Understanding the Trauma Bond

We dive into the Trauma Bond: how it forms, why it's so hard to leave, and what recovery really looks like. This isn't just about red flags or textbook definitions. This is about the lived experience—the confusion, the craving for relief, the grief that shows up even when you finally leave.

I walk through the invisible hooks that keep survivors attached: intermittent reinforcement, emotional manipulation disguised as love, and the powerful conditioning that teaches us to find safety in what's familiar—even when it hurts. I also share pieces of my own story, including what it felt like to be silenced, blamed, and slowly erased in a relationship that mirrored old wounds I hadn’t yet healed.

You’ll hear about:

• The difference between love and emotional captivity
• How trauma bonds are wired into your nervous system
• Why you still miss them even after they hurt you
• What gaslighting does to your sense of self
• How to begin un-gaslighting yourself and rebuild your truth

Transcript

 Welcome to the You Are Not Crazy Podcast hosted by Jessica Knight, a certified life coach who specializes. And healing from narcissistic and emotional abuse. This podcast is intended to help you identify manipulative and abusive behavior, set boundaries with yourself and others, and heal the relationship with yourself so you can learn to love in a healthy way.

You can connect with Jessica and find additional resources, content, and coaching@emotionalabusecoach.com.

Hello, and thank you for. Being here before I get into this episode, I just wanna go through some of the fine print. You can find me on my website, emotional Abuse Coach, or if you're going through divorce, it's,

people ask me all the time, do you work with men too? And the answer is yes. And I'm sorry that it's not as clear. Um, but in a lot of the situations that I talk about, the abuses. Being done to a mother, to a woman, but I do absolutely work with men that are experiencing the same dynamic and recovering from the same trauma.

I offer validation calls and ongoing coaching support. You can learn more in book sessions on those two websites that are also in my show notes. I have the emotional abuse breakthrough course as well as divorcing a narcissist. How to document for family court and the Boundaries Deep dive. Those are all available if you click on courses on emotional abuse coach com, and you also can always reach out for a clarity call that is a one.

That is basically the intro call before we start a coaching relationship. I do one off coaching here and there, depending on what you're looking for, but if you are looking to work with me on a more long-term basis, I suggest just looking at that intro call, signing up. That way we can get on the same page.

I can share how I.

Is a topic I haven't talked about in a while and it's understanding trauma bonds because I think a lot of us wonder how I ended up here. And a lot of people write in and they talk about the episode. I think it was the third or second or third episode I ever did. Um, trauma bonding and how we can heal, which I will link in.

That trauma bonding is so complex. There's never gonna be an one episode that describes it all. And so it kind of is about piecing together the, the pieces that make the most sense to you. And this episode is really about how you got there and why it, why and how it's hard to heal. And I hope it's helpful.

You know, I, I sit with these episodes and I. What be most helpful, especially if I'm not having as many guests on right now, which is more due to scheduling than anything else. But I hope that this is helpful and if it is helpful to you, I wanna invite you to go over to my, if you search Jessica I coaching or just use the link in the show notes.

It is there. I. Entire month of June to talk about the topics that are most asked about. And so when people say to me, I don't understand how I got here. That's what led to creating this episode today. I don't understand how I got here. If you've ever said that out loud or even just like whispered it to yourself, I want you to know that you didn't just end up in a trauma bond, but you were led there slowly.

Strategically and most likely during a part of your life or a season of your life when you needed to feel loved and safe. And I hear this exact phrase from clients all the time, from people who have done the work, they've gone to therapy, they unpack their childhoods, they learned language of healing. I hear it from people that are strong and brilliant and but still end up entangled in something that looks like, well, looks nothing like love, but feels like it might be, or.

They ask me or in themselves, how did I get here? Why can't I leave? And what does this say about me? But I want you to know that you didn't choose it in a lot of ways. You were groomed into it. I wanna stop sugarcoating. Trauma bonds and trauma bonding. They are emotional captivity. It's not about being weak.

Lead you into a trauma bond. Trauma bonds are about psychological manipulation of love, of attachment, and of safety and trauma. Bond abuse paired with intermittent reinforcement, moments of tenderness or affection that come in a way that are, that's not predictable, but are dropped in just. Are addicted to the person you're addicted to, the relief you feel when the pain stops, and that's what makes emotional abuse so insidious.

