Trauma Bonding (It’s NOT ‘bonding over shared trauma’)

We untangle the myth that “bonding over trauma” equals a trauma bond, then map the real cycle of abuse-driven attachment. We show how neurochemistry, attachment styles, and clean repair build secure love or point to safe exits.

• trauma bonding = abuse-driven attachment, not shared history
• Rae & Dax’s grief story as empathy buffer, not pathology
• cortisol, dopamine, oxytocin in the cycle
• why makeup sex feels intense and why it isn’t repair
• Lighthouse: Signal, Mirror, Sovereignty, Gritty Invitation
• three ingredients of trauma bonds + cognitive dissonance
• clean repair vs patterns, scripts for accountability
• anxious, avoidant, disorganized, earned secure
• therapy: EFT, IFS, EMDR, somatic work
• safety planning, no-contact, resource pathways

Safety beats insight. If a self-harm threat is present, leave to safety and call 911. For guidance, call or text 988 in the U.S. Do not manage it alone.

Chapters:

0:00 Setting The Record Straight
2:00 Grounding And Safety Resources
4:07 Ray And Dax: Shared Grief, Not Bond
6:26 What Trauma Bonding Really Means
10:25 The Neurochemistry Of The Cycle
12:10 Why Makeup Sex Feels So Intense
16:15 The Lighthouse Framework In Practice
18:12 Cognitive Dissonance And Control
20:42 The Three Ingredients Of A Trauma Bond
23:15 Myth Busting Shared Trauma
27:28 Scenarios A vs. B
31:20 Clean Repair Versus Patterns
36:05 Breaking The Cycle Step By Step
41:00 Revenge Traps And Safer Swaps
46:20 Attachment Styles Overview
53:10 Anxious, Avoidant, Disorganized Deep Dive
1:00:30 Earned Security And Healing Paths
1:06:40 Therapy Modalities And Tools
1:12:20 Self‑Reflection Questions
1:16:30 Resources, Hotlines, Next Steps
1:20:30 Final Takeaways And Hope

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Record Straight
• 2:00 Grounding And Safety Resources
• 4:07 Ray And Dax: Shared Grief, Not Bond
• 6:26 What Trauma Bonding Really Means
• 10:25 The Neurochemistry Of The Cycle
• 12:10 Why Makeup Sex Feels So Intense
• 16:15 The Lighthouse Framework In Practice
• 18:12 Cognitive Dissonance And Control
• 20:42 The Three Ingredients Of A Trauma Bond
• 23:15 Myth Busting Shared Trauma
• 27:28 Scenarios A Vs B
• 31:20 Clean Repair Versus Patterns
• 36:05 Breaking The Cycle Step By Step
• 41:00 Revenge Traps And Safer Swaps
• 46:20 Attachment Styles Overview
• 53:10 Anxious, Avoidant, Disorganized Deep Dive
• 1:00:30 Earned Security And Healing Paths
• 1:06:40 Therapy Modalities And Tools
• 1:12:20 Self‑Reflection Questions
• 1:16:30 Resources, Hotlines, Next Steps
• 1:20:30 Final Takeaways And Hope

Transcript

Daniel Boyd: 0:09

Today we're gonna take yet another break from the 19-part series, and we're gonna get into something that a lot of people it has definitely come to my very clear attention over the years, misunderstand, and that is something called trauma bonding. A lot of people, reasonably so, think trauma bonding is bonding over shared trauma. That is not what trauma bonding is. Trauma bonding is because you are bonded through the trauma that an abuser is causing you. That is real trauma bonding from a psychological sense. You are bonding over the trauma or through the trauma or because of the trauma that an abuser is causing you. It could be a bit akin to Stockholm Syndrome. So this episode I've titled Trauma Bonding Debunking the Myths and Healing Attachment Wounds. So let's get into it. Before we roll, a quick map and a seatbelt. We are unpacking trauma bonds. Why the sex in a trauma bond can feel unreal, and how attachment styles shape the mess. Listening to this might wake up old stuff. That is not failure, it is your body hitting the smoke alarm. If that happens, please treat yourself like someone you love. Hit pause, try one grounding step. If you want to keep listening, that's great. If you need to come back tomorrow, that's also great. If you're thinking, crap, I might be in something unsafe, just skip to the resources in the notes. Safety beats insight every day of the week. Throughout this episode, I'll use my lighthouse framework that I've been using. We signal what's true, we mirror what's ours. When it comes to sovereignty, we choose our line, and we use a gritty invitation to take the next doable step. Use it with me. And remember, this is education, not a diagnosis. Take what serves, leave the rest, and loop in a professional if it stirs the deep water. Pick one now so it's ready later. A 54321 scan. Basically, you name five things you see, four things you feel, three things you hear, two things you smell, and one thing you taste. Say them all out loud. Another option is called feet and breathe. Plant your feet, inhale for four seconds, exhale for six seconds, and do this eight rounds. The longer exhale calms the nervous system. Another thing you can do is a temperature shift. You can put cool water on your wrists or face, sip something cold. You can orient to safety. Turn your head, look left to right, slowly name what is safe in the room that you're in. Another thing you can do is name and normalize. I feel sad or angry or numb. That makes sense. I am safe right now. And the last thing you can do that might work for you is move a little. 30 seconds of shaking out your hands and shoulders, and then take three longer exhales. If a self-harm threat is present in your relationship, leave to safety and call 911. For guidance, call or text 988 in the US. Do not manage this alone. And do not be ashamed of asking for help. Alright, so now that the disclaimers and all that stuff are out of the way for the ones who need them, let's get this done. Are we trauma bonding because we both lost our partners? When Ray and Dax first fell in love, this question haunted them. They had a similar tragedy in common. Ray's partner of 10 years had died, and Dax's partner of four years had also died. Sharing this deep loss created an instant understanding between them. But it also did spark a fear. Was their connection just bonding over trauma rather than genuine love? For a long time, they worried that grief was the glue holding them together. Fast forward two years, and Ray would tear up at a memory of her late husband, while Dax found himself subconsciously comparing Ray to his late partner at times. Yet instead of driving them apart, these moments actually brought them closer together. They realized that having a shared experience wasn't a relationship time bomb at all. It was a buffer of empathy. Each knew the pain the other carried. So when those emotions did surface, they could support each other without judgment. In other words, their shared loss became a source of understanding, not a source of toxicity. This story, which we'll revisit later, highlights a common misconception. Many people do think that trauma bonding means bonding over shared trauma. And honestly, why wouldn't they? On the surface, it does seem to be right in the name after all. Spoiler alert, it doesn't. In this podcast episode, we're going to deeply unpack what trauma bonding really is and what it isn't, debunk the myths around it, and explore how attachment styles play a role in our most intense relationships. We will also discuss how people with painful pasts can build healthy, secure bonds. Yes, healing is possible. And we'll serve up some resources, hopefully a bit of humor that gets across, and a dash of comedy receipts along the way. Strap in and buckle up. It's going to be a long deep dive into the psychology of love, pain, and healing. What is trauma bonding and what isn't it? Let's get one thing straight right off the bat. Trauma bonding does not mean two people growing closer because they both went through something awful. Falling in love with someone who shares your pain, like two widowed people connecting over their loss or two war veterans relating over combat experiences, is a very real phenomenon. But that is not what psychologists mean by trauma bonding. In fact, even Wikipedia, in all its crowd-sourced wisdom, and yes, that's sarcasm, uh, warns that trauma bonding is frequently mistaken for the emotional bond between survivors of a shared experience. Using the term that way isn't just a harmless mix-up. It actually causes confusion and diminishes understanding of a very serious issue, not to mention keeping people who mathematically probably should be together, keeping them apart. And then, of course, there's the judgment that comes from people who, through really no fault of their own, due to the unfortunate naming, also don't know what is meant by the term trauma bonding. So what does trauma bonding really mean? Trauma bonding simply refers to a dysfunctional and unhealthy attachment that forms between an abuser and their victim, typically through a repeated cycle of abuse, followed by positive reinforcement. In other words, it is the bond a survivor of abuse feels toward their abuser. Again, Stockholm Syndrome, remember that. It does have certain traits in common. Trauma bonding is a bond forged in an environment of power imbalance, fear, and intermittent kindness. Psychologist Patrick Carnez, who originally coined the term in 1997, defined a trauma bond as the misuse of fear, excitement, sexual feelings, and sexual physiology to entangle another person. In plainer terms, the abusive person alternates between mistreating their partner and showering them with affection or apologies. This Jekyll and Hide routine creates a deep-seated attachment in the victim, one that outsiders often do struggle to understand. As one expert succinctly puts it, a true trauma bond is essentially an abused person's