FUUUUCKKKK!
MEEEEEEEEE!
I have learned that particular lesson the hard way!
Recently...
Ok, what exactly is trauma bonding, anyway?
Trauma bonding is an intense emotional attachment that develops between a person and someone who abuses or mistreats them. It can occur in any type of abusive relationship, including romantic partnerships, familial ties, or cult-like environments.
Trauma bonds often develop from:
A combination of fear, manipulation, and intermittent bouts of love and kindness
A repeated cycle of abuse and positive reinforcement
The person being hurt feeling confused, scared, and dependent on the abuser
Trauma bonds can make it hard for people to leave harmful relationships. The connection between two people in a trauma-bonded relationship can be so intense that other relationships might feel less intense in a negative way.
Ummm, been there, done that. And even with all my years of education, all of my domestic violence work, all of the decades of therapy, I still fell into a relationship like this and couldn’t get out of it for over two years.
Here is what I know. I have some childhood wounds that are persistent. They are never going to be healed. They are always going to effect my most intimate personal relationships and even though I still go to therapy, participate in recovery and do the never ending work, I am always going to have the wound. And because I do, I tend to seek people out that light that wound up in particular ways all because I want to heal that wound once and for all. I want it to close and never be reopened again. But that is not my experience.
Having significant childhood shit requires a hyper vigilance on my part. I have to go to therapy every week, still. I have to do EMDR often, still. I have to have an ongoing spiritual practice, still. If I let up on any of these, I am a goner. How do I know? I have watched countless others go before me. It is life and death for all of us, regardless of whether or not we believe that is true.
My last relationship was not a relationship. It was a trauma bond. I see that now. I see how much I was worked and manipulated and lied to by someone who said amazing things to me. He told me he loved me, then took advantage of me financially. He told me “truths” that were only well disguised lies. He gave me everything and then took it away without warning or explanation. I was a yo-yo on a string. And I kept coming back because I just wanted him to stop it. I wanted him to just be the nice person I knew him to be sometimes. Because I was so caught up in the polarizing effects of him, I couldn’t see that the negative way out weighed the positive. A lot of other people did, but some of the shit he did was so out there that even my most sane and rational friends were like, “no that can’t possibly be true.” It was. All of it. All of the stuff I labeled in my own mind as “crazy” because it was so far fetched, I learned later was all fucking true.
So how did I get there? I personally think he looks for people like me and then attaches himself to them like a leech. That is what I have observed. I have the benefit of knowing the woman after me, so I am privy to a great deal of shit that I would not otherwise know. And yep, same pattern, really no alterations whatsoever.
I thought he and I were working out our mutual shit together. No, I was working on mine and he was doing absolutely nothing except gas lighting me, lying to me and manipulating me. And I don’t say all of this to lay down my laminated victim card. It is just the truth. And believe me when I say my ego fucking hates talking about myself like this!
But it is truth. He was abusive. He was mean. He was dismissive. He was arrogant. He was thoughtless and careless and reckless with my feelings, my money, my children and my heart.
And I stayed because I kept thinking I had the power to make it better. If I just loved him more he would stop. If I just cared more he would stop. If I just ______, he would stop and be sweet again like he was in the beginning.
Boy was I fucking wrong.
After all the shit I went through with him for two years, he repaid all that kindness and love and interest by starting a relationship with a woman he met in rehab six days after I dropped him off. Then lied to us both for three months, playing each one against the other. I can see now that he was just trying to line up living arrangements. And as soon as I didn’t offer up what he wanted, he was off to sell her on their “true love”.
Yeah, that didn’t fly either. She was wise to his bullshit and even though she has many of the same issues and traumas I do, we together were able to support each other through the experience and hell of him and come out the other side more healed, and less susceptible to his charms. Oh he tried, with both of us but each of us had the other to support us through the ordeal. He came after her harder, probably because he knew she was the weaker target, given she had a lot of personal stuff going on that had nothing to do with him. He thought that she would be an easier mark. Boy, was he wrong!
Today, I can see it all so clearly. But back then when I was living in it and calling it love, I was completely subsumed in a relational murkiness that was hard to talk about and even harder to live through.
