Trauma Bond

This information is from my domestic violence course and my own personal experience.

So what is a trauma bond you might ask? It is a trauma that is created between an abuser to the victim of the abuse. It can create a situation when a person is dependent on their abuser for all of their personal needs. The controller of the victim will act self defensively and will make excuses for what they are doing and how they are acting towards you. They will need to rationalize, to justify their own behavior to all around you. The victim of this abuse will feel isolated from those in their community with no support available to them other than their abuser. Often the victim will hold self blame for this behavior they have received from their abuser. They will feel that what is going on is really their own fault and that they are the cause of all the abuse that is happening to them. This type of relationship will take all of your time and energy away from you. You will often experience a loss of friends and family or of any other kind of support for you. All of this will be cut off from you as it is a threat that the abusers uses to control you. The people that were close to you will leave you so you will end up with no support or help for you. Your life will be controlled by the abuser of you with all of the decisions and your needs being taken care of by them. This could happen until you are just a shell of your former self. This cycle of trauma will repeat its self over and over again till you are able to get out and to leave the situation. You will not be able to do your own thing or to act independently at all. Many victims will lose all confidence that they had for themselves and their own lives being completely co dependent on their abuser for everything. Till they feel they are not able to do anything for themselves at all. The abuser wants to be able to control your life completely in every single way. Some victims may feel that they need their abuser in order to survive and to make it, so they feel whole and complete, as this is a false sense of wholeness as you need to be whole in yourself not through another person. Abusers will enmesh their life in with yours so they are intertwined with you. This can make it very hard to get away and to then separate yourself from them. You could feel that you don’t even exist anymore as your life has been taken over by them. Once you separate you will see that you can function without them and will be OK. That you can getting stronger and stronger of being yourself again every day on your own. So many victims of abuse end up co dependent on their abuser in some way this is all a part of the trauma bond cycle. Abusers love to remove all autonomy that you hold for your own life and then leaving you with self destructive patterns in place. They will use short periods of kindness to you to keep you trapped in the cycle of domestic violence. They can also try and give you hope for the future and that their bad behavior has really changed but it has not, this is all a lie to keep you stuck. I say if an abuser has changed he or she would of done some inner wound work on themselves. They would of made an effort to show you that they are better and there is a change of behavior so you are able to trust them again. Trust is gained over time not in one go or after one simple apology. Without them doing the inner work what you are really seeing is a mask, a cover for lies, a dance of the abuse cycle with no real change. Abuser saying sorry and being remorseful so you do not leave them is really a trap to keep you locked into to the cycle of abuse and bonded to them in some way. Every thing will be good until they move into the next cycle of abuse and then the explosion will hit you again. Your abuser needs you to be loyal to them. Trauma bonds hold and create a reforced schedule of you giving up your own needs for their own needs, so you self sacrifice yourself. They can do this with sleep, work, finance, housing, affection, support and love that you receive from them. Abusers will often use your needs against you so you go without what you need and allow them to receive this energy or help from you. What you are really doing is betraying yourself for them and their own selfish needs. They love to create chaos to make things unpredictable for you. Often you will feel like you are living on a roller coaster going up and down with their mind games they play with you. You life will feel out of control but this is all part of their game they play in domestic violence. You will be expected to fix all of the problems that are created by them. What you will find is that you are making a huge effort and they are not making any effort at all to make thing work in the relationship. So it will be a one sided relationship and very unfair for you. So many victims stay hoping that things will get better but unless you separate and the abuser does the necessary work things will never change they will only go through the cycle of abuse again and again. Some victims believe that love heals all which is does but an abuser needs to take responsibility for their own actions and the abuse they send out to others. For a relationship to be healthy both need to work on the problems otherwise the relationship will not get any better at all. There also needs to be honesty in the relationship with clear communication between each party. In an abusive relationship the abuser is the one who holds all the power in the relationship and the victim holds none or very little. This is how you know it is abusive. You could receive the silent treatment by them where they refuse to talk to you for days or weeks at a time. But this behavior is really childish and controlling of you. You could also be punished by the abuser with emotional abuse projected at you for what they have done to you. It can feel a bit like being tortured by them for being yourself and wanting what is fair for you. Abusers like to regulate your emotions so they are in control of how you really feel. If you make a decision they do not like they may fight you for this action you have taken. Don’t fall for the mind games and lies that are being played with your life. Take real action steps to work on your part of the situation we are all responsible for our own part that is playing out. Even if you are the victim it means that in some way you have agreed to be a part of this situation so this needs to be worked on so it changes. Once you do the personal work on this you will find that you stop attracting this kind situation into your life and have learnt the important life lesson here so it stops happening. You are also responsible for healing your trauma and the abuser is responsible for the abuse of you. Carrying the trauma into the next relationship or your life is not healthy for you to do this. So you need to work on this so the old patterns stops with you and does not continue into your lineage going forward or into another relationship. So get yourself some counseling, reading books, watch video, joining groups, do courses there is so much information out there that is available for you to help you so you do better and recover. There are even workbook for abuse and self esteem you can buy on line and do at home to work on your issues so you get better. You can also see a life coach, a healer, a social worker, a mental health worker, go to a library for books to read. Work on your personal goals going forward. It does not have to be big actions small actions every day or week make a huge difference to your life. This is actually a great opportunity for you to do some personal work on yourself and improve yourself. You can work on self esteem, trauma, boundaries, goals etc. The abuse can take on many different forms of abuse and no one deserves any of this so get educated about this and get help. It can be physical, mental, socially, emotionally, economically, verbal, sexual, and spiritual. The dance of domestic violence cycle is remorse, buyback, honeymoon, build up, stand over, then explosion. This cycle always plays out in all domestic violence situations man or woman it is the same dance. The victim and abuser go through this cycle together. Until the victim is educated and leaves the cycle. A victim plays a role and so does the abuser. Once a victim sees the cycle for what it is, it will stop and you will get off the cycle to go another better way. Understanding you do not need to live like this anymore and can be free of this abuse. They will see that they are not helping anyone even the abuser by staying there living in this abuse. It is important to make your own choices in your life not to be controlled by another person.

