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Trauma Bonding & the Narcissist – Twisted Attachment

emotional-rollar-coasterFeeling attached to a narcissist or sociopath even though he treats us badly is a constant source of angst for those in recovery from toxic relationships. Victims want to know why…why can’t I just let go of this guy? Why can’t I move on? Why am I obsessed with no closure? Why do I feel so connected to someone who feels no connection to me? One logical answer to this is that we’re normal and they’re not and normal people want to fix things that are broken so that they work again.

The problem, of course, is that a narcissist can’t be fixed because he was never right to begin with. In essence, the narcissist isn’t really broken at all. He simply is what he is and what he is is no good. This being true, what do we do, after a Discard, when we can’t shake the feeling of being only ½ a person without him…of feeling utterly attached even when we’re apart and even when he’s with someone else? Why can’t we disconnect from the Bad Man? Well, there is an answer to this for those who seek a deeper psychological reason for the suffering and it’s a condition often referred to as trauma bonding.

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When we think of trauma bonding, we typically associate it with The Stockholm Syndrome (TSS) – a condition named after a real-life situation where a group of hostages became emotionally attached to their kidnapers. TSS, however, although certainly similar to trauma bonding, typically occurs in life-threatening situations where the victim is literally in fear of dying at the hands of her toxic, abusive partner. Trauma bonding is more descriptive of the attachment dilemma that occurs from the type of trauma caused to our emotions (i.e. betrayal and neglect, over and over and over). It’s the type of bonding that can easily occur via passive-aggressive manipulation (i.e. sex, lies, silent treatments) and other forms of narcissistic control.

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The narcissist partner, as cunning as he or she is, understands the process for streamlining a victim’s codependency to point of least resistance. He has actually figured out – without a single day of formal training – that the best way to ensure narcissistic supply is to create trauma bonds with his targets via the method of “seduce and discard”.  He has figured out an easy way to turn us into a narcissist’s enabler.

The conditioning that leads to trauma bonding focuses on two powerful sources of reinforcement recurring in succession over and over and at perfectly timed intervals. Psychologists call this reinforcement the ‘arousal-jag’ which actually refers to the excitement before the trauma (arousal) and the peace of surrender afterwards (jag). Take a second to reflect on the narcissist’s behaviors. Creating trauma bonds is what he’s been doing his whole life!

‘Arousal-jag’ reinforcement is all about giving a little and then taking it away over and over and over in well timed intervals. Narcissists do this all the time (disappearing/reappearing, silence/chaos) whereby creating an illusion of twisted excitement that reinforces the traumatic bond between us and them. And to be clear, the narcissist feels a connection here as well only his connection is to the excitement alone and not to us. This is why a narcissist always has multiple partners because it doubles and triples his excitement factor. The fact that we – as his victims – become so attached to the chaos that we’ll eagerly await a hoover is quite an added bonus!

Are you getting it yet??

The excitement before the trauma (of betrayal and neglect) is created during the devalue stage…that point in time right before a discard when our intuition has already told us he’s going to leave based on his behaviors. It’s that knot-in-the-stomach feeling, the overwhelming urge to call his phone 100 times, the torment of cognitive dissonance…. it’s the hours spent scouring the internet looking for clues…it’s the feeling we get from the chaos that a narcissist ALWAYS creates right before the silence. Like it or not, we become highly addicted to his narcissistic behaviors and all of the nonsense that goes with it… and we miss it like a motherfucker when it’s gone…when, suddenly, the narcissist goes silent. We long for the connection – as manipulated and fabricated as it is – until we can barely breathe. Then, right before we either kill ourselves or come to our senses, in swoops the narcissist once again – like a Phoenix rising – to give us the second reinforcement: the peace of surrender that happens afterwards. His reappearance is meticulously timed for maximum effect and usually follows a silent treatment that has lasted just a tad longer than the one before. The narcissist is conditioning us to accept less and less so he can get away with more each time he vanishes.