It doesn't always feel like harm. It feels like confusion. It feels like maybe I need to be more patient. It feels like, well, maybe he's struggling and I know how to love people through things, and sometimes it feels like he didn't mean to do that. But that's why so many victims and survivors don't know that they're in an abusive relationship.

It's because the abuse doesn't always show up as something that's overt and cruel. And sometimes it shows up as an almost almost supportive, almost kind, almost safe. And that's what keeps you hooked, that almost you hold onto it. When I. Two, and there will be a future episode that talks about the second one.

Well, actually this one talks about the second one. It talks about the first one and the difference between them. The patterns are so obvious now in hindsight, but at that time I couldn't name it. I just knew that I was shrinking. I knew something wasn't right. Yet he kept telling me everything was all right.

I just didn't know what exactly I didn't feel, other than I didn't feel like myself. And every time I was able to breathe, he just seemed offended by it in some way. Offended by my space, offended by my breath, offended by any relief that I had. I remember I went back to New York where I'm from, and I usually don't take the ferry from Boston to New York, but I did this one time with my kid and I remember I.

There's like a welcome to New York sign, and I just said like, oh my God, I feel like all the knots left my back when I just saw Welcome to New York. Not because of my family necessarily, but because of I was seeing the words New York on a sign made me feel like home, and he got upset by that because it meant that Boston wasn't home to him even though it was one singular message.

He'd get offended by my space and by my time that I needed to breathe the relationship. That relationship started really fast. It was texting nonstop. There were deep late night conversations, told me I was the first person who ever really understood him and compared me to all these past exes. He said, this is it for me.

Over and over, even in the beginning. This is it for me. I promise you this is it for me. Like, if it's not you, it's no one. And he also said he would work on all the parts of himself that he needed to, because there was a lot that he needed to focus on. And I believed him because I wanted to and because he did give up this like aura that he was self-aware enough to be conscious of that.

But then the shift came pretty much after I started setting boundaries. After I said, no, I don't think that, or, no, I don't believe in that, or, no, I'm not gonna do that. There were jokes with really sharp edges to. He weaponized all my boundaries. Anytime I wanted space. Sudden coldness when I couldn't explain my thinking, because I knew he was gonna challenge it anyway, he would withdraw emotionally if I didn't phrase things just right.

The way he wanted in that moment was so much about his needs rather than like even my thoughts and apologies only when I pulled away, but soft. The worst part is, is that I started to turn on myself at the beginning. Maybe I'm too sensitive. He's trying. I just need to be meet a halfway way. I'm flexible.

If I explain it better, maybe he'll hear me. That was trauma bonding, forming in the moment. I didn't know it at that moment, but I was already so caught up in the loop. The highs felt like hope and the lows felt like my fault. Every single time I tried to bring something up, something small, something vulnerable, I was met with defensiveness, silence, or twisted logic that somehow circled back to misunderstanding or projecting.

And if I called him out for being quote unquote, too emotional, I got slammed for that. But my emotion, which in that moment was probably anger, wasn't okay. He could rewrite an entire argument by the. From the night before night, I'd be left wondering if I was really the problem. I'd be trying to put together pieces of what actually happened and then try and re-explain that to him so that he got it without realizing that I was trying to convince someone of the reality that like I experienced and that like was the reality.

I started rehearsing how I'd bring things up.

And I'd avoid topics altogether just to keep the peace. I'd lie about having work to just avoid his demands and I never wanted to share a bed with him. And still to this day, I actually really hate sleeping in the same bed as someone. I do hope that that's something in at one point that maybe I can have again, but not a priority.

Certainly. But it's also, it's so interesting 'cause it's like maybe that was time I. To myself for myself. One day I'll talk about how the body score, which that's book body, knew what happening before brain was, and so I wanna into like what's happening inside.

Of control followed by comfort. Each cycle chips away at your sense of safety and then offers just enough tenderness to pull you back in. It often starts with a rupture, something that off, or dismissive or even cruel. And then comes a repair, which is a sweet moment. The message that says, I love you. You know that, right?

