You know somebody disrespects and abuses you. Though it does not seem rational, you keep going back to that person and the abuse cycle continues. That is because you have a bond with him/her. Not a healthy bond but a trauma bond. That creates an urge to go back to the evil person though you don’t like the experiences you will have to face. Any of your logical explanations do not work there. You want to be happy with him/her but cannot as his/her intentions are entirely different from yours. He/she will not miss any opportunity to make you feel worthless and sad. Despite your willingness to leave that person, you are not able to leave as trauma bond makes you go back to that person. How do you break free from this bond?
Knowing that you are trauma bonded to someone is itself a great self-awareness. Way out of this relation is not an easy task and it takes great effort and psychological maturity. But it is not an impossible task either. I am narrating my personal learnings here.
If someone insults you, your natural reaction is to confront that person or avoid him/her. You won’t give him/her another opportunity to mistreat you. But if someone treats you nicely, evoke good feelings, you begin to open up and trust that person. Once you are completely in, that friendly face disappears in your counterpart and the abuser surfaces. You get confused and think that it is one-off situation and show tolerance as you have respect for that person. Soon, he/she appear normal, and the friendly disposition is back. But it does not remain long. In the next phase, abuse becomes even more toxic and deeper. Now you are taken aback. The person you liked is gone. That was abuser in disguise. You keep longing for that good friend of yours and want those good feelings back. You keep going back to him/her only to be mistreated. You are trauma bonded. You have nicer memories but a difficult to digest reality.
Any dependencies on the abuser such as domestic help or financial support are easy to replace with. But it is the validation he/she gave you is the difficult part to replace and makes it hard to leave the abuser. He/she invested time in you in the beginning to understand you thoroughly, see what your motivations are and what moves you. You wanted to feel good about yourself. And your abuser made you feel good in the beginning. That good feeling is what you crave for again and again and you won’t get it from another person as a normal person would not go to extremes in either knowing you or abusing you unlike an abuser. You were attracted to abuser and became a fish caught in the hook. The person who made you feel good is making you feel sad now.
You might ask why the abuser behaves this way. Well, there are plenty of sadists around here and they gain happiness making other people sad. You might think they are smart people to devise such strategies and traps. But they are lazy bums and failed people who could not achieve anything significant in reality. That reality hurts them deeply. To get out of their own mental torture, they find a person who is doing better than them and turn into a failure. That gives them a relief and a self-validation.
We discussed how a normal person gets trapped and the inner working of an abuser. But how do you get out of the trauma bond with the abuser? Now you need to throw out your emotions, shut-off your empathy and invest time to learn about yourself and the abuser also. Why do you need validation from him/her? If you purse hobbies (read, write, sing, paint, travel etc.), you are likely to be happy with yourself and you would not need external validation. Rekindle your hobbies, play with kids or find an older person to spend time with. When you don’t need validation, you are close to winning. If there is an urge to meet your abuser, go for long walk, hit gym, take cold shower. Do everything else than meeting the abuser. If you want to avoid triggers, block that person on your phone and social media. If you are still weak hearted, try to remember the abusive episodes you went through with him/her or watch/listen to abusive recordings if you have any. Toughen up your will power to avoid him/her. It is painful in the beginning but as the dopamine in your brain is starved, urge to meet that person becomes less intense. In few weeks or months depending on how strong your trauma bond was, you won’t feel anything about that person. It is very similar to getting out of a bad habit.
When the abuser begins the next wave of saying good things to you, don’t avoid him/her. Rather smile at him/her and convey the message that you see him through, and you won’t need him/her anymore. Don’t say it through words but through your eyes and body language. The abuser gets the message quickly. He/she won’t care you and would not change for good either. Instead goes on looking for the next victim.
Thank God for sending the abuser into your life and teaching a valuable lesson. I was a happy person before meeting the abuser but less aware. Now I am both happy and aware.
(It took many months for me to get an upper hand over the abuser in my life. I feel good that it happened and now I don’t need external validation about myself. I smile at my abuser and my well-being is unharmed.)
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