Trauma Bonding leads to many Domestic Abuse victims willfully enabling. Truly misguided by toxic social influences, young people who are told that enabling abuse is exhibiting unconditionally ‘loving” behavior tend to end up being romantically victimized by Cluster B Love Fraud predators.
The Narcissistic abuse tactics use to foster Stockholm Syndrome affectations in other people tend to follow a pattern like this…
Trick a person into believing you are trustworthy and that the only way they can survive is with you by their side. If a Machiavellian social predator can pull that one off, after that using intermittent positive reinforcement coupled with push-pull methods of withholding affection or only giving positive attention when criteria are met, then the people they partner with can be easily manipulated into doing the lion’s share of work related to the care, upkeep, and maintenance of the relationship.
Trauma bonds are based on an addiction that develops in the flood of adrenals. The body produces a rush of relaxing emotions when the abuse lessens or stops (if even for a moment), a surge of adrenaline during trying times, a terror that terrorizes the victim to the bone during periods when the Abuser is raging, and a nearly unbearable feeling of anxiety when and if the Abuser withholds affection or attention from the very person who quite frankly and honestly has no safe way to be near them.
When the Abuser acts like attention or affection is a pump they can prime and turn the flow of abuse or support on or off and the mark believes their gaslighting stance? Look out.
What it creates in a target is a biochemical reaction in the human body that hyper-adrenalizes emotions — a state of neurological familiarity that tends to cause Enablers to feel deeply in love with or bonded to their Abusers.
Parents who tell their children Bad Grandpa or Mommy Dearest Grandma was mean to them because they love a grandchild in their own way or who excuse bad behavior in others who abuse them, as an adult in front of their own child, are true Enablers who may or may not have any idea the pattern behavior they are teaching their child.
Trauma bonds are strange emotions a person who is bound literally feels in their cells. The idea of being away from or estranged from a person they believe in their body they need to survive causes dreadful anxiety that is chemically inspired.
Abusers know that if they alternate offering crumbs of good behavior with increasingly escalating types of Narcissistic Abuse that the targets — rather than running away — tend to become conditioned to beg for inclusion, emotional validation, and physically comforting types of approval. It’s a push-pull method nearly every military group who takes a hostage uses to psychologically and emotionally trick their victim’s into trusting them and them only.
Psychologists know the phenomenon of Stockholm Syndrome exists, but unless they have been a love fraud victim or are the child of a Dark Triad parent, most tend to not truly be able to functionally grasp the difficult concept.
Abusing then providing comfort, followed by honeymoon cycles that deteriorate into growing tensions and the Abuser’s toxic behaviors escalating tricks the victim into seeking emotional support and validation from their abuser. In order to create a dysregulated state in the body of the person targeted for victimization, all a Machiavellian person need do is throw a crumb of affection or a cross look and if their toy is trained, they will immediately hup to.
Trauma Bonding is an adrenal stimulation reaction that fosters the illusion that in order to survive, one particular human being needs another.
In a loving relationship, humans who are healthy engage in a mutually beneficial relationship where both people tend to need the other in a way that is loving, supportive, compassionate, and reciprocal. That’s nothing like the relationship pattern that develops with a Cluster B human being ruling the roost.
What abuse coupled with honeymooning behavior and push-pull relationship tactics creates is a biochemical reaction in the bound person’s human body that hyper-adrenalizes emotions — a state of neurological familiarity that tends to cause Enablers to feel deeply in love with or bonded to their Abusers.
Trauma Bonders are not into that whole bonding to collaborate thing. Typical social predators, one seeks to dominate and control the emotional psychology of a targeted other.
Love Fraud predators tend to have what are known as Narcissistic Harems — meaning a bevy of people who are willing to support them. They have preferred narcissistic supply sources who do the primary enabling from a point of co-narcissism in most instances, followed by a pack of hyena-like humans who look up to them and compete to actively seek the stronger predator’s favor.
They love attention and seek it compulsively, Cluster B people. The more a relationship with another human relieves their boredom, the longer they are likely to keep them around for no other reason than that highly specific social utility.
