All About Trauma Bonds

“I miss him so much,” “I can’t go on without him,” “I can’t leave - it hurts too much to be apart.”

These are all signs of a trauma bond, also called a betrayal bond. They can make you feel like you won’t survive without the relationship/ your husband. It feels like a craving and it makes it agony to leave.

And after you leave, it’s so much more painful than a “normal” divorce or being a widow.

Because of how a trauma bond makes us feel dependent on our husband, it’s often mislabeled as co-dependency but it’s NOT co-dependency.

Both trauma bonds and cognitive dissonance can be part of what keeps you or kept you trapped in an abusive marriage, or obsessing about it after you leave, and both are incredibly painful to deal with.

Stockholm Syndrome Isn’t Real, but Trauma Bonds Are

In a lot of information on the internet, trauma bonds are often called “Stockholm Syndrome.” Trauma bonds are real, but Stockholm Syndrome isn’t. That term was created after a hostage situation in Stockholm.

There’s a fascinating talk by Dr. Allen Wade on Stockholm Syndrome here if you’re interested.

It turns out that the Swedish psychiatrist, criminologist and hostage negotiator, Nils Bejerot, created the concept of “Stockholm Syndrome” out of thin air. Kristen Enmark, the hostage for whom the term was created, never “bonded” with her captors.

She was brilliantly trying to keep everyone alive and manage the severe incompetence by the police and Bejerot that was putting their lives in danger. Bejerot never even met with Kristin or had her as a client.

Because she criticized how Bejerot handled the situation as the hostage negotiator, he retaliated against her by making up the Stockholm Syndrome and claiming she had it.

This effectively shut her up and discredited her story.

Doesn’t that sound familiar?

How Trauma Bonds Are Created by the Abuser

There are a bunch of dynamics in abuse that cause trauma bonds. One is having the abuser create anxiety and fear, and then be the same one to provide relief from that anxiety and fear.

Fear INCREASES the sense of bonding.

“Terror increases the need for attachment, even if the source of comfort is also the source of terror.” Bessell van der Kolk

Another dynamic is that, in the “loveboming” or “regrooming” stage in the cycle of abuse, the abuser often acts in ways that seem kind and loving, even though that isn’t who he is or how he feels. It’s just manipulation on his part, but even the lack of abuse can seem kind.

It’s a powerful experience being treated “lovingly” after being ignored and scorned, being treated with what seems like respect after being criticized and blamed, or having him promise to change or fake being sorry.

These small perceived kindnesses increase our relationship investment and hope in him.

The abuser does this to re-groom us, getting us to trust him again so he can further abuse us. It’s part of his brainwashing to control our thoughts, perspective and feelings.

This is intermittent reinforcement and causes the most intense kind of bonding because we’re always holding out hope for it being good and sweet again. It reinforces the illusion that he is good and the marriage can be saved.

Rats given intermittent reinforcement (only getting food sometimes) when they press a lever will never give up and literally collapse trying to get the reward once again. And it’s why slot machines are so addictive.

Our Body is Affected

This is intensely confusing to us emotionally and mentally, but it also affects us physically.

During the re-grooming (honeymoon) phase of the abuse cycle, or whenever we think he’s being kind to us, our bodies produce the most powerful feel-good hormones we make-
oxytocin and dopamine.

These hormones:

• feed the reward system in our brain and activate the regions that reduce our pain
• make us feel safe and loved
• calm down the fight/flight/freeze response
• create chemical responses and brain pathways that respond specifically to him
• increase our trust for him
• increase the bond to him and
• reinforce the illusion that he is safe.

The abuse has changed our thoughts, emotions, and body to such a degree that we feel dependent on him for our ability to feel safe and sane.

After living with the abuse cycle for years, we physically depend on getting back to the “loving and safe” time again, feeling like we’ll lose our mind and not survive the pain if we can’t.

When the abuse begins again, or when we try to leave, those positive chemicals are stopped and our body feels under threat so our fight/flight/freeze is activated and adrenaline, cortisol and stress hormones are released.

Our body is crying out for relief – wanting the chemicals we get in response to our husband - and when we can’t get them, we feel despair. It’s a biological need.

We are truly experiencing a withdrawal as intense as an addiction withdrawal. I’m not saying we are addicted to abuse or to him because we aren’t. I’m saying that breaking a trauma bond is like a painful physiological addiction experience.

The Emotional Pain Is Real, and It’s in Our Bodies

We can’t underestimate the power of this on our body and emotions. These chemicals helped us cope with the overwhelming feelings of abuse for years, and when we don’t have them we panic. That’s one thing that drives the never-ending quest to try to get him to “see what he’s doing” in the hope that he’ll change.

On top of that, the fear and stress of leaving the marriage is real, but now we don’t have our coping chemicals to help us Instead we are being flooded with fear hormones which were previously moderated with what we perceived as his acts of kindness.

Our body is “jonesing” for a hit of the happy and safe hormones and it feels like there’s no way to get them outside of him. Your body created chemical responses to him specifically and is panicking when they are gone.

We are on our own with a storm of pain that overwhelms us. If you feel like he “messed with your head,” it’s true— over time your brain chemistry was altered and one way was to make you afraid of taking risks, like the risk of leaving.

Breaking Trauma Bonds

Trauma bonds are a combination of illusions and physiology.

The illusions are based on what we think we will get from him based on what he’s promised us.

In the Arise Healing Community I offer an illuminating “Illusion/Reality” exercise that will help you see how you fell for the illusions, and see what reality is.

There’s a Biblical equivalent to these trauma bonds. When the Israelites escaped from the bondage of the Egyptians, they kept longing for what they had and remembering the past in a positive light even though it was bondage. And that’s what trauma bonds make us do too.

With trauma bonds, the brain will be prone to recall the positive more than the negative things about your abuser, making you vulnerable to a dreamlike state warping how you view and remember him. And then we miss him even more, and the cycle continues.

To break trauma bonds, there’s cognitive work to do, self-care to help your body recover, and tools to rewire the neurology and body reactions.

In the Arise Healing Community you’ll be given a step-by-step process and the tools to rewire your brain and body reactions to get free from a trauma bond. What a relief!!

It’s so painful to be trapped in that bond.

Getting free from trauma bonds is included in the 6 pillars of the Arise Healing Journey. If you’d like to join with other women of faith on a journey of healing from the trauma of spiritual abuse and emotional and psychological spousal abuse, and learn practical tools for healing, you can read about the Arise Healing Community here.