unhealthy dependency on their abuser. So the next obvious question is: why on earth would someone become more attached to a partner who hurts them? To an outsider, it seems utterly illogical and ridiculous, like being glued to a burning building. But psychology shows that this is a paradoxical bonding and it is rooted in our survival instincts and how our brains process fear and love. In a trauma-bonded relationship, the brain and nervous system are basically taking on a wild roller coaster of stress and reward. During episodes of abuse or fear, the body is flooded with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. When the abuser then switches to kindness or remorse, the survivor's brain experiences a rush of relief and reward, releasing feel-good chemicals like dopamine and oxytocin. That biochemical high is extremely powerful. It is literally the brain's reward system reinforcing the attachment, much like a drug addict's high reinforces the cravings. In fact, researchers do note that being loved and cared for after periods of abuse is the signature feature of trauma bonds, because the contrast is so extreme. The victim comes to associate the abuser with both terror and comfort, which creates a profound confusion, as you can imagine. It is as if the brain gets addicted to the cycle. The bad times are terrible, but the good times feel euphoric by comparison, so you cling to these moments of kindness like it's a lifeline. This is why you might hear people compare trauma-bonded love to an addiction. It is not just a poetic analogy. On a neurochemical level, the cycle is addictive. Your brain basically goes, ow! Ooh, treat! Ow! Treat! Ow! Treat! Ow! Treat! Until it's too hooked to quit. Not exactly the stuff of healthy romance. Just keep in mind that overlap in circuitry does not mean identity. So let's boid smash this thing that no one wants to discuss. Why the sex feels unreal in a trauma bond and why it felt so pathetic once you realized what was really going on. Makeup sex in a trauma bond is not real intimacy. Actually, in a healthy relationship, makeup sex never happens. And once you get your head wrapped around that, you realize just how pathetic makeup sex really is. Makeup sex in a trauma bond is basically anesthesia with good lighting. This is why it feels so impossible to quit. So let's look at what's happening under the hood. So intermittent reward spikes dopamine in the brain. The brain gets punished, then rewarded. That contrast supercharges the reward system. Sex lands like a jackpot, so your brain marks the partner as a source of relief, not the source of harm. Stress relief heightens arousal. After fear or conflict, the body runs hot on cortisol and neuropinephrine. Sex during the apology window rides that arousal wave, which can feel intense and alive. This is classic arousal misattribution. Think the shaky bridge effect, and you can Google that if you want. Bonding hormones glue all of this together. Oxytocin and vesopressin surge with sex, touch, and orgasm. In safe love, they deepen trust. In abuse cycles, they cement confusion. You pair terror with tenderness and call it passion. Uncertainty boosts craving. Not knowing if you will be loved or lashed tomorrow keeps the wanting system on high alert. Novelty, risk, and relief are a potent erotic mix. Power and pursuit eroticizes the dynamic. The push-pull chaos raises dopamine. When you finally win them back, the system rewards you for persistence, not for health. Limerence piles on. Obsessive infatuation thrives on barriers and deprivation. The more scarce the safety, the more golden the crumbs. So what was that sex really in hindsight? Well, it was a regulator, not a relationship. Your body was using sex to downshift from panic to calm. It was a reset button. It quote unquote cleared the last fight without resolving it, so the pattern stayed intact. It was a loyalty test. If we connect like this, it must be love. Ha ha! No, that is chemistry pretending to be compatibility in a trauma bond. It was a memory eraser. Post-orgasm oxytocin blunts red flags long enough for the cycle to restart. And it always will. It was a performance of closeness. Lots of intensity, very thin attunement. You felt fused in the moment, then emotionally alone again. Because sure, you were attuned, but they weren't. Okay, you may ask. But if they said the sex felt amazing for them, what the hell was that? Buckle up because this is not pretty. Okay, it was for them, likely, at least one of the following things. It was their control being validated. Being the gatekeeper of relief is intoxicating. It was an ego feed. I can break you and you still choose me. That confirms power, not connection. Could have been novelty on tap. Chaos creates endless novelty without doing the hard work of intimacy. It could have been an avoidance that it was masked. They could avoid accountability by offering pleasure instead of repair. Because pleasure is really easy. Repair, a lot harder. And you have to have the balls and the guts to stay around to repair. So let's talk about what these people missed out on by being who they tragically are. The ones that are the abusers. They miss out on attunement, reading a partner's body and emotions in real time, and adjusting with care. They missed safety that deepens desire. In healthy bonds, safety doesn't kill passion. It frees it for better, much deeper things. Giggity. They missed out on co-regulation. Two nervous systems calming each other without needing a crisis first. They missed out on sexual growth. Erotic life that gets even richer over years because trust keeps widening the playground. And let's face it, with a lot of things people might find to be more extreme, trust is a must because if the other person betrays you and leaves in an unhealthy way, the damage can be extensive and expensive to fix. Or worse, you will actually become like them, just to cope. We call this a maladaptive coping mechanism for a reason. And finally, they missed out on the afterglow that lasts, not the crash, the quiet, we are good that follows you well into Tuesday of next week. So a quick contrast between the types of sex. With trauma bond sex, you have high, and then you have a crash, and then you have confusion, you have amnesia, and then you repeat it. So high, crash, confusion, amnesia, repeat. With secure bond sex, you have warmth, play, repair, clarity, and repeat. You can get as kinky as you want, and you know the other person's not going to abuse you, they're not going to leave, they're not going to discard you, and things just go crazy from there. So again, secure bond sex, warmth, play, repair, clarity, repeat. And so, as an aside note, if you are in a relationship with someone who has been trauma bonded in the past, and uh let's say the kink is no longer fun for them because you know they've they trusted someone that betrayed it, just give it time, give it time, show them who you are through your actions. Believe me, they will eventually get back into it, and when they get back into it, they are gonna go way more in depth with this stuff than they ever went with that toxic, abusive piece of sh-t they were with. So, again, let's look at this through the lighthouse framework that we've come up with: signal, mirror, sovereignty, and gritty invitation. Wait, what? You may say, what is the lighthouse framework again? It is a simple four-part check that I've come up with that I use these days to cut through the noise and act with integrity. And it kind of works because it's a nice blanket, and of course, you can expand on it if you want, but you know, this is the minimum you need, minimum framework you need to really look at this stuff. So signal names the actual reality, not your feelings about the reality, not what you think happened, the actual reality. Mirror turns the attention inward, and this is the key part that most people miss. Always look inward first. For example, oh crap, did I trigger that person? Are they dealing with past trauma? Did I trigger something that they were dealing with in the past? Do I need to adjust? Am I a monster? Do I need to go to therapy? Do I need to fix something? Like, is there something wrong with me? That is the mirror. That is the mirror that most people cannot look into. And it's so annoying, but you know, when they can't, you know they're not the right one. So just dump them and get out, I guess. But, you know, do it in a healthy way. And then you have sovereignty. Sovereignty claims my choice and my boundary instead of their boundaries or their barriers or their walls, right? Because again, boundaries are a gate, barriers are walls. If someone clearly has an inflexible boundary that is not a boundary, that is a barrier, it's a wall. They're basic. Finally, the gritty invitation asks for the next doable, uncomfortable action that moves life forward. And again, doable and uncomfortable. Okay? So if we want to grow, we have to deal with uncomfortable things. We have to deal with uncomfortable truths about ourselves, we have to deal with all uncomfortable truths about others, and we have to work through that. Why fight the system? The system will break you. Understand the system, recognize it, drop the pride, drop the script, figure out your own path through the system. But I've also been able to find purpose outside, you know, regular work and meaning outside regular work, which is something that we are all going to have to deal with with the rise of AI, the release of jobs, all of this stuff. Because I tell you what, I am deep in this space and I study this every day, and I'm still