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Either way, this second dose of reinforcement – the peace of surrender – is absolutely heaven! Again, it’s an addiction – to the narcissist and the make-up sex, to the vanishing of our anxiety, and to the feeling of calmness and euphoria we get from knowing that, once again, we’ve been given a reprieve to breathe until the cycle repeats again. Seduce and discard…seduce and discard…till the end of all fucking time. And, at the moment it’s happening, we’re actually okay with that! In fact, there’s no place in the world we’d rather be.

As I am writing this, I am realizing that my ex worked very, very hard at trauma bonding. In fact, he was a Master at it, subjecting me to silent treatments (two weeks on/two weeks off) like clockwork, for months at a time, and with no explanation at all. In addition, from mid-October to mid-January every year for 13 years he made like Houdini and fell completely off the grid.  And right before leaving, he’d ramp up the chaos, making me feel horribly anxious and angry yet desperate for his attention. But I was addicted to it and he knew it.  Wayne knew exactly what he was doing!

Our addiction to the narcissistic chaos and then to the reprieve also explains why we find it so hard to maintain No Contact and/or to move on into new relationships after it’s over. No one excites us in quite the same way or with the same intensity as a toxic partner. Via trauma bonding, we become the suffering and the suffering becomes us. We forget what normalcy feels like. We stop differentiating between good excitement and bad excitement. The chaos and turmoil becomes almost as big a turn-on for us as it does for the N.

If we look back on or inward on (if we’re still in it) our relationship, we see that at the moment the Idolize Phase ends, the trauma bonding began. We may not have even known this but you can be sure that the narcissist did. As time passed and the narcissistic partner became more successful at managing down our expectations of the relationship, our connection to the nonsense began to stick like super glue. But now that we know it….that there is a name for that strange hold this bizarre person had over us..we can make sure it never happens to us again. If we’re still in the relationship, then we can get out (and fast!) because, unlike a hostage victim who trauma bonds with a kidnapper, we are NOT being held at gunpoint and we CAN escape. Let us be grateful for that fact and do what we need to do to save our sanity.

 

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125 Comments

  • Chelsea

    April 26, 2019 at 8:25 am Reply

    Like so many other comments before, I was meant to find this article. I have been in a traumatizing narcissistic relationship on and off for the last 4 years. I have tried to go no contact after the inevitable breakups a number of times, but end up always wanting and taking him back. I had always prided myself on being a strong willed person until him. It has come to the point where I hate myself for missing and longing for someone who is such a horrible person. I recently blocked him completely and there are moments of relief, I mostly feel anxiety and loss and pain. And then angry with myself for feeling those things. I think he twisted my sense of what a relationship is, of what love is that I don’t know if I would recognize what healthy love looks like. I recently started dating a wonderful man, but I find myself comparing him to my ex. And that he doesn’t make me feel as “high” or “intense” as my ex did. I went searching for answers and help because I desperately don’t want to mess up the best thing I have had in a long time for a person who isn’t worth it. But I can’t seem to get away from it. Any more words of advice would be so appreciated. I find myself not sleeping, just thinking about my ex, wondering what he is doing, if he has tried to contact me, etc. Thank you for writing this article and for all the responses. It makes me feel a little less alone, a little less messed up. Does previous trauma make this type of bond more intense? I only ask because I had been raped and abused previously to dating my ex and was wondering if that somehow set me up for more intense bonds to the narcissist. Thanks again and God bless.

