Traumatic bonding

So it's trying to think of the best way to explain it.

I'm really glad that you are explaining it this way, though, because in all of this time talking about trauma bonding relationships, my mind was doing trauma from this, trauma from that.

Now we found each other and we've bonded.

No, but that happens too.

We know that.

that he will succumb to his father we always know he will he was already texting him he was telling him happy birthday and it's a great illustration of how that trauma bond will supersede all other connections what's also interesting to me about roman is he also wants to remain in proximity to other family members right now roman's primary defense is his really kind of toilet humor it's scatological and sexual insults for example even when he was messing with connor trying to again bait him or he roman learned that from dear old dad everything is sexualized in nature he can't stop himself and that is very much a defense for how much vulnerability he carries around now logan is losing the plot a little bit again we can see that without his kids to regulate to have as his source of supply even those silly pizza boxes irritated him right it's the first time logan's children's three children in a meaningful way have anything that resembles anything like power over him now when he shows up at the karaoke place and who would have thought we would ever seen logan roy at a karaoke place that was worth again price of admission to this episode it was all a manipulative hoover right everything logan does is calculated it is really seemingly intolerable for logan to have lost the power over his kids But that apology scene of Logan to his kids is something that anyone who has ever been through a narcissistic relationship would fully understand, right? The narcissistic apology is a very bleak place.

When Logan says, I don't do apologies and then pivots to, but if it's important to you, I'm sorry.

That's the word that's not even that's even far worse than not getting an apology it's simply not possible to get a sincere authentic or self reflective apology from a narcissistic person and a lot of folks hold out for years, certainly his kids have.

And while Connor, as expected, goes on his victimized rant about love and the rehearsal dinner, though I think any of us would be hurt if what happened to Connor happened to us, but basically because his transactional fiance, who he stalks on Find Your Phone, has publicly humiliated him.

So the whole thing is... and then connor launches into a i don't need love i will be fine if she leaves me rant now i don't like connor i really don't and his whole communal meets covert vulnerable narcissistic shtick but i also feel for him and for all all four of them because in essence what they've had to do is they've had to convince themselves that they don't need love because that conviction, that belief was frankly the only way that they could survive and have even begun to constructed, forget adult lives, even their child lives.

where they hold that belief however because of all of their early attachment wounds and how many times they were betrayed and let down and not cared for and as adults we still have ongoing attachment needs it's not true that they don't need love look at Shiv is still struggling with the Tom of it all Roman is pulled constantly into the magnetic trauma bond of his dad Connor keeps going back to a woman who does not love him and who he had to pretty much buy and pay for to keep this person around.

And Kendall, interestingly, is currently regulating himself with the absolute seduction of the idea that he is destroying and harming his father.

Whatever you do that you found that releases that chemical for you is huge.

Yeah, some people have talked about trauma bonding that as awful as it can be, it's exciting, it's dramatic, and it's hard to find drama if you find Mr.

Normal somewhere, you know, if it were you, that you find somebody who actually gets up in the morning and takes a shower, gets dressed, maybe helps make breakfast, goes off to work, comes home at five thirty.

"Oh, how was your day?" Takes care of the car, regular maintenance and all this stuff, and it's like, oh my God, you know, this is, you know, this is boring.

This episode will make clear why breaking a trauma bond happens in the nervous system, not in your mind.

And it will give you the shift that you need to get unstuck from the narcissistic cycle.

Welcome to Heartbreak to Wholeness, the podcast helping you heal from the mindfuck of narcissistic relationships and move towards a secure, peaceful woman you want to become.

Let's dive in.

Hello and welcome back.

The million dollar question that you might be sitting with if you have left a narcissistic person and keep finding yourself going back is, why can't I stop wanting somebody who I know is bad for me? You know it's a trauma bond, you know it's unhealthy, and it's full of ups and downs.

And yet, you continually find yourself, phone in hand, your heart doing that thing that it does and opening back access.

What is going on? If you have ever gone back to somebody who cheated or lied or made you feel like you were the problem, this episode breaks down the real reasons that you keep going back and what keeps you in a trauma bond.

But if that is how you are able to view your relationship, but you still can't get out, even though you would tell anyone else to get out of this kind of a situation, you may very well be what we call trauma bonded.

The term trauma bonding pretty much encapsulates the entire narcissistic relational dynamic.

And lots of people use this term.

So let's make sure we get some clarity on it.

Some people have likened this idea of trauma bonding to the proverbial Stockholm syndrome.

Now, the Stockholm syndrome refers to this story in which a group of hostages ended up sort of falling in love with their captors.

so in essence they had created an emotional bond in the face of the trauma of being held against their will now frankly more recent research has debunked the Stockholm syndrome as a thing but the theme of trauma bonding is mirrored in some of what we see as sort of being the patterns or the top notes of Stockholm Syndrome.

This idea of creating an emotional bond to somebody who's a perpetrator of harm in your life.

A couple of other ones.

Trauma Bond is in there now.

IYKYK is in there now.

If you know, you know.

Bonding with narcissistic relationships, right? And this matters so much when it comes to trauma bonding, which is already a term where there's a lot, just like narcissism, where there's a lot of unsureness and we're not clear on it.

Now, in general, when we think about trauma bonding, we think about it loosely as the alternation between good and bad that happens in a relationship that creates it, that you hold out for the good day, you ruminate or selectively recall the one decent hour from vacation.

You wonder why they all couldn't be that way.

But I think that that does not actually get it fully right, because I know many of you feel very trauma bonded in at least one relationship.

This confuses people who are ta- who are listening and talking about trauma bonds because they'll say, "I don't think I'm alternating between good and bad.

I actually think I might just be alternating between abusive and not abusive." And again, this is something else entirely, but this is more normally what happens in these relationships.

So I think really it may be much simpler to think of trauma bonding, that, that unbreakable attachment you have in an unhealthy relationship, to think of that as being created by alternation, and that alternation may be between good and bad, bad and really bad, normal and bad.

But the alternation may mean that a day when you're not yelled at is something you start to cherish, and you may feel that the day that you are not yelled at is a sort of relief.

They may not leave, but they may also no longer excuse it.

I do struggle with how much codependent people are blamed or dismissed for their situations.

So much of this is about trauma bonding.

And one could argue that codependent individuals have more extreme trauma bonded situations relative to what we observe in other toxic relationships.

And exploring other issues like complex trauma become

And why is that? So let's break down the five reasons narcissistic breakups are so much harder than other kinds of breakups.

Number one, trauma bonding.

This is really the main reason.

In normal relationship, normal, healthy, no narcissism relationship, you may have met, fallen in love around things like shared interests, Enjoying your time together compassion empathy all that but even in a healthy relationship.

And she was like, leave me alone for a moment, which exacerbated both of our crap.

Do you think in retrospect now there was a bonding there due to the trauma, trauma bonding, in fact? You know,

that's one of those things that frustrates me.

And my therapist actually helped me with this because somebody was saying one time, you guys are trauma bonded.