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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2018 15:33:05 GMT
Does anyone have any thoughts on trauma bonding? I came across it while reading about abusive pasts.
I copied this from an article:
"Bonding is a biological and emotional process that makes people more important to each other over time. Unlike love, trust, or attraction, bonding is not something that can be lost. It is cumulative and only gets greater, never smaller. Bonding grows with spending time together, living together, eating together, making love together, having children together, and being together during stress or difficulty. Bad times bond people as strongly as good times, perhaps more so.
Bonding is in part why it is harder to leave an abusive relationship the longer it continues. Bonding makes it hard to enforce boundaries, because it is much harder to keep away from people to whom we have bonded. In leaving a long relationship, it is not always useful to judge the correctness of the decision by how hard it is, because it will always be hard.
Strangely, growing up in an unsafe home makes later unsafe situations have more holding power. This has a biological basis beyond any cognitive learning. It is trauma in one's history that makes for trauma bonding. Because trauma (and developmental trauma or early relational trauma is epidemic) cause numbing around many aspects of intimacy, traumatized people often respond positively to a dangerous person or situation because it makes them feel. "
Reading more and more about it, I wonder if I've ever been in love or it was just trauma bonding?
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Post by madamebovary on Feb 1, 2018 16:33:23 GMT
As someone who works in the education field, as does most of my friends and family, I can tell you trauma bonding is real and extremely powerful. Children in the worst situations imaginable still feel intense loyalty to their abusers/family. It’s actually a huge problem (early childhood trauma) that the education sector is actively trying to figure out right now, so we can help create more functioning, productive citizens. It’s impossibie to learn on the same level when you come from a background of trauma and are coming into the school with undiagnosed PTSD, essentially.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2018 17:37:40 GMT
As someone who works in the education field, as does most of my friends and family, I can tell you trauma bonding is real and extremely powerful. Children in the worst situations imaginable still feel intense loyalty to their abusers/family. It’s actually a huge problem (early childhood trauma) that the education sector is actively trying to figure out right now, so we can help create more functioning, productive citizens. It’s impossibie to learn on the same level when you come from a background of trauma and are coming into the school with undiagnosed PTSD, essentially. I can imagine. It's extremely difficult to grow up that way. I have been diagnosed with PTSD, but not until I was an adult and I sought help. When I read about trauma bonding, it hit so many key points for me. I don't know what it has to do with attachment other than maybe I really can't attach and I can only "bond". Honestly, I don't know how much can actually be done. I never realized what was happening to me. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2018 17:51:46 GMT
As someone who works in the education field, as does most of my friends and family, I can tell you trauma bonding is real and extremely powerful. Children in the worst situations imaginable still feel intense loyalty to their abusers/family. It’s actually a huge problem (early childhood trauma) that the education sector is actively trying to figure out right now, so we can help create more functioning, productive citizens. It’s impossibie to learn on the same level when you come from a background of trauma and are coming into the school with undiagnosed PTSD, essentially. I can imagine. It's extremely difficult to grow up that way. I have been diagnosed with PTSD, but not until I was an adult and I sought help. When I read about trauma bonding, it hit so many key points for me. I don't know what it has to do with attachment other than maybe I really can't attach and I can only "bond". Honestly, I don't know how much can actually be done. I never realized what was happening to me. Mary, i’ve gone over this a lot with therapists and as cut off as i was for most of my life i think trauma bonding was at the root of my romantic relationships. (which were few. i never dated actively until the last 4 years at age 47c, and had some brief and horrible marriage/ dating which i left as soon as i could it was just a mess) I had no real sense of intimacy or the want for it until after about 20 years of different kind of therapy, and lots of work, and treatment for severe PTSD. So, it’s confusing stuff, but the only relationship i have participated in that i really wanted to bond in was my most recent. I just didn’t get it at all before. It’s very strange to look back on now that i feel a lot more. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2018 18:28:54 GMT
in terms of wanting to bond with a partner i didn’t understand or desire until the last couple years.
the father of my kids asked me to marry him because of unplanned pregnancy and it was a very abusive marriage that was more a practical thing that didn’t work out well.