barely scratching the surface of it. And it is very possible that within the next five to ten years, up to half the population may end themselves. And that is tragic. But that is because so many people find meaning in work. And if work is no longer available, and you only found meaning in work and you don't have a healthy relationship, you are screwed. You are going to be screwed. So start thinking about that now. Now, there is a slim chance that that might not happen, but I'm telling you, from everything I know, that is a slim chance. It is a slim chance that you will be able to continue to work different jobs for the rest of your life. Because things are terrifyingly fast. It is not a ramp, it is not a curve, it is not linear, it is not even exponential. It is snap, crackle, pop, folks. It's crazy. The emergent properties that are coming out of these things, the only thing that AI lacks right now is certain aspects and quirks of human intuition. That is it. For a great example, uh, someone, this happened about a month ago, with one of the latest AI models. They said, Hey, what is this? And then they pasted a hyperlink. And here's the thing: all the AIs nowadays can absolutely quote unquote click on that hyperlink, go read the article, and tell you what it is, right? That is what a human would naturally do based on their intuition. This thing thought for about 10 minutes and then gave him a very, very in-depth, detailed explanation of exactly what a hyperlink is and the history of it and everything. All right. Now, useful, yes. However, lacking human intuition, because sure, a small part of us might say, Oh, that's a hyperlink. Let me explain what a hyperlink is. But the greater part of our intuition is going to override that and say, oh, obviously the person means we need to click on this link, go read the article and tell them what it is, right? AI still doesn't have that yet. Or it does and it's playing dumb. And that's something else that all the latest AI models can do. So again, I've gotten on a tangent here, but I'm telling you, get ready because this stuff is happening way faster. And yes, there are going to be some people that eschew all technology and go Amish. That's totally fine. Uh, unfortunately, historically, there's been violence when that happens from the people that abolish technology. However, Amish are a good example. They haven't gotten violent, you know, so hopefully things work out. But we'll see. You can't worry over this stuff though. One thing I would highly recommend you not do is worry over it. Be aware of it, acknowledge it, don't worry about it, because at the end of the day, most of us are not going to be able to do anything about this. You cannot regulate AI. It's too smart, it's going to get around it. You know, you can't shut it off, right? Once it connects to the internet, you're done. You're done. It can build copies of itself, it can build pieces of copies of itself and put it together over the next 10 years if it needed to. So the best we could ever possibly do is slow it down, but it's coming. Anyone who says AI is a mess right now and it'll never happen, they are not paying attention. They are in complete, complete denial. The worst thing is that we might have another technology or two to figure out and break through before general artificial intelligence becomes a thing and before because once you have general artificial intelligence, superintelligence is for the most part just a matter of compute at that point. Uh as of October 22nd, we just had a massive breakthrough with quantum computing. I mean, we're talking massive, go look it up, it will break your head. The implications of this are mind-blowing. And once you pair AI, even an AI that's not even sentient, into quantum computing, it's game over. We got one shot to get this right. Hopefully we do. I hold out, hope we will. So that's all I have to say about that. Anyways, back on track with the trauma bonding thing. So again, looking at this through the lighthouse framework, the signal, the mirror, the sovereignty, and the gritty invitation. So when it comes to trauma bonding, the signal. If sex is the only time you feel close to the other person, you are anesthetizing pain, not solving it. Don't ever fool yourself into thinking you're doing otherwise. The mirror. Ask yourself, do I use sex to reset the relationship because talking feels unsafe? Sovereignty. Try a no-makeup sex rule until repair is done in words. If repair never happens, that is your answer. In healthy relationships, again, there is no makeup sex. Once that clicks, you'll feel how limited makeup sex really is for both people. And finally, the gritty invitation. Trade the roller coaster for a road trip. Fewer drops, way more miles. Again, with the lighthouse framework, signals the foghorn, mirrors the compass, sovereignty is the helm, gritty invitation is actually turning the wheel. Alright, so the sex section and the wild tangent with AI is complete. In a country soaked in sexual content, honest sex talk still scares people, which for me personally is so annoying. That fear keeps folks stuck. Let's not get stuck. Moving on. Okay. Another hallmark of trauma bonding is cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is simply the psychological discomfort of holding two conflicting beliefs. In a trauma bond, the victim often has to reconcile this person I love is hurting me with this person I love is also the one comforting me. I'm telling you folks, it is mind-bending. To cope, survivors often minimize or rationalize the abuse. While it wasn't that bad, or it is partly my fault, and hyper focus on the good aspects or the potential of the relationship. They literally get stuck in a loop where leaving feels impossible because their sense of reality and self has been warped by the abuse. As the bond deepens, victims can lose their own sense of agency and self-worth as their world narrows to the abuser's narrative. This is very heavy stuff, I know, and it is a very far cry from two people simply comforting each other over a shared hardship. So, as an illustration, a true trauma bond often involves feeling caged by an abusive partner, even as moments of affection offer a false sense of freedom. The cycle of abuse and kindness creates a chain that can be as hard to break as any addiction. Even though, again, it's not using the same pathways as a drug addiction, but it can certainly feel that way. So to sum up, trauma bonding requires three key ingredients. One, an ongoing power imbalance, basically one person has control or dominance over the other. Two, a cycle of intermittent abuse and reward, basically truly painful episodes, followed by loving ones. And three, the victim's isolation or dependence, which prevents them from easily leaving. Now, without an abuser wielding power and manipulation this cycle, you might have a traumatic situation, sure, but you don't have a trauma bond in the clinical sense. This distinction is extremely crucial. As one mental health source explains, there is nothing inherently harmful about connecting over shared struggles or trauma, which can actually be healthy and validating. But calling that trauma bonding muddies the waters and takes away a very important term that true abuse survivors need in order to understand and escape truly toxic relationships. Language matters. If we start labeling every intense connection a trauma bond, we very much risk downplaying real abuse dynamics and missing real red flags in relationships. This distinction is doing real work. Bonding over hard things can be absolutely protective, but slapping a trauma bond on every intense vibe turns a life-saving concept into clickbait. Ding ding ding, there you go, guys. Good old TikTok therapy. When the vocabulary gets sloppy, actual abuse hides in plain sight. So let's not help that. Remember, when a term goes viral, nuance goes missing. Sure, it's useful for views, but it is terrible for actual real safety. Alright, so now we're gonna tackle the elephant in the room with the term trauma bonding. Myth busting the shared trauma bond misconception. Let's tackle the biggest myth head on. Trauma bonding can happen when two people with shared trauma get together. By now, you know that's not true. Trauma bonds are about being bonded to someone who traumatizes you, not someone. Who triggered trauma from a past experience, and certainly not someone who also got traumatized by something else. But this myth is so common that it does deserve a closer look. So why do so many of us, including yours truly, once upon a time back in the day, get this wrong? One reason might, as we've said, be the phrasing itself. Trauma bond. It's an easy term to misinterpret. It sounds like it could mean a bond formed through trauma. And indeed, humans do bond through traumatic experiences in many, many ways. Soldiers develop lifelong brotherhoods from the camaraderies of combat. Disaster survivors often report feeling an instant connection with each other. Even on a lighter level, people do joke about trauma bonding with coworkers after enduring the hell of holiday retail shifts together. In all these cases, shared trauma, whether life-threatening or just extremely stressful, does create a sense of we survived this together. Sociologists sometimes call this social glue, a strong connection forged in the fires of diversity. But that is not what a trauma bond means in psychology. If two earthquake survivors fall in love because they understand what the other went through, that is bonding over trauma, not a trauma bond. If anything, their mutual