And if you've listened to anything that I put together on abuse, that's. As a note, I have a cycle of abuse mini podcast series, which takes you through the cycle of abuse and your cycle of abuse. The link is in my show notes. The call to actions are all over my Instagram. If this is resonating with you, I recommend starting there, and in that moment, your nervous system softens when it reaches that.

You hope there's real accountability. You wanna believe this time is different. So you clinging to that moment of connection and tell yourself, maybe it wasn't that bad, maybe it's fixable. But these cycles do more than just confuse you. They change you and they rewire your brain because every time you're criticized, ignored, blamed, or made to feel small, your body goes into survival mode.

Cortisol rises, anxiety kicks in, and.

When you start to pull away, set a boundary, get some clarity, they come back with affection, vulnerability, nostalgia, all of that is love bombing. And what happens in your brain in this moment is it's being flooded with dopamine. The fear is being replaced by some temporary safety, like it's like an addiction.

So you have to think about it like it's being replaced by like the moment of relief. That pain is followed by the relief and. Your body learns to associate the person not just with the pain that they cause, but with the feeling of comfort that also follows. It is so mind boggling. You stop focusing on how deep the lows are because you're chasing the high that comes after them.

You hold onto good moments like proof. You wait for the version of them that shows up the way that they said that they would, and often that's the way they showed up in the beginning. So you're remembering things that you actually heard from them. And this is how trauma bonds form. It's not because you're weak, it's not because you're broken.

It's because your body's doing what it's designed to do. Find safety, attach to relief and survive. I'm gonna go through the progression that I see again and again. Love bombing. It's where it starts, and so you feel seen, chosen, and adored. It moves fast, but it feels right. And then there's mirroring and mimicry.

They reflect your pain, your dreams. You think you found your person, but they're studying you, not bonding with you. What feels like a deep understanding is actually quite strategic. They become everything you've ever wanted, only to use it later as leverage and then devaluation begins. A passive aggressive comment si when you cry hand, when you reach connection, you start changing your tone, your words, your needs to keep fawn.

You silence feels like it's the only thing you can do, and then there's a lot of gaslighting. You're too emotional, you remember things wrong. You say you're imagining things. You start questioning own reality and relying on theirs. Instead, you replay conversations in your head trying to find where you went wrong, and you apologize for things you didn't just do to make the tension stop.

And then intermittent reinforcement, they can close again. Right after you've been pushed away and your brain floods with dopamine, you feel relief. Your body reads as love, and these moments are just long enough to reset the cycle. The pain can be released by a single good day, a context, a flash of who they're or were at the beginning, and then there's a lot of isolation that happens in between because it's so hard to talk about, especially when you keep going back.

You don't wanna hear just leave. You don't wanna show people how bad it got or like how you can't manage it. How you're here again, so you keep it to yourself, which becomes really dangerous. And before we move on, I just wanna hone in on intermittent reinforcement because I think it's one of the most important things to understand.

Intermittent reinforcement is the glue that keeps the trauma bond together. This is the cycle that trains you. They create the pain and then they become the only person that suits it. It is a loop of emotional push and pull all of the time. One day they're cold and distant. The next, they're affectionate and apologetic.

You start chasing that good version of them and clinging to the few moments that breadcrumbs where you felt like they see you again and you think, maybe this is the turning point, but it never is because it doesn't last. And that inconsistency keeps you at balance. You who you're.

You just keep waiting for that version, that warm version of them to come back or to appear again. And here's the thing that I think a lot of people don't understand. That feeling of wanting the calm, that feeling of feeling so stuck to it doesn't end just because the relationship ends. Your body does not know the danger is over.

It still expects the cycle and it still craves the high. You miss them even though they hurt you and you feel grief when you quote, unquote, should feel relief. You might find yourself longing for the version of them who loved you, even though that version was never actually real. That doesn't mean that you are broken or anything.

It just means that your body's still detoxing from that manipulation. Healing from a trauma bond isn't just about leaving. It's about unlearning the craving for relief, and finally learning what safety actually feels like. Because when your brain is on trauma bonding, it's chemical. While bombing gives you dopamine withdrawal spikes, your cortisol reconnection brings dopamine and oxytocin, you're stuck in a loop.