i used to have a lot of shame about all that but don’t anymore and i like where this process is going for me.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2018 23:03:00 GMT
I can imagine. It's extremely difficult to grow up that way. I have been diagnosed with PTSD, but not until I was an adult and I sought help. When I read about trauma bonding, it hit so many key points for me. I don't know what it has to do with attachment other than maybe I really can't attach and I can only "bond". Honestly, I don't know how much can actually be done. I never realized what was happening to me. Mary, i’ve gone over this a lot with therapists and as cut off as i was for most of my life i think trauma bonding was at the root of my romantic relationships. (which were few. i never dated actively until the last 4 years at age 47c, and had some brief and horrible marriage/ dating which i left as soon as i could it was just a mess) I had no real sense of intimacy or the want for it until after about 20 years of different kind of therapy, and lots of work, and treatment for severe PTSD. So, it’s confusing stuff, but the only relationship i have participated in that i really wanted to bond in was my most recent. I just didn’t get it at all before. It’s very strange to look back on now that i feel a lot more. I think it's definitely something I have to explore. It's going to make me sad , but it's better to have answers. Thank you for your honest post. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2018 23:13:20 GMT
Mary, i’ve gone over this a lot with therapists and as cut off as i was for most of my life i think trauma bonding was at the root of my romantic relationships. (which were few. i never dated actively until the last 4 years at age 47c, and had some brief and horrible marriage/ dating which i left as soon as i could it was just a mess) I had no real sense of intimacy or the want for it until after about 20 years of different kind of therapy, and lots of work, and treatment for severe PTSD. So, it’s confusing stuff, but the only relationship i have participated in that i really wanted to bond in was my most recent. I just didn’t get it at all before. It’s very strange to look back on now that i feel a lot more. I think it's definitely something I have to explore. It's going to make me sad , but it's better to have answers. Thank you for your honest post. i feel sad and embarrassed about it now i realize a lot of things i didn’t before. i never wanted to hurt anyone, ever. I don’t know. I had such limited experience except for very violent (against me) relationships it’s very very complicated. The relationship where i was held hostage at gunpoit was when i was 23. I never got help, i didn’t think i needed it. The officials involved told me to see a counselor and she said i had PTSD but i didn’t know what she was talking about. I talked to her a couple times but then didn’t see the point. That wasn’t my first violent trauma experience but it had such a big impact on everything after. It’s extremely complicated because the things that happened after that were like a movie or something, for years. Before i was 23, i was involved with 2 adult “relationships?!” but absolutely no concept of intimacy because i didn’t believe in love i thought that was kind of fake. It sounds so stupid writing it. I just can’t believe it. It seems so long ago but really it’s most of my life. Things are so vastly different now, and i am so thankful for even the fact that i am alive, i think joy covers over that stuff pretty well. But then i tried a real relationship and felt more than i ever have. The relationship i just left. there was no trauma to bond us. It was probably not great to other people’s standards but for a couple of avoidants it was i am sure the sweetest thing either of us had experienced. We tried hard. Anyway, it is embarrassing because i do feel pathetic in a way but on the other hand, i am so thankful and whose business is it that at 47 i feel new to this? It’s nobody’s business except who i care about, and so far they have all been so wonderful to me i don’t have anything to worry about. They don’t let me feel ashamed. Even my ex DA is compassionate to me there are no hard feelings that i am aware of. He is sad i ended it but he understands why. I am sure our bond was real. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2018 15:06:02 GMT
tgat, I am in the same boat. I am just realizing a ton of things now in my older age. Looking back, the people that I had relationships with were just as incapable of intimacy as I am. This is why I am thinking it was trauma bonding on both sides (him and I). I equated love with abuse and we were both addicted to the highs and lows of it. I don't know. I just wonder if this is the root of my attachment problem? It's the chicken and the egg. Am I avoidant because I choose abusers or do I choose abusers because I am avoidant.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2018 15:50:23 GMT
tgat, I am in the same boat. I am just realizing a ton of things now in my older age. Looking back, the people that I had relationships with were just as incapable of intimacy as I am. This is why I am thinking it was trauma bonding on both sides (him and I). I equated love with abuse and we were both addicted to the highs and lows of it. I don't know. I just wonder if this is the root of my attachment problem? It's the chicken and the egg. Am I avoidant because I choose abusers or do I choose abusers because I am avoidant. Mary, i see that i myself developed an avoidant style very early on. I did crave the love and affection of both of my very unavailable parents, BUT, having a narcissistic spectrum mother, I can see that from a VERY young age i was being brainwashed and having things imposed upon me that were unusual. My mother has always told me, “You have always been very difficult to love. Even as a small child you were difficult to love. “ That was normalized to me my entire life. So, I didn’t try to be in love relationships. Because i figured they would come to the same conclusion and it just didn’t seem realistic so in a sad