While the Abuser gets off on feeling powerful and in control of their targeted victim’s emotional psychology, the mark tends to be innocently striving to people please while helping the socially abusive human learn how to control their temper and to make social progress related to their behaviors.
The feeling of being needed by your Abuser creates a trauma bond unlike any other. It does not matter if it’s a parent, a sibling, a love interest, or even a CCD or OCD child who you think needs your support and ongoing care — if a trauma bond enabling and manufacturing platform exists, there’s little anyone can say to convince a person likely to be physically harmed or murdered to leave the likely offender.
What the Pavlovian cycle of Narcissistic Abuse creates in an Enabler is a biochemical reaction in the human body that hyper-adrenalizes emotions — a state of neurological familiarity that tends to cause preferred scapegoats to feel deeply in love with or bonded to their Abusers.
At first, the rush seems to happen for both the Love Fraud con as well as the victim, but what really happens is the gaslighter is excited about having a new Narcissistic Supply source while their mark thinks they have literally found a soulmate, a person that they can without reservation or hesitation trust, and a human being in whom they can truly be themselves.
What it creates is a biochemical reaction in the human body that hyper-adrenalizes emotions — a state of neurological familiarity that tends to cause Enablers to feel deeply in love with or bonded to their Abusers.
When a person is trauma bonded, they typically experience high levels of Cognitive Distortion. On the one hand, they know from personal experience that behind closed doors or when no witnesses likely to help a victim are present that the person they love is what’s known as a Situational Abuser.
But…
In public, their person is typically well-liked or well-respected in the community. They are the stars; we are the dark night supporting their glowing false personas.
Calm, cool as a cucumber, and always charming, the Abuser knows how to work a crowd like no other. They make victims question their own sanity while they spread terrible rumors about them behind their backs, successfully convincing all their marks that the person that they are abusing either deserves poor treatment or that they are pathological liars who fake claims of abuse to (get this) “seek attention”.
If they are sophisticated, people will tell victims that the person injured owes their “victimized” assailant an apology. Flying Monkeys who know an Abuser abuses and choose to support them anyhow are of a particular sort, but the ones who are lied to by the Abuser and leap to that person’s defense without knowing they have themselves been victimized break true abuse target’s hearts with overwhelmingly empathic concern, fear for that person’s safety, and emotionally unsupported sorrow.
If they are crude but charismatic, they will rally a posse of brutish Flying Monkeys to harassed bully a victim to the point that the innocent person is either forced to flee for safety or they are compelled to ask for legal protection by authorities. Think Flying Monkeys dressed up as New Jersey gangsters or groups of Oz-like apes (posing as thuggy, well-armed militia and distempered bikers).
The aforementioned points we have shared here “AS IS” with no warranty. We are not in any way striving to make an appeal to reason as authority figures.
We share content the WAY we do in order to help Domestic Violence advocates, court officials, law enforcement professionals, and health care providers start to understand their own dysfunction while learning more about how to honestly serve not only victims but all other humans.
THERAPISTS WHO HAVE NEVER BEEN TARGETED FOR PERVASIVE SOCIAL ABUSE BY A CLUSTER B PERSON DO MORE DAMAGE TRYING TO HELP PATIENTS WHO THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND TYPICALLY THAN ALL THE PATIENT’S ABUSERS COMBINED.
For those of us who left toxic family units, horrible jobs, terrible school peers, and abusive lovers and have quite mindfully since helped teach ourselves and one another lovingly how to thrive, it does not mean we don’t “get it” why people stay.
On the contrary…
Do we remember being too frightened to leave — sure we would die alone in the wilderness, unloved and unwanted by our abusive lovers and toxic families?
Do we remember months and years of sleepless nights or days and nights spent putting on brave faces in public while inside we were left suffering, developing life-threatening stress illnesses thinking we were being loving when all the time we had been duped into enabling?
Do we still have physical pain every day from brutal rapes, physical attacks, and violent beatings?
Do we still have to work hard every day to overcome the massive fear of being socially abandoned by the world with no one to care about or for us (or any friends or family to love and have love us back without demand) faithfully?