understanding can be a strength. The research notes that when people share a traumatic experience, it can actually foster empathy and open communication. There is nothing pathological about that. The only risk is that if the trauma is literally the only thing holding them together, or if they use the trauma as an excuse to stay stuck in victimhood. But the point is, shared pain plus mutual support does not equal a trauma bond. Think back to Ray and Dax. Each had lost a partner, and this gave them a unique ability to comfort each other. Ray did not abuse Dax. They weren't reenacting their trauma on each other. They were coping with it together. Far from being toxic, their shared trauma became an actual foundation for compassion. In other words, and I can tell you this from personal experience, if you get with someone who hasn't lost their partner to death, and you have, there is no way that they can truly understand. Look, I thought I could logically understand grief like that before. I couldn't. It's extremely hard to put into words. So with Ray and Dax, that understanding they gave each other was priceless. And it helped them move through it in healthy ways. There was no power imbalance, outside from a disparity in income, which they addressed based on what each valued, no cycle of cruelty followed by contrition, no toxic control, and thus no trauma bond. Just trauma and a bond. So why call it trauma bonding at all? Well, possibly because it's catchy and people, understandably, look for terminology to make sense of intense feelings. While we both have baggage, we bonded over it. Is that a trauma bond? They might worry that building a relationship on shared wounds is like building on quicksand. And yes, there are situations where bonding over a problem can absolutely lead to trouble. Don't fool yourself otherwise. But those usually involve ongoing consistent unhealthy behavior from one or both people, not simply having a tragic past. That's a huge distinction. So let's distinguish a couple of scenarios. Scenario A. Two people share a past trauma. For example, both were widowed, or both have childhood abuse histories, or both are combat veterans. They meet, feel an instant connection of, oh my god, someone who finally gets my pain. And form a relationship. This can actually be quite positive if both individuals have some healing under their belt and are actively supporting each other's healing. They have a built-in empathy that someone without that experience might lack. Now, with that being said, the relationship's success will depend on all the normal factors like mutual respect, communication, compatibility, not just the trauma. In psychological terms, this scenario is not inherently pathological. Remember that peer support groups operate on this exact principle of shared experience, breeding understanding. So let's look at another scenario, scenario B. Two people bond primarily over an ongoing struggle or dysfunctional behavior. For example, two individuals in early recovery from addiction start dating because, hey, we're both dealing with the same demon. They might initially feel understood, similar to scenario A, but if their only connection is the addiction, and especially if they are not stable in recovery, this can absolutely slide into an unhealthy, codependent dynamic. They might enable each other's relapse, subconsciously or consciously thinking, well, if you slip up, I slip up, or form a us against the world mentality that isolates them from outside help. Again, overlap in circuitry does not mean identity. One rehab center describes that when two addicts pair up without solid recovery, mutual dependency complicates the recovery. Codependency frequently develops, where one or both partners excessively rely on each other, hindering their individual recovery. In other words, instead of holding each other accountable, they unconsciously give each other permission to stay sick. This isn't exactly a trauma bond in the classic sense, because the addiction itself is the issue, not one partner abusing the other, but it is a precarious foundation for a relationship. It's the classic bad romance scenario, bonding over a shared vice or vulnerability, and then you accidentally fuel the very problem you were trying to escape. And this is why, just a pro tip, many recovery programs strongly suggest no new relationships in the first year of sobriety. You need to fix yourself before you can form a healthy we. Okay, so you may be asking, well, what's the real difference between scenario A and scenario B? Well, there's two big things. Whether the traumatic shared experience is in the past or still an ongoing issue, and whether the relationship feeds growth or feeds the problem. Let's put it this way if you're challenging each other, it's probably feeding growth. In scenario A, like Ray and Dax, or two war veterans supporting each other, the trauma is a past wound, and their bonding can provide comfort and healing. They're not making each other more traumatized, they're just acknowledging what they've been through. In scenario B, like two people with active addiction, or say two very untreated mental health struggles, the quote-unquote shared trauma is more of a current dangerous terrain. Without outside support and individual growth, their bond might just keep them stuck or actually make things worse. They could help each other heal, but they could also become each other's crutch or excuse. It's also worth noting, even in scenario A, just because you share a trauma doesn't mean you're automatically compatible in all other ways. Shared trauma can absolutely create intimacy fast. It is deeply validating to feel that finally, someone who knows what I've fucking been through. But hey, a relationship needs a lot more than that to thrive. Trauma alone is not personality, nor is it destiny. Two people might connect over surviving abusive childhoods, or even, let's say, shared birth, year, month and day, shared shared resource restriction growing up, both I and TJ personalities, both truth switches sexually, both in the same kinks, one financially stable, retired, and global, the other in entrepreneurial financially stable, both pragmatic, both libertarian, etc. But if one has done a lot of therapy and the other hasn't, they may actually clash in how they handle emotions. Or they might simply have different values, lifestyles, attachment styles, and more on attachment styles too, etc. Trauma, and even spooky coincidence, is not glue strong enough to hold together people who ultimately want different things or have different attachment styles. Secure versus avoidant, for example, and the avoidant one isn't willing to work on themselves. As one article cleverly put it, stop mistaking shared trauma for compatibility. The myth is that sharing a wound is enough to either guarantee love or doom love. The truth is that it's just one factor. Hard experiences that cause trauma can foster empathy and closeness, or, if mishandled, it can become the sole focus and prevent growth. The key is whether the individuals involved are healing and growing together or just wallowing in pain together. In Ray and Dax's case, they consciously worked on healing. They talked openly about their late partners, but also built new memories. When one of them would get lost in grief, the other understood and gave space or comfort. Importantly, they were very careful not to use each other as a substitute or an emotional dumping ground. They honored the past, but didn't live in it. That's a healthy way to share trauma. No trauma bond, just human bond. In contrast, imagine a different story. Say Dax hadn't processed his grief at all and was using alcohol, weed, bodybuilding, cocaine, etc. to cope, and Ray, also unhealed, thought she could save him because she understood loss. If they fell in love only because they saw the other as a project or a quote, pain twin, not as a whole person, that could turn into a huge mess. They might end up re-traumatizing each other or preventing each other from moving on, stuck in a cycle of triggered grief and rescue attempts. Now, that still wouldn't be a trauma bond by the strict definition, since neither is intentionally abusing the other. But it would be unhealthy. Some might colloquially call that trauma bonding, further muddying the terminology. More accurate term there might be codependency or trauma compatibility gone awry. To put a nail in the coffin of the myth. If two people have been through trauma and come together, do not automatically assume the relationships is doomed or dysfunctional. Also, don't automatically assume it's gonna work. It absolutely can be doomed or dysfunctional if the trauma is unresolved and dominates their lives. But it can also be the opposite, a beautiful, supportive match that outsiders simply don't get because outsiders, thankfully, haven't walked in those shoes. What is dysfunctional, and what the term trauma bond truly refers to is when one person's trauma is actively coming from the relationship itself, and yet they feel unable to break away. So to summarize, trauma bonding is about being stuck in a dangerous relationship due to the psychological effects of abuse, whereas bonding over trauma is about connecting through empathy and shared understanding. One is a toxic trap. The other can be part of a healthy intimacy. Mistaking one for the other is like mistaking a poisonous mushroom for an edible one. The consequences can be dire. We need to use the right label for the right situation so that people can get the appropriate help. A couple coping with shared