    • Zari Ballard

      May 4, 2019 at 12:30 am Reply

      Hi Chelsea,

      Yes, I don’t want you to mess up a wonderful opportunity either! I do believe that the rape may have something to do with the intense connection although most of us here have not suffered that horrific experience and still find or have found that same obsessive connection. Look, the only way around it that I see for you is to change your perspective. It comes down to being realistic about the future. The bad ex – the narc – is not a sustainable partner NO MATTER HOW YOU FEEL OR FELT ABOUT HIM. It doesn’t matter what he doing because you know he is simply doing the same thing! Narcs don’t change…all they do, as you say, is twist our sense of reality. We forget what is normal and what is not. However, you actually have something to compare it to and while the narc gives us a certain type of “excitement”, it is really about anxiety and stress. There’s nothing good about that type of intensity. It’s not sustainable for the long term. I do hope you give this new guy a chance. Look at it for the LONG TERM. Do you quit trying and keep pining for a guy who treated you like shit and who will never keep a single promise he makes to you – EVER? Or do you simply cut your losses, accept the memories for what they are (and see them in their proper light), and move along with a guy who will likely be there for the long term? I don’t know, we tend to like the bad guy and it always turns out to be one of the worst decisions we make in our lives. Good guys are hard to find. Ya gotta stop thinking with your “heart” and go with your head. Eventually, your heart will catch up and all will be well. Give yourself a chance while you can…..

      Zari:)

  • Tarina Thomas

    April 24, 2019 at 5:30 am Reply

    Zari, I am on week four NC. I can’t stop thinking I was wrong in blaming him or that he is right that I’m the problem. Some of what you list is weirdly accurate, but some does not apply, is that because mine was only 5.5 months. I did think it was odd how everything was a milestone, like when our children take their first steps. But he wouldn’t spend much time with me at all, it was always a 2 to 4 hours and then gone and it was always no when I would ask to see him. Then every time we had sex it was him leaving or walking me out the door. Never stayed the night no cuddling nothing. I feel like a used up whore and I have never been treated like that or felt like this. Ugh I digress, I just want to know if he is going to come back because I want to change my number. I put him down so bad after, I told him I knew he was lying, that he was using me, that I had been with someone for over a month, that he is a loser and should look into getting a pill to help him satisfy a woman and that women like me deserve kings not toadstools. I’m really hoping he doesn’t come back ever. But I also can’t stop blaming myself 🙁 sorry so long…

    • Zari Ballard

      May 4, 2019 at 12:16 am Reply

      Hi Tarina,

      He sure doesn’t sound like a very nice person whether he’s a narcissist or not. You say I feel like a used up whore and I have never been treated like that or felt like this. This tells me he treated you like shit. Isn’t that a good enough reason to tell someone off and then leave? When is enough enough? Don’t feel bad for telling him the truth and calling him out on his bullshit. If he had treated you better, you would have had no reason to act that way, right? What came first? He treated you like shit came first and your reaction came second. That’s the way it should be and you have no reason to feel guilt. Thank God you got out now and not a year or more from now when you would have wasted more time. If you are hoping he doesn’t ever come back, don’t worry about it. If he calls or texts, simply DO NOT RESPOND and he should get the hint. Have no worries and NO GUILT.

      Zari:)

  • jesmile arvelaez

    October 23, 2018 at 8:52 am Reply

    i believe that these people are dangerous. Im with one right now and hes making me lose light in my life and i still manage to not leave. I make excuses for his horrible behavior. I cant just block him and dip… hes even manipulated me into thinking that me asking for respect is me being an asshole and a control thief

  • Kelly

    September 23, 2018 at 10:21 pm Reply

    This was the most spot on article I’ve read regarding this. Right down to the 13 years. It’s given me hope & helped me understand how/why I could miss someone so deeply who was a horrible person.