Your body thinks it needs to survive, and what's really happening is that your trauma brain is online, not your rational brain, not your logical boundary to adult self. Literally the part of your brain that operates in trauma. Trauma brain is the part of you that is wired for survival. Doesn't care about facts, doesn't remember red flags.

It's not interested in the truth of the relationship. Most of the time it just wants the relief and the safety. And in the trauma bond, the danger is also in the relief, and that's why you can know it is toxic and still say stay, and why You can see the manipulation and so crave them because the danger is also the trauma.

And that's also why you can leave and still wanna go back. It's not that you're irrational, you're in survival mode. You're operating from the same part of your brain that was doing the best to keep you emotionally alive by clinging to the one person who kept you wounded and was also soothing you. It's not love.

That's just how trauma finds logic, and that's why healing isn't just about seeing it clearly, but about learning to feel safe. I wanna touch on why this feels so familiar. And when I was thinking about this, I was thinking about my story. My ex-fiance didn't just manipulate me, but he mirrored what I already knew.

And what I mean by that is that he mirrored parts of myself that were so deeply embedded. His coldness, his victimhood, his dismissal of my feelings echoed so many of my really unpredictable. And that activated the same survival strategies I'd used growing up over time. It became very predictable, especially when I started to understand our, my own personal cycle of abuse with him.

And that's because it was, it turned into every single time. I expressed a feeling every single time that I wasn't completely compliant every single time. I said, no, that's for you to figure out. No, that's, this is your work, not mine. It worse and worse and worse and became very predictable. It did not feel good, but it did feel very familiar and like that part of me just wanted relief because in the trauma bond, like I said, the danger also feels like relief, and that's the hook because I spent more time wondering if it was me than I.

If it was healthy trauma, bonds don't feel like danger because they feel like home and it's not because they're home, but it's because your body's wired to find safety in the familiar, even when the familiar was painful. And unpacking that really broke me because the moment I stopped trying to earn love inside of somebody else's chaos, and I stopped twisting myself into a pretzel for.

I started grieving the part of me who thought that I had to, and that came up in every single relationship in my life and every connection in the ways in which I ran, you know, different parts of my life and just decide. And just, it was extremely overwhelming to face it all, but also felt like very necessary.

And for a while I just felt like I couldn't really connect to anybody in my life. Because all I saw was all the unhealthy patterns that were so deeply entrenched, and if you are somebody like me who grew up in emotional chaos, the inconsistency of things becomes normal and you just learn to read between the lines.

Basically, it's fawning. I have learned to anticipate moves before they shift and to manage other people's reactions to avoid setting things off or setting bigger things off. My brother, unfortunately, I.

He tries so hard to manage some people's emotions that, and like, I feel like at the end of the day, it just like lives inside of his body and I didn't care, take or fawn in a way that I was appeasing him. But what I was doing is I was silencing myself because I just wouldn't say what I was thinking, which is the not me at all.

I very much, and that's not the person that he love, bomb. It's not the girl that he told, you know, this is it for me. It is. The silenced version of me is a deeply traumatized version of me. And I think that when somebody mirrors the same emotional inconsistency in adulthood.

Your nervous system doesn't recognize that it's unsafe, but it registers it as that familiar thing, and so you don't feel as alarmed, but you feel hooked or even curious and you can't explain it. And you mistake the anxiety for your personal work to do because love feels like survival. And I had to grieve the of myself that believed, loved, had to be earned.

I had to grieve how long I lived in realizing. I had to really look at the, the fact that safety that I was chasing was never real, but it was just familiar and for a long time I told myself I had fucked, I had a fucked up childhood and that's why I am this way. But that's not the whole story because I had gone through, especially by the time I got into the relation with him, I believe it was 20 years of therapy that I.

Whereas prior to that, like of course, you know, my mom threw me in therapy, blame me for being the problem my whole life. But when I finally chose to go to therapy, I think I was 16, I had an amazing therapist. Her name was Tanya. I will never forget Tanya. She really saw me for me and I remember feeling like I am not just fucked up and that's why this is going on.

But my nervous system is screaming and this doesn't feel right and this doesn't feel safe, and that's what's going on. But when I brought it up to him, he framed it as that there was something wrong with me. And because he didn't wanna look at his own accountability. And that's what a trauma bond does, right?