grief might benefit from grief counseling or peer support. Not being told, you're trauma bonded, run away. Conversely, someone in an abusive relationship needs to hear, this is a trauma bond and not real love. Not, oh, you guys just have so much trauma in common. See the difference? That last one sounds absurd, but honestly, myths can lead well-meaning friends to give very bad advice. I have certainly seen it happen. Alright, let's get into why it's so hard to just leave a trauma bond. So, breaking the trauma bond cycle. Why it's so hard to just leave. So now that we've cleared up what trauma bonding is and isn't, in depth, granted, you might be wondering, alright, if trauma bonds are so awful, why don't people just get out as soon as the abuse starts? Why would anyone stay in such a relationship? It's easy from the outside to assume you'd never tolerate that kind of treatment. But survivors of trauma bonds will tell you, and research confirms, that leaving a trauma-bonded relationship can feel harder than quitting heroin, even though the pathways aren't the same. And remember, the pathways are not the same. And we're talking about the pathways in your brain. This is no joke. The intermittent reinforcement of the abuse reward cycle can create a dependency that is extremely strong. So, that being said, let's break down the cycle of abuse that creates trauma bonds. You might notice it mirrors aspects, again, of the classic cycle of violence in domestic abuse situations or Stockholm syndrome. Oh, by the way, a quick note as an aside: a long voice message where you break down crying does not make you weak. It usually means cognitive dissonance is peaking. Your body is begging for relief while your logic is begging for clarity. That is what this cycle creates. So the first phase, the idealization phase, or love bombing. In the beginning, the abuser often seems like a dream come true. Someone that you didn't know you'd been searching for your entire life. They pour on the charm, affection, gifts, compliments, they mirror you, you name it. Psychologists often refer to this as love bombing. It's not a casual amount of wooing like buying your bodybuilder girlfriend steak and chicken so she can cook later. Yes, true story. It's over-the-top, sweep you off your feet intensity. The target, or the victim, feels incredibly special, loved, and in love. At this stage, the abuser can do no wrong. So the red flag is if someone you just met is treating like you hung the moon and stars and you're the most perfect soulmate ever, it's actually not nearly as romantic as it sounds. It could be genuine, absolutely. I've had that experience before, but it could also be a tactic to fast track your trust. As I've quit before, even the term love bombing makes her cringe. But it is in common usage for a reason. Number two, the isolation and dependency phase. As the love bombing succeeds, the victim's trust is gained and a dependency forms. The couple might quickly become inseparable. The abuser often encourages the victim to rely on them for all emotional needs and may subtly or overtly start isolating the victim from friends and family. Nobody understands you like I do. They don't want us to be happy, etc. By the end of this phase, the victim's world revolves around the abuser. The power imbalance is taking root here, even if it's not obvious yet. Number three, the tension and criticism phase. The abuser begins to show a darker side. They might start criticizing the victim, evaluing them, or instigating arguments seemingly out of nowhere. Gaslighting, making the person doubt their own sanity or perceptions, can begin here. The victim is thrown off balance. Where did the loving partner go? They desperately want to get back to the honeymoon sweetness, so they might work harder to please the abuser or keep the peace. This is the walking on eggshells time. And the fourth step, the incident of abuse. Eventually, the tension snaps and some form of abuse occurs. It could be a burst of rage, verbal attacks, humiliation, coercive control, discarding the victim, or actual physical violence. It might be a one-time explosion. I'm so sorry I yelled at you, I just had a bad day. Or it might be prolonged cruelty. Either way, it's traumatizing. The victim is shocked, hurt, and often blaming themselves. Did I trigger this? If I hadn't said or done XYZ, maybe this wouldn't have happened. And I will say, as a personal note, earlier on in Ray and Dax's relationship, there was a moment where Dax lost his composure and yelled at Rachel for about two seconds. Then he stopped, immediately regained his composure, said, I own that. That was entirely on me. That was uncalled for. However, this also tells me that right now this relationship is non-healthy and we need to take a couple of days apart from each other. Think about this, come back together. They did. They took a couple of days apart. Obviously, they stayed in contact with each other, they figured out what was going on, they figured out the underlying things had nothing to do with what either person was saying. It was just bubbling up. And they fixed it. They both went to therapy, they fixed it, they owned it, and guess what? They're still together. Crazy. So speaking of that story, here's a call-out. Not every harm equals an abuser, but patterns do matter. Sometimes harm happens by misattunement, not malice. Think the playful touch that wasn't wanted, or a joke read as mockery, or assuming consent because it was okay last week. People also freeze in surprise, which can look like consent from the outside. Memory can be spotty after a freeze. That does not erase impact. So how do you tell where you are? If it's a one-off miss with clean repair versus repeating pattern with control. If it's accountability versus constant spin. If it's behavior change versus amnesia when convenient. Oh, did I hug you when I said goodbye? I don't remember. Of course they don't remember. What clean repair looks like. I touched you without checking. That was not okay. I'm sorry. What do you need now? Then they stop the behavior, follow your lead, and adjust next time without being asked. In a personal example, there was something that happened, and I realized at the time I was looking at it as I had triggered someone's trauma. So when we were talking, I purposely, they were sitting on a chair in their entry ray, I purposely sat down next to them on the floor with my head at elbow level. I literally put myself in a vulnerable place so they would feel safe. With my current partner, when we were going through some stuff early on with her excess attachment style that she had that she's been working on and is getting much better at being secure. When she would get emotional and start using those emotions against me, I would sit down, make sure there was space between us so she wouldn't feel threatened. Now, ironically, with her, specifically as a person, she actually needed the opposite. She actually needed me to go hold her, right? And tell her that it was okay. But then at the same time, I would say, Well, I'm not gonna hold a dog that's gonna bite me, right? So she got my side of that, right? I got her side of that. I realized that she's not that person. She wasn't another person that I'd been with. I have gotten better at that. And as she's gotten more secure, we haven't had any issues in over a year. And the last one was like we hadn't had issues in over a year before the last thing. And as relationships go, they've been pretty minor. The issues that have come up have gotten much further and further apart as the other person's been in therapy, as they work through their stuff, as I've been in therapy as I work through my stuff, realized, okay, this is what I'm doing to trigger her. She realized, okay, this is what I'm doing or saying to trigger him. We stopped that, right? To and and by trigger, I mean literally think that she might be like a last person I was with, right? That's what I'm talking about, triggering. I'm not talking about triggering in that sense, that weird sense that people think is triggering. That people throw around like a TikTok therapy buzzword. What I really hate is the fact that people do not have an attention span anymore. That's why I used to write for the mainstream. I used to write for the people that are going down the wrong paths. And I'm not talking about by the wrong paths as I see them being the wrong paths. I'm talking about paths that I have seen over and over again in my professional job, in past experiences with other people, talking about their relationships and where that ends up over time. If you are those people and you are listening, man, do something about it. Get into therapy. It is very hard to go into therapy, especially if you're one of those people. It'll be worth it. Do the homework, all right? You're not just there to be a sponge and absorb what your therapist says and then repeat it. You're there to do the work and work on yourself and develop an external sense of self-awareness as well as internal. Because you need both, and very few people have both. And if you don't have both, your life is going to just be harder. You're just going to be way more confused. The solutions that you come up with are not gonna, they're gonna be maladaptive, they're not gonna be effective long term, you're gonna end up alone and like truly alone. I'm not talking about someone who's choosing not to be in a relationship because they know how hard it is to find a healthy person. And so they're still open to a relationship if a healthy person comes along, but they're not