone attempting to break a trauma bond and leave a relationship that is unhealthy.
Because breaking this bond can be physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting, creating a support system who you can rely on will be incredibly important.
Alyssa Biestek is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in both Texas and Florida. She currently works for a small group practice and enjoys helping children, teenagers, and their families heal. Alyssa has experience providing treatment to high risk youth in a community mental health setting and is trained in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Trauma Focused-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT). She is currently furthering her education and training to become a Registered Play Therapist (RPT). In her spare time, Alyssa enjoys reading, crafting, spending time outdoors, and playing with her dog.