Remorse Phase

Here the abuser will feel bad for past abuse of you and will then do acts to make the victim feel that they are sorry for all of the abuse and has now changed. Saying they are sorry for what they have done to you. The victim will feel relief that the abuse has stopped for a period of time, but will still feel scared. The abuser could make a nice meal, buy you a present, shower you in presents or nice events so you feel better and that all is OK for you.

Buy Back Phase

Here the victim will feel powerless, not speaking up, feeling deceived, not sure of what is going on, frustrated, wondering if things have really changed or not. They will feel guilty and can be forgiving to the abuser.

Honeymoon Phase

The victim will feel they are special at this time, they will feel alone with their personal boundaries coming down, they will say how they feel and what the problems really are. They will feel hope for the future that things have really changed for them. They could also think. “Did I make all of this up and doubt themselves. Asking themselves is what is happening to me really real, did all of this really happen to me. Am I over reacting to what has happened here and am I losing my mind!”.

Build up Phase

The victim will want to make everything OK to smooth everything over, to reconcile the relationship, they will feel sick, tense, worried about the future, stomach will be in knots, feel very drained, tired and want to even take the blame for the abuse that has happened to them.

Explosion Phase

For victim wow no doubt this is abuse, in danger, in fear for their own life. Need to escape and get away, get some help. Not safe to stay there anymore.

Stand Over Phase

A victim will feel very powerless, afraid for their own life, had enough, want to leave, angry, afraid for the kids safety and their own well being.

Here are the seven actions that will create a trauma bond between a victim and an abuser.

1 Being love bombed by the abuser.

2 Holding trust and being dependent on the abuser in some way.

3 Being critical of themselves and devaluing all of their own needs for the abuser.

4 Being gas lit and manipulated in how they act and feel in their own life.

5 Often wanting to give up their own personal dreams and own life feeling that they will never get free of the abuse and can be resigned to a life of abuse.

6 The victim will feel stuck unable to leave or to get out of the trap that they are in.

7 They will lose themselves in the abuse and sometimes can no longer even know who they really are anymore. Lost identity. They can also feel emotionally addicted to the situation and the abuse cycle.

Here are some questions to ask yourself is it is a trauma bond happening to you!

1 How do you feel after being around this person?

2 Are you moody, dis-regulated, upset, feeling depressed or sad?

3 Does the person say one thing and do another? Does their actions and words match?

4 Are you able to leave without a problem?

5 Are you doing well in your life or are you struggling in any way?

The abusive bond of control breaks when you step up get educated and learn about this behavior. All abuse behaviors are causing you damage, they are toxic and dysfunctional for you to be in. Doing inner work on yourself is such a great idea to help change and improve the situation and the dynamics for you. All abuse comes from a lack of self love and self worth also self awareness. Abuse survivors will often feel shame, blame and doubt but you need to remember that you can work on this so you get better and can even leave and have a happy and healthy life. It is important to understand how to break the domestic violence cycle so you are no longer in this cycle anymore. Leaving is the most dangerous time so get yourself lots of support at this time so you are not alone and helped to leave safely. Contact a refuge, police station and counselor for domestic violence help at this time!

Find out what a healthy relationship is I have a poem on my websites for this or on the u tube videos channel. Suzanne Rosemary Day.

Www.stopalldomesticviolence.com

WWW.stopalldomesticviolenceinc.com

When you leave them you need to release all attachments to them as the abuser so you are no longer connected to them in any way. This can be called cutting the cords and clearing the energy in spiritually. You need to cut the cords spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally so there is no contact with you from abuser to survivor. You can see a healer or spiritual person for help with this service. This will allow you to be completely free of the abuser, their energy and energetic cords to you. I am able to do this service for anyone needing it so please reach out to me for help if you need this!