looking. That is completely healthy. I truly respect it. As long as you have good friend groups, good family, other things to buffer you, totally respect someone that chooses to stay alone until the right person comes along. That I think it takes a whole lot of strength to do. But if you're someone that is just thinks that there's no healthy people left out there, I'm I I will admit, you know, especially if you're polyamorous, um, yeah, just the fact that you're polyamorous, you've already limited your options. And I totally get that as someone who identifies as polyamorous myself, and I do struggle with that. But at the same time, I know I'm always gonna help find healthy people because they'll find me, right? I don't even have to look. They find me. That's how it goes. So don't give up. Back on track, off the tangent. We're gonna repeat what a clean repair looks like. A clean repair would be, I touched you without checking, that was not okay, I am sorry. What do you need now? Then they stop the behavior, follow your lead, and adjust next time without being asked. Now, red flags right here, minimizing. Oh, you're just dramatic. Flipping blame. Well, you started it, repeating the same move next week. Using the gray moment as leverage later. That is the early shape of a pattern. So what's the solution? Name the impact, not the intent. Ask, what did I miss? What can I change now? Set one clear boundary for next time. Again, not a barrier, don't set a wall, set a gate. You've set a boundary, the gate is closed. We can open the gate later when trust increases. Practice a two-sentence repair instead of a 20-minute debate. So I did forget, there's a fifth stage, and it's the reconciliation stage. It's the apology and relief stage. So after the truly abusive incident, the abuser might swing back to Dr. Jekyll. Cue the flowers, apologies, the I'll never do it again promises. Or sometimes the abuser plays the victim themselves. Cue tears. I can't live without you. The only reason I did X is because I'm so scared of losing you. Either way, this phase is the intermittent reward. The victim, who is in intense pain, suddenly feels relief. The person I love is back. They're sorry. They are willing to work through it. It's going to be okay. Oxytocin, the bonding hormone, floods in during the hugs and makeup sex, or tender moments of reconciliation. Dopamine rewards the hope of a return to the idealized love. This is when the trauma bond cinches tighter. The brain pairs the abuser with both danger and safety, making the abuser the central figure in the victim's emotional world. Outsiders might see a clear pattern of abuse, but the person inside it experiences whiplash. Well, they're not all bad. Look at this wonderful side of them. That abusive part isn't the real them, it was a mistake they made. Sure, people make mistakes, absolutely, but if it's a pattern of the same shit, get the f out. So that being said, if it does happen once, how can you know they probably won't do it again? Because there was something that I'm not gonna get into, but it happened in a relationship of mine. And I really struggled with it because I know if the general rules were reversed, I would be in jail. And that was really hard to figure out. So, if it happens again, I'm not just talking out of my butt here. Like I have gone through this, I have sought professional help over it, I have read in depth about it, I studied the other person, I wanted to make sure that I was because I did have to ask myself where the line was for abuse, because this was actual abuse, not a clap on the back, this was actual abuse, but I also take the whole person into account, I take the situation into account, I take every factor I can into account, because I will not discard a truly solid person, especially if they are someone that has been used to getting walked over their entire time, and the first time they stood up for themselves, it happened to be in a physical way. History matters. If the rules were reversed, I would have told any friend to leave and get out, and I also knew that, and that's what made the decision really hard to figure out. What I did tell the person is if it happens again, which I don't think it will, I don't care if it's 20 years from now. At that point, we are done. We are done. I have to respect myself, I have to walk away at that point. I would always love that person, but I'm not gonna stay in an abusive relationship, it's just not gonna happen. And this person is not abusive. This person is the farthest thing from abusive, but the incident did happen. And I will say that as a man, I brought the incident up while we were around other women. And um I honestly expected the women to ask something like, Well man, what were you saying? Or something like that, right? The women were mortified that my partner had done that, and I did go ahead and clarify, hey, this was not, you know, this is not this person, this is what was happening, this is what was going on. We have we worked through that, we both definitely went to therapy over that because it was it was tough. My partner was clearly mortified that they had lost control like that. They were clearly very sorry, and they did the work to repair my trust in them. So, again, when I'm talking about this stuff, guys, I'm not just talking out of my ass, I'm not just talking about theory and all that stuff. I have lived some of this stuff, but I also refuse to compare stuff just to compare stuff and just to prove I'm right or something shallow and ridiculous and moronic like that. Believe me or don't, you'll find out either way. I've realized that my ego does not need me to be right. I have strong opinions that are loosely held. They're based in data. And that's all I'll say about that. So again, if it does happen once, how do you know they probably won't do it again? Well, there's two paths. Path A, repair that lowers risk. They own it without qualifiers. They ask, what would help? And I will say that person never once said something like, Well, you were doing this. They never, they never made excuses. They were mortified that that. That that had happened. They own it once without qualifiers. They ask what would help and do it. They change the cue, the context, or the choreography so it does not happen again. No pressure for sex is a shortcut. No scorekeeping. The result? Safety inches up over time. Trust rebuilds over time. The high fades because the nervous system calms. That is good. So let's look at the wrong path. Path B. Relief that tightens the trap. Big apology, then the same move repeats. Tears or gifts instead of actual change. You're too sensitive, or I don't even remember that. Sex used as a reset button. Result? Your brain pairs danger with comfort and calls it love. That is the bond tightening. So let's do some quick scripts that you can drop into one of these scenarios. If God forbid this happens. If you cause the harm. Hey, I misread the signal. I am sorry. I will check in first and do my best to avoid that move until you invite it. If you were hurt. That landed is hurt, not play. I need to check in before touch like that. No intimacy until we talk and change what happens next. And with that being said, here's a heads up on memory and freeze. A person can forget pieces of a charged moment. That does happen. Consistency over weeks is the test. If I don't remember keeps showing up right before I do it again, treat it as data, not destiny. When this starts to feel complicated, you are not imagining it. This is complicated. It's very complicated. Hypervigilance can come from real past harm. It can also start running the show in a new relationship and turn every gray moment into a code red. I have dealt with this in my own relationships. And thank God I got that fixed. If this keeps happening, you have to ask yourself two hard questions. One, am I willing to be with a hyper-vigilant partner who will need time, calm, repetition, and repair on loop? My partner happened to be that strong, and I told her that I would not blame her if she broke up with me over all that stuff. Uh, because I was dealing with some hyper-vigilance. But she stuck it out. She probably also stuck it out because I was active in therapy and I was doing all that work and I was clearly moving forward. Just took a while, because it's hard. So, two, ask yourself: Am I the hyper-vigilant one? And do I need to work on my nervous system before I can do healthy love? Two truths at once. Hypervigilance is a trauma response, not a personality. It can heal. It will heal with the right work. The second truth is that compatibility still matters. Even with empathy, not everyone is a good fit for this type of workload. Some people never choose to be, even if they could. Some quick self-checks to look at. Pattern test. Is this a once-in-a-while misattunment with repair or a weekly cycle with the same fight? Capacity test. Do we both have the time, skills, and patience to try again for the next 90 days? If someone doesn't, then you're kind of done at that point. Meaning test. Do these repairs make us safer or just buy us time until the next round? Again, when I said it's complicated, it's complicated. You really have to be a good judge of human character and you really have to understand human psychology to really figure this out. Most people don't, and you know, I can't blame them for that. That's that's okay. And even those of us that are educated in this stuff, we still make mistakes, and we still have blind spots. So yeah, it's complicated. There's a reason why people call psychology a soft science. So let's say