Because like they, they say it, you question it. You believe it, they take it as fact, but in no way was he looking at himself and healing required me to see my responses, my natural responses to shut off, to find safety, not as flaws, but as adaptations. And it required me to really honor that younger version of myself.

I had to learn over time that I no longer had to live that way, and that my survival responses of shutting down, off getting silent were. That's more of a sign. It's not a bad thing, right? Me not wanting to share a bed with this man because I couldn't sleep, that was my, that was my body telling me this isn't safe.

That wasn't something I needed to change about myself. That, and that's literally what he was saying, that there's something wrong with me rather than wondering and getting curious why I feel unsafe. And the relationship was in a place where even if I said I was unsafe, he probably would've told me I was wrong.

Or he did tell me I was wrong. I remember I tried to like lay out his abusive behaviors, uh, like with him. And side note, don't ever do this. Please don't ever do this. Like I've done at this point, I've done it twice. I with two different partners and like at least the second time, like it was coming from a place of like, this is like literally informed, but don't recommend it.

And he listened. He took it in. I believe he actually talked to his therapist about it and then came to couples therapy and said, let's not use the word abuse to define behaviors anymore. And I was like, yeah, that's, we are. This is done. I digress though. This is what recovery actually looked like for me.

Well, and what recovery has look like for my clients too. Nobody tells you that leaving a trauma bond can feel more painful than staying in one. At least they don't say that at first. So you might find yourself questioning everything and you may begin to grieve someone who deep down, you know, never was fully real that was in there, and you likely swing between moments of clarity and doubt.

You might feel guilt, rage, longing, shame. All the feelings, feeling I got physically sick the first time, like it was just all the toxins. I felt like they were leaving my body, and sometimes I felt all of the feelings. Guilt, rage, longing, shame, sadness within 10 minutes. And these feelings don't mean that you are making the wrong choice.

They, it actually means that your nervous system is trying to recalibrate. It means that you're unlearning. Relationship that trained you to disconnect from your own needs, your own voice, your own instincts. And one of the first tools I offer clients in early recovery is that you need to start un gaslighting yourself.

I tell them to begin writing things down, document what happened, not just the events, but how it made you feel. Write down the moment your boundary was ignored. Left you spinning and apology pulled away. Pay attention to what your body is feeling and what feels as you write it down, and then write down how a healthy person would respond.

How would emotionally mature partner respond? I didn't plan on giving the example about telling him his abusive behaviors, but I'm gonna go back to it. And so I remember when I said that I named just like three things. I wasn't like, here's a list of 3000. I was like, here's three things that are going on and that were not going on in the beginning of our relationship, and I don't think that you realize this, but I'm framing it so that you can look at it and like you've, you've asked me for this.

I'm telling it. I'm honest. And like I said, in that moment. He took it. But then, like I said, he weaponized it, you know, within days and it actually continued to get weaponized like in the final days of our relationship. But one of the things that I remember thinking is like, okay, my partner came to me ever and said, this is abusive, or this seems controlling, or, I don't understand this.

How would I respond? And we all have flaws. You know, we all have anxieties. Like there are certain things I certainly probably would've been anxious about, but I, I remember just sitting down and then I went away from thinking about how I'd respond. And I thought like, okay, how would an emotionally mature person respond if my partner saying, I used to be able to talk to you, and I cannot talk to you anymore because every time I say anything, you shut down.

I'd want the person to sit for a second to think. And then to say, okay, I hear you. Can you gimme an example of when that happened so I can see it clearly? And to make me feel just so seen and heard and safe to share an example if that's what they needed to see the pattern. Or they could say, I know I'm really not proud of how I've been responding to you.

You don't deserve that. Another thing I remember sharing was you make everything about you. I see a sign that says, welcome to New York, and you hear that that's an injury to you and I don't wanna be somewhere else other than I had a moment of feeling relief when I saw that I got to see my friends and I was excited.

I used to live like right by in.

The bridge makes me feel like home. That's what feels like home to me. And I said, you, you take these things and then you weaponize them if it's not directly related to you. But like I'm allowed to have my own experience and my own memories and just like my own thoughts. When you tell me something about a major accomplishment in your workday or in your work career, I'm not like, that doesn't have something to do with me.