Absolutely.
So, with that in mind, we continue to share insight with people who are abuse victims themselves as well as strive to create a pathway for those who have never experienced being the preferred scapegoat or target of a Cluster B peer group or person to understand the physical health crisis, as well as profound social impact having to deal with chronic abuse, actually has on a person.
Do we agree with every point above, as written with the exact nuances implied by the Psych Central blogger? No. But each bullet point creates a springboard platform for great discussions in classrooms, around the water cooler, and at home during family dinner conversations that keep people focused on designing their life.
No.
But each bullet point creates a springboard platform for great discussions in classrooms, around the water cooler, and at home during family dinner conversations that keep people focused on designing their life. So — we’re sharing.
Can we change the way all therapists and social support workers see abuse victims, stereotypically, by trying to educate them about trauma bonding, love fraud issues, and C-PTSD?
We certainly hope so. And if our reluctance to confirm the insights presented by the therapist makes more than a few mental health care workers and social service professionals take a moment to consider they may not be 100% accurate when it comes to their scholarly interpretations, all the better.
People who suffer from Magnesium Deficiency, Adrenal Fatigue, and C-PTSD tend to behave locked in FLIGHT or FREEZE mode. If you are frozen and terrified, the fear of leaving is greater than the fear of enabling.
Locked in PTSD flashbacks and with fatigued adrenals, the body exhausts itself dealing with unaddressed grief related to repeated and seemingly unending trauma exposures.
Fight or flight is a move neurotypical people can do with grace and ease because their neurochemistry is not traumatized pervasively or in any way functionally depleted.
All we can do is share our own insights, personal stories, and observations that we have found in common with so many OTHER abuse survivors… and keep talking while we ourselves strive to rid ourselves of feelings of toxic shame for even daring to reveal we know anything at all about deplorable people and abuse subjects.
Narcissistic Abuse is not something that heals over time — and sticks and stones may break bones, but those can heal. Words have the ability to destroy people’s lives.
People tend to become like the five people they physically spend the most time with, so be mindful.
If you were the child of toxic parents, chances are you will end up at some point in your life involved socially, professionally, or romantically with a non-biologically related Cluster B person. Once you know better, choose better.
In a world with a massive population problem that did not exist for our great-great-great grandparents, the advice to stay entwined with a toxic family unit simply for survival was situationally prudent. In the modern era, heeding such advice is not only mindless, it’s self self-abusive.
Educate yourself about Co-Narcissism, Dependent Personality Disorder, and C-PTSD, abuse victims. Stop walking on eggshells and start establishing prosocial and healthy boundaries when and if you decide you are READY to actively enforce them.
There’s nothing romantic or noble about being a willing Narcissistic Supply source for a social or emotional predator sure to grow meaner and infinitely more neglectful about striving to care for you or your feelings or needs when YOU get older.
Read all you can about Love Fraud and Narcissistic Abuse and learn how to spot the warning signs of people prone to consistently self-promoting at the direct (or willfully neglectful) expense of others.
People who act like beasts tend to have Cluster B personality disorders. Resist the urge to engage in reverse projection — if someone shows you their true colors and they exhibit violent traits, they lie to you once in order to self-promote (rather than to protect), or they show behavior patterns that abuse and vex, believe them.
There is no moral excuse for continuing to socially support or enable any person or peer group that choose to behave in ways that are publicly or privately abusive — but there are personal issues that cause us to believe on some level that staying with or around Abusers is somehow for the higher and greater good.
Once you hear the vertical thinking inspired phrases run through your own mind a few times, it tends to start helping the cobwebs to clear.
“For the BEST <vertical, socially competitive, entitlement-thinking based> interest of the children”…
An abuser abusing you, punishing you, or withholding affection “for your <gaslighting> own good”…
Feeling so ashamed of being abused that you are willing to lie to protect the abuser and hide the abuse?
Accidentally prioritizing a trauma bond inspired romantic relationship over your own children is the fastest way to ensure family dysfunction replicates. If you are reading this post, please consider researching more about trauma bonding today.