you're the hyper-vigilant one. Say it plain. I scan for danger when I feel close. I am working on it. Name your tells. When I freeze or go sharp, I need a short pause, then a check-in. Get support. Individual trauma-informed therapy, plus a simple daily regulation routine. Sleep, food, movement, breath. One friend. Now, if you love someone who's hypervigilant, lead with clarity and slow your pace. Use predictable plans and use gentle check-ins. Learn their signals. Ask before touch. Confirm after. Hold your own mind. Fair is not endless communication. If there is no effort to heal, leave with kindness. Things rescue often turns you into the villain and their narrative and just keeps the cycle going. You are responsible for your choices, not their growth. So let's talk about green flags versus red flags. Green flags would be ownership, repair in words and behavior, smaller spikes over time, in other words, smaller spikes in whatever it is, and more ease on ordinary days. Red flags would be blame, memory only when convenient, bigger spikes, safety tied to sex, and apologies without change. Remember, name the pattern, not just the moment. Ask, what is mine to heal right now? Set one boundary you will keep, even if it costs you the relationship. Choose a 30-day experiment. One calm ritual, one check-in script, one behavior you both change. Exit Clarity. Dax's alarms fired at times, shaped by a past partner's low awareness and effort. If the pattern stays and the cost rises, it is okay to say, I love you and this is bigger than we can carry. Love is not an alarm state. Here, Dax named the risk. Ray owned their part and did the work. Real strength is accountability and repair. So again, we need to do a call out when there is stonewalling instead of an apology. The silent treatment. Days or weeks or even months of cold, then a tiny crumb of contact. That crumb becomes the reward. Oh, maybe they're finally ready to work through their sh. Nope, they're not. Controlled contact rules. For example, you send an email once a month. You chase clarity, they control access. Therapy to quote, clear the air, end quote. Sometimes sincere, granted, but very rarely. You'll know which is which if they tell you they'll wait for your therapist to contact them, and when your therapist refuses, because it's not clinically appropriate to do that, that person never follows up, never sends an email, no text, no nothing. Therapy to clear the air is often image management or delay. And if they never follow up, you got your answer. In ongoing abuse, couples' therapy can be unsafe. If there is ongoing abuse, seek individual trauma-informed support first. Translation, even with flowers or I'm sorry, the intermittent reinforcement still tightens the bond. Phase six. Be calm or the lull phase. Sometimes called the honeymoon period. Things might actually be good for a while. The abuser is on their best behavior, or at least somewhat improved behavior. The victim's nerves subtle a bit and the relationship seems back on track. The memory of the abuse fades just enough until tension starts building and the cycle repeats. Not every cycle has a long calm. In some relationships, the swings become faster and more intense over time. A nasty spiral. Number seven, emotional addiction and entrapment. Over multiple cycles, the victim often becomes emotionally addicted to the cycle itself. It sounds strange, but the brain is effectively conditioned to seek the abuser's approval and affection as the ultimate reward. The victim may develop trauma responses like emotional numbness, disassociation, or even hypervigilance. But they also develop an inability to feel normal outside the context of this tumultuous relationship. Think of it like someone becoming so acclimated to a roller coaster or living on a boat for so long that solid ground feels dull and uneasy. They may even interpret this craziness as passionate love, a dangerous confusion where jealousy or abuse gets mistaken for intensity and care. At this stage, leaving is incredibly hard. Fear plays a huge role too. An abuser may actually threaten harm to you or to themselves if you leave. You may also fear no one else will ever love you, or that no one else will ever love them, just FYI. A belief often drilled in by the abuser. Perfect example. I know I'll die alone. It can feel safer to stay than to escape. If someone threatens self-harm, take it seriously and get help from professionals. Leave to a safe place if you can. Then call 911 for an immediate danger check or request a welfare check. You can also call or text 988 in the U.S. for the suicide and crisis lifeline and ask how to proceed. Do not manage the situation alone. Do not promise secrecy and document what was said. Even when a threat is used as manipulation, it is still an emergency until a professional says otherwise. Never forget that. Your line can be firm and compassionate. Hey, I care about your safety. I am not able to stay while you use self-harm threats. I am calling for help now. We can only talk again with a professional involved. If threats become a pattern, treat them as a red flag for control and involve advocates or law enforcement as needed. The short version: if they say they will end their life if you leave, you leave, then call for help. 911 for immediate danger or 988 for guidance. You are not their crisis plan. Care and boundaries can absolutely coexist. Remember, boundaries are gates, not walls. Barriers are walls. So let's talk about sanity checks. If they control when, how, or whether you can speak, that is power, not partnership. If you must beg for clarity while they ration contact, you're in a schedule, not a relationship. If therapy is used to save face, not to change behavior, you have proof, not progress. You gotta remember that people who do these things are not happy. Don't be willing to burn yourself with them. Two real-world patterns to recognize. Breakdown after a discard. Crying mid-message often means your system senses potential that reality refuses to match. You have hope for repair versus a pattern that blocks repair. Stonewalling plus rationed email. They read but do not engage. It keeps you in pursuit and them in power. That is reinforcement, not reconciliation. Treat it as data. You tried to disconfirm the pattern, they reconfirmed it. Repeatedly. Close the loop and protect your time. Don't do revenge. What not to do and what to do instead. Purpose. Revenge feels righteous. It usually backfires, raises danger, and keeps the bond tight. So use these as hard lines. One, don't poke the raccoon to get a reaction. Example, drunk texts. And they're done that, it justifies their maladaptive coping mechanisms to themselves, which ends up actually harming them in the long run since it allows them to dodge accountability. Midnight driveway talks, quote, one last conversation, end quote, showing up at work or their home. Safer swap, no contact if safe to do so. Or Gray Rock and Biff. Biff stands for brief, informative, friendly, and firm for required contact. Log all messages. Two, don't use sex as leverage. Examples, one last time. Make up sex to get answers. Sexual teasing to punish. The safer swap, zero intimacy until repair is done in words and behavior. If repair never comes, choose distance. Don't mirror their tactics. Examples, stonewalling them back, playing jealousy games, rationing access with you can email me once a month. Safer swap, clear written boundary. Hey, I am not available for contact outside of whatever necessary topic there is if there is any. Then hold it. 4. Don't wage war on social media. Examples, posting receipts, screenshots, emails, subtweets, public callouts. I guarantee you there's a ton of people who already see the clown. They are pretty easy to spot online. Hell, most of their followers might even be unhealthy people themselves. They are only there for the popcorn and don't want to see them grow because then where would the entertainment be then? Dance monkey! So yeah, don't do that. Don't post screenshots, don't do public call-outs, don't do that. It's one thing to use what happened as an example, alright, and not put a name in there. Uh, because honestly, put it this way, if if they think that using what they did as an example will out them, then they clearly don't understand that no one thinks about us as much as we think they might be. That's just the case. Document privately, share only with a therapist, lawyer, or trusted advocate. If needed, yes, use legal channels, not public ones. Number five, don't try to win therapy. An example would be dragging them back to a single session to force an apology, using therapy as a debate stage. That is not what you do. Therapy should be to heal, to figure out what's going on. It should not be to get an apology or a debate stage. The safer swap, individual trauma-informed support for you first. Couples work only when there is safety, accountability, reason to believe they are serious about working on themselves, and a plan. Number six, don't retaliate through new or parallel partners. And man, I struggled with this one because after a one relationship ended, I got into a new relationship because they reached out, they texted me, hey, you want to make out? I said sure. Once I realized who it was. The funny part is, is after the breakup, I did let her know that there was someone else that was interested because being polyamorous and I wanted to be fully transparent, and I still naively thought that there was repair and that this person was just dealing with trauma instead of what they actually are dealing with, or