It has taken me some time to sort through it all. It has been six months since I ended it with him. And I have never looked back. Every day without him in my life is a great fucking day! But in a weird way, he also broke me to a point of healing. I had to do some fucking hard ass work to get to where I am today.
And I want to claim progress. Am I still susceptible to someone like him? Fuck yes. I think I always will be. I am always going to be drawn to someone who has the power to wound, but maybe this time they won’t. I didn’t cause this wound and I have done everything I fucking can to heal it but it is there and I think the biggest disservice I have done to myself is to pretend I don’t have the wound, or to think that it is more healed than it is.
So I guess while trauma bonding isn’t healing, it sort of is. At least for me. I had to have this very gnarly trauma bond in order to see exactly how fucked up I was and where I was so very broken. I had to see that. And I had to live it. I had to hurt more in order to begin to heal. So for me, anyway, a trauma bond and all its attendant fuckedupness was what ultimately led me to a more healed version of myself.
I am always going to pick the avoidant because I am avoidant. I am not sure I can change this which is why I am not out there trying to fall in love and commit anymore. I am not sure I can do it long term. I think I might always be someone who has to have her autonomy. Something bad happens to me and for me when I commit. And I am not going to go into why this is, as that is extremely personal, but I will own that I do not handle commitment well. It isn’t that I don’t want to do it well, it is that I just do not despite my very real feelings and desires to do it well.
Trauma bonding isn’t healing. It is devastating. It is awful and it will take you to depths that you never wish to visit. But it is real and it happens and if you have childhood shit, it is likely already found you and has owned you from time to time. But for me, this intense and recent trauma bond was the key to setting me freer than I have ever been. I could no longer pretty up or disguise my own dysfunction. It was right there in front of me and everyone else for over two fucking years. I couldn’t call it something else, I just had to accept and own my own level of disgrace, dysfunction and lack of healing.
And I felt/feel very ashamed about it given all the fucking other work I have done this far. For a long time, I felt like all the work was negated. Like if this is who I would pick after all this time, what the fuck have I even really accomplished? A fuck ton actually. And I have grown into a person who can see myself, even when that particular view is painful and gut wrenching. I have been able to find and grow some compassion for the wounded woman who signed up for that fucking shitshow. And while having compassion, called her out for it and worked hard to heal that which I could own so that it never happens again.
For me, this recent trauma bond has lit up my whole sexual history and I can see the smoke from long ago fires. And I no longer ignore them or try to shove them aside. I have made space for them in my every day life...and we are muddling through together, me and my wounds and all my baggage. I don’t know If we will ever be able to participate in a functional relationship or not. I know that if I continue to do my work, the odds get better! And if I don’t, the men get worse.
I do not know what lies in store for me. I am sure that a man that was capable of taking all of this on would be superhuman and so far, men have never represented like that in my world. I know I tend to pick the low hanging fruit, but I fucking swear, that fucking fruit also promises a lot of shit that is never fucking delivered.
So I go back to what I know. I can rely on me. I always have been able to (well except when I was drinking myself to death...) and I always will be (provided I don’t relapse and fuck everything six ways from Sunday). I can take care of me and I like being alone. It is a skill. I am happy and content alone. And that is a skill not many people have in this world. I can live my life in a big way and have no partner, no back up and no support. And I guess for the first time in my life I see that as a strength and a fucking gift. I could be this person and not be able to be without a man. I could be like this and not be able to be alone. And that, from what I have witnessed, just signs one up for one trauma bond after another.
Healing comes when you are willing to see yourself as you are, not as you would like you to be. And with that kind of self honesty and clarity, you can begin to see others with the same intensity and honesty. Trauma bonding is always going to wound and scar, but it can be a catalyst for change. How do I know? Because it happened to me.
Here are some steps that can help break a trauma-bonded relationship:
Educate yourself
Acknowledge and accept the situation
Build a support system
Develop coping skills
Reframe negative thoughts and beliefs
Establish boundaries
Build healthy relationships
Therapy can also help people get over trauma-bonding relationships and traumatic events
EMDR
Support groups
Or fucking call me, I know, I have been there and I got out.
I am holding space for you and praying for you highest good, always, again...still.
Comentários