    • Zari Ballard

      October 26, 2018 at 1:33 pm Reply

      Stay strong, Kelly!! You are NOT crazy…have confident in the truth that you know….xo

  • Robert Mulraney

    September 19, 2018 at 4:34 am Reply

    Hi there..
    I have just come out of a 5 month relationship with a narc. She herself was obsessed with narcissism and would talk about controlling exes and her abusive family all the time. She treated me like a million dollars at first and i regretfully ended a long term relationship to be with her. It was fine for a month, but then i noticed she started to try and start arguments and pecking at me. After two months she started saying we were ‘incompatible’, but i begged her to stay as i had changed my life around to be with her. She went from saying ‘never leave me’ to ‘this isn’t working’ within a very small space of time. I noticed i had become tearful and depressed, jealous of other men she hung around with, most of them she had slept with previously. She had slept with an unnatural amount of men and seemed to enjoy surrounding herself with people who fancy her. I also found it weird that her average relationship would last just a few months. She said she was pleased with herself for splitting me up with my ‘evil’ ex. I started drinking, and on a couple of occasions getting angry and throwing things (not at her, i would never hurt anyone) in frustration, because part of me knew I was now caught in a web of her control and it had hurt me, she repeatedly used these occasions against me, even though i apologised sincerely and my outbursts were extremely far and few and felt provoked. Sex was awkward and started to feel like a treat, using numerous excuses not to do it throughout the relationship, even though she told me i was the best she had had. I found myself cooking, shopping, and moping around my flat every day while she put her social life way before our relationship, and she would make that clear that’s what she was doing. Also i started getting horrible texts at work when a few hours previously she would be fine with me. She made me give up weed, which was a good thing, but left me during the withdrawel, and it felt like part of her game, rather than benefitting me, she was back days later. She seemed to accuse me of things she was doing, like reverse psycolology. Part of her was funny, generous and affectionate. She left me and came back 4 times, each time leaving me alone and empty. My trust was broken when she met up with an ex and told me she had ‘bumped into him’. This caused an argument, ending up with us spltting yet again. The contrast of our activities while we were split was incredible. She would be out partying and i was sat at home crying. Also she made out that i was the Narcisist and she was a Super Empath. She came back two weeks ago after splitting yet again(!) and it lasted 3 days, we were split for ten days and she admitted that already she had been dating guys she didnt fancy for their money so she could afford to move back to her hometown and publically smear her dad for child abuse, then dump them after 4 months. I knew now about ‘supply’ and the narcisists tendency to return if a new source has failed. I told her i had now researched narcissism on line, then she admitted she had become narcisistic, she had become plotting. She left me again three days later on the grounds that I questioned her intentions and got angry, even though i am not aware of using any threatening behaviour, she said that I was insane and terrifying, saying i was a diva and an attention seeker. I started to realise the woman I love is most probably a compulsive liar. I have had tears in my eyes since she left me. Also have dreams about her cheating. I’ve ended up in a bad way. She smeared her last boyfriend on line, branding him a narcisist, i am worried she will do the same to me. Thanks for reading.

  • Nicolette Cuevas

    September 11, 2018 at 8:41 pm Reply

    It is not just a coincidence that I found your blog. I was meant to see this. I connected with every word, I never talk about this with friends or family for fear of judgement. & every time I am apart from him I feel so much anxiety and sadness but I also do not like who he is as a person at all. He just really turned out to be a shitty person. I don’t want a future with him but I can’t get myself to leave. & every time we come back to each other, the hugs, the intense kissing, the makeup sex, the cuddles. I just feel so at home and can never even remember why I didn’t want him in the first place. But my happiness only lasts until he feels he doesn’t want to see me anymore or doesn’t want to answer my calls. It is a sick cycle and I really thought something was wrong with me. Thank you for giving me understanding.

  • L

    September 5, 2018 at 3:11 am Reply

    My narcissistic partner has a 3 yr old dependant whom ive played step mum for over 2 years now, he is manipulative and uses his personal issues with stress and a bad temper against me daily as i am also the housewife,nanny and whore. Plus when we break up which is always a matter of me escaping” due to fear of his irrational and unpredictable temper he goed back to his ex who isnt even aloud custody to abuse drugs and find comfort in sexual acts with her even though he still comes crawling back yo me im still allowing it how can i be so aware of the constant toxic abuse yet struggle to make the next step in leaving and doing something about it for my self. Ahh men 🙁

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