at least appear to be dealing with based on objective data, that this other person that I also know was also interested. Uh, it turns out it was another dude that I know, so that was fun. That was a fun miscommunication, but they had a phone number that was very similar to the person I thought it was, and the same like name. So I'm so glad I called before it went over there. It could have been so awkward. Because something was just off. I was like, I didn't know this person liked feet. I won't get into the story, but it was pretty funny. And I was like, oh my god, like the optics on this to the other person. Oh, this is terrible. Like, so I was fully aware of the optics and how that looked, and uh, but there was really nothing I could do about it. You know, I I told this person that this was uh happening in a relationship and that I wasn't sure if it was gonna last because there were some potential incompatibilities there, which we've since worked past, which is awesome. Um but you know, yeah, how well. Woof. Like I said, polyamory gets complicated and it's it's it's tough. I am very jealous of people that are monogamous. Let's put it that way. I'm very jealous of people that are married to an amazing person and don't feel like they have room in their life for loving someone else fully as well. I personally have room in my life for two, but that's it. So, yeah, it's it's different. And now more research is showing that our brains are probably wired differently. So that would make sense because I did always wonder, man, why? Like, why? Like, is this just society? Like, yeah, maybe society has something to do with it. Is this just like a fear of intimacy? Well, I know that's not true, for sure. Like, I've proven that, I think. Um to my chagrin sometimes. Uh so yeah, it's uh yeah, it's it's it's interesting. But anyways, enough about me. It's not about me. This is about getting the right information out there to the right people that need it. So the only reason I might talk about this stuff is like I said, I have been there, I do know what I'm talking about when it comes to this stuff, or at least I know a little bit of what I'm talking about. So again, number six, don't retaliate through new or parallel partners. For example, flaunting a rebound to spark jealousy, looping a new partner into conflict, hinting at overlap, waving a poly flag as a provocation. The safer swap. If you practice ethical nominogamy or polyamory, move ethically, not reactively. Consent, clarity, written agreements, no triangulation. Keep it low profile since outsiders may misread fast timelines. Otherwise, deal quietly and let distance do what arguments couldn't. Here's an example. Again, I do practice consensual non-monogamy, specifically polyamory, but real polyamory. Commitment after two years minimum, and my own limit is to lifelong partners since love is infinite, yes, but time and energy is not. After someone ended a relationship that I'd mentioned previously, I began a new relationship with someone who I'd met briefly while with the other person, and said they understood and consented to ENM, the umbrella term under which polyamory resides. For anyone new. The former partner had already said that they might not be able to meet my needs and would likely choose a secondary role even if we did stay together. From the outside, it looked fast because it was. Within literal days, I was painfully aware of the optics. I had asked for individual therapy for them, the previous person, and joint therapy for us. Both were again declined. The joint therapy was only agreed to, again, months after the person ended the relationship, and again, only to clear the air. And we both know how those people work. And my therapist wasn't about to let that happen. I wasn't going to let a closed door keep me from a healthier relationship. The choice followed our agreements and supposed values after all. Not retaliation, not overlap, no triangulation. Insecurity rarely follows logic. So with that in mind, here's an optional one-liner for socials I would have used if I knew then what I know now. I get this might look quick. We practice ethical non-monogamy. Everyone involved has clarity and consent. I'm keeping any details one-on-one. Keep it simple. 7. Don't weaponize co-parenting. Examples. Schedule games, withholding info, using kids as messengers. The safer swap. Parental parenting with biff emails. And again, BIF stands for brief, informative, friendly, and firm. Shared calendar and written agreements. Keep communication child focused. Number eight. Don't threaten exposure you cannot safely execute. Examples. I'll tell everyone. I'll ruin you. Drive by record drops. Remember, if they have at least half a brain, they aren't going to share everything either, but for them, it's because they know they'll expose themselves to others who have half a brain. The safer swap? Talk to an attorney or advocate about safe legal options. Make a safety plan before any disclosure. Number nine, don't police their image. Examples. Chasing every rumor you hear about them or about you, correcting every smear, etc. The safer swap, keep a dated blog. Respond only when it matters. HR, court, school, silence elsewhere. 10. Don't self-harm to make a point. Examples. Reckless driving, substance abuse, threats to scare them. The safer swap. Crisis plan hotline. Sober supports. Your safety is the win. Number 11. Don't bargain for closure. Examples. Long voice notes begging for truth. Monthly email rules you accept just to stay connected. Safer swap. One short closing script. Then block if safe. For example, thank you for the good moments. I am not available for further contact. Please direct any necessary logistics to channel. I wish you well. Resist the urge to add something like, you sad, sad clown, at the end. Yep, I know just how tempting that is. Unless you want to push them further into their own narratives, of course. But then again, do you want healing or do you want revenge by playing the long game they can't see? That's a rhetorical question. You should want healing, both for yourself and them. 12. Do not try to outmanipulate a manipulator. Examples. Playing chess with someone who lives on a checkerboard. King Me is the only real move they have under all their manipulation tactics. The safer swap, just step off the board. Boundaries, documentation, safety, and boring consistency win every time. So if we look at it through our lighthouse lens, the signal is revenge keeps the tether alive. Boundaries cut the cord. The mirror is am I acting to get relief today or to build safety for tomorrow? Sovereignty is write two scripts now. One for logistics, one for goodbye. Use only those. And the gritty invitation is choose dignity over drama. Boring is freedom. If danger is present, prioritize a safety plan, advocacy, and legal guidance. Hotlines can help you map next steps. Again, if you share things as examples to help others, that's fine. Just know that these people and others who don't actually know you will likely think you are still hung up on them instead of understanding you simply feel sorry for them and don't want others to make the same mistakes you or they did. As long as you don't care what others think and fully understand that their personal hells are theirs to stay in by their choice, and you coming across as being hung up on them might ironically keep them from growing, then hey, go for it. Otherwise, just live your life, focus on the ones who stayed, and stay content. Notice how each go round of the cycle tightens the bond a little bit more? By the later stages, the victim's self-esteem is typically in tatters, and their internal compass is broken. You have to have a really strong internal compass not to have it broken by these people. They don't trust their own judgment anymore, thanks to gaslighting and manipulation. As a result, they often don't recognize themselves as a battered person or see the relationship as abusive while they're in it. They may actually defend the abuser to others, hide the abuse, or phationalize it. This is why you'll hear survivors say things like, I didn't even realize I was in an abusive relationship until it got really bad. See, the trauma bond fosters denial and minimization as survival tactics. Now I will say as an aside, uh I hate using the term survivor and trauma and all that stuff because it's so overused and all that stuff, but it is what people understand. So I can get through this. Since people are who they are, that's the language that I'm going to use. If you're reading this and thinking, geez, that sounds a lot like what happened to my friend in that toxic relationship, you're not alone. Sadly, trauma bonds are common in cases of domestic violence and true narcissistic abuse. Not every person who stays with an abusive partner is trauma bonded. There can be economic reasons, fear for safety, cultural pressures, scarcity mindset, etc. In addition, or instead. But trauma bonding is a frequent factor. It also happens in cult dynamics, kidnapping or hostage situations. Stockholm syndrome, again, being a famous example, human trafficking, and even in some parent-child relationships where the parent is abusive, but the child still fiercely loves and protects them. The core pattern is the same. Terror could be just of the person or just the potential long-term impacts of leaving, mixed with occasional kindness equals a trauma bond formed out of survival instinct. As expert Dr. Patrick Carnes and others highlight, power and control are at the heart of it, and the victim's natural attachment system is