way i kind of accepted it. Also, I was the family scapegoat. This means that the burden of responsibility for a bunch of terrible stuff that hurt me, was always piled up on my shoulders. That’s a kind of engulfment right there, being made responsible for everybody's misery, with no thought to how I might be crushed under the load. My family was religious fundamental, also. So, marriage and the “normal” family thing was always an ideal for being good and acceptable. Sex outside of marrriage was a sin. So, when i found myself flailing around as a young woman in my 20’s sinning and ended up pregnant, again got married like everyone else so i could try to be Good and Acceptable and live up to the Standard and cobble together a Life that i promised would be Different than the life i had growing up. It’s not that i didn’t want a relationship of some sort i guess. But my motivation was to just try to be normal and good. I knew nothing about intimacy and safe bonding and all that stuff. I chose abusers because their behavior that totally obliterated me was NORMALIZED to me my entire life. You said it so well in another thread. I was tough because i was conditioned to bear the unbearable. So risks and dangerous situations hard times were always something i just figured i could handle because good stuff happened to other people but not to me and that was just the way it was. I just handled it. It was awful. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2018 16:15:56 GMT
Also, Mary, when the abuse got really bad and i finally went to my family for help they didn’t believe me, (i am the scapegoat. I rejected their religion and so was going to hell anyway and they felt sorry for me , but in their view, all my problems were of my own making due to my inability to accept the salvation that they all had accepted. once it became obvious that i was telling the truth and they got it, they didn’t support me leaving because divorce is bad and i am the one that chose him, it was still my problem. Also, my mother took his side with law enforcement and said that i had always been difficult and lied to get attention.
Seriously.
My way out was when police found me shaking and dissociated in a closet. I thought they were coming to arrest me because my husband had called them to try to get me in trouble. I knew he would involve my mom and i thought my life was over.
He tried to strangle me when i would leave, and my family would try to push me back to him or block my exit. (I didn’t tell anyone that i left him until i was established in my new life because i finally cut all my family off.
Of course i hold on tight to my autonomy now. But i want to soften in just the right ways. )
When they found me in a closet, Police told me my life was in danger and asked if I knew that. i told them
yes and they took me to a safe house where i got support outside of my family system. It was the first time i really felt validated and was given the support i need to be safe. All my years of therapy and attempted recovery and insight started to click into place and i experienced a massive propulsion into a new life.
So. I have had to live most of my life in a very bad place, but it’s never too late to start over and i am living proof of that.
Take heart. It hurts to see all these things but the other side is really wonderful. Even if i don’t have the relationship piece worked out I have no hesitation about continuing to work on it, keep learning and trying and putting myself out there. Because i like the good things i did experience in this last relationship and it was the Real Me, Open and vulnerable and sincere.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2018 16:46:15 GMT
honestly that’s all why i don’t accept scapegoating Avoidants OR AP’s in this forum.
It’s not just triggering its DOWNRIGHT WRONG. and is the worst kind of emotional abuse, in my experience.
it obliterates a person completely.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2018 16:57:32 GMT
aha! reading this i see that i actually was trauma bonded to my whole family.
That isn’t the case anymore, i have started to reconnect with very good boundaries and no need involved.
it’s more transformational. according to the health of each individual.
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Post by alpenglow on Feb 6, 2018 11:49:07 GMT
What a frightening life story you've had, tgat. It gave me teary eyes. Also because it's beautiful, the way that you managed to find some safety in life after what you went through. Being taken to a safe house and this last relationship of yours when you could finally be yourself.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us. So good to hear that you still have the motivation to work through all this! Sending you big hugs!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2018 13:36:41 GMT
What a frightening life story you've had, tgat. It gave me teary eyes. Also because it's beautiful, the way that you managed to find some safety in life after what you went through. Being taken to a safe house and this last relationship of yours when you could finally be yourself. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. So good to hear that you still have the motivation to work through all this! Sending you big hugs! Thank you so sincerely alpenglow. your post made me teary as well. it really was like something i have seen in a movie or read in a novel but it is my life. Yes, this is why my last relationship was so precious to me and always will be. it was hard to let it go. But there is something inside of me now that won’t settle and i really long to be the fullest version of me possible and that means i need to be true to myself. I really appreciate your kind words so much. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2018 13:38:27 GMT
and also my life is so incredibly beautiful , miraculous to me now.
i have so much love around me even though i am still like a lone person in some ways with my compartments and other avoidant habits.
everyone in my life loves me just that way and it means a lot to me.
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