I'm, I feel attacked. And so. I remember I shared that and he fought back on it and like made up all these things. He completely gaslit me. And when I sat down and wrote that one out and thought about how would I want a person to respond just by me sharing and you know, it was actually as I'm saying this, it's like these are the, this is how insidious emotional abuse is.

It's like we have to literally sit down and remind ourselves why we like things. And I sat down and I wrote. I just would want them to like celebrate my happiness, like or wanna hear more or like, oh my God, like I can't wait to see New York with you, or, I totally get that. Like I'm glad that you have that feeling because that's how I am as a partner too.

I was the partner that was like, and I am the partner where like, you wanna go to London and. Three tattoos in a day and you have the finances to do it, go do it. Like enjoy your day. I'm not controlling like that, like we, you know, 'cause I don't want it on me at all. But that's not a lot of people. A lot of partners aren't like that.

And I had to do this for. So many different things. Just really challenge myself to think about how an emotionally intelligent or present partner for me would respond. I mean, I'm gonna be honest, like one of the biggest examples is with my daughter. Like she comes first and she always will. And she always will be number one.

And that's it. And like I want a partner that's like. I get that and that's where she deserves to be. And if I am ever challenged about that, it's probably the easiest goodbye that I could ever give, because that's how I am and that's how I would want to be if somebody else had a child. Nope, your child's first to you.

Your child's first to me. My child's first. This practice of kind of going through all of this is for you, not them. It's not for them. You're not writing it out to prove a point to the other person. You're writing it out to connect with your own truth. And you can do this in the relationship outside of the relationship a year outta the relationship.

And in the early stages of recovery, the trauma bond will try and pull you back in and you might start to question whether it was really that bad or feel nostalgic for good moments. You may feel tempted to reach out just to relieve that discomfort. That's why it feels like an addiction. That's not your weakness.

It's your nervous system doing exactly what it is trained to do, and that is to seek the relief in writing things down creates like a, this tether to reality and helps you validate your own experience. It also allows you to see the patterns clearly. Even when your body is still beginning to catch up your for a while, your body and your head won't feel like they're aligned.

So I wanna offer a.

It doesn't matter if you're in the trauma bond. Now, in the relationship, if you're outta the relationship in the trauma and you're reflecting back, this might be helpful. What version of myself does this relationship require me to be? What part of me is still waiting for them to change? When is the last time I felt peace?

Not just relief, but peace. You don't need all the answers just yet. You just need to be honest with yourself. And so if you've been here listening, nodding along, feeling the ache in your chest, or the confusion in your gut, I want you to know that you're not dramatic or too much. You have been manipulated and conditioned to see this chaos as love, and you were taught to ignore your intuition in to.

Healing from a trauma bond is not a linear practice. It's not clean. It's not quick. It's slow, layered, often disorienting, and you may still miss them. You may still want them to understand. You may still hope for closure, and that doesn't make you weak. It just makes you human. And the work now is not to go back and fix it.

The work is to really kind of begin to come back to yourself because the part of you that kept saying, how'd I get here? Gonna come out and say, I am not staying here. And we just want that part to get louder and let that part lead. I know that this episode is long. I know that this is a lot, and I do have other episodes on trauma bonds.

I suggest. As you can or as it feels appropriate for you, but this is one of the hardest things that I've ever had to do. I'm sure it's one of the hardest things you'll ever have to do, and I often say like, I would've preferred to just saw off my hand with a butter knife than to feel the feelings, but I, the strength that comes on the other side of it, even if it takes a year or two years or longer.

It's a different kind of strength because it's strength that actually like worked through and built a new foundation. If you need support, I'm going to post two episodes in the show notes, common signs of gaslighting and how to un gaslight yourself and trauma bonding, how we can heal. They both might be helpful.

As I mentioned the beginning, have courses that are study. One-on-one coaching. I offer validation calls, which are one coaching where I.

I do consistent one-on-one work with people to help them heal. A lot of times I work with somebody on like a relationship, getting outta the relationship, and if it has to go to divorce or if that's where it is, then we do the high conflict divorce. But I work on both. So emotional abuse coach.com, Instagram at emotional abuse coach.

And you can also find me on substack where this month I'm talking about all the in emotion. I hope this was helpful. I hope was validating. If you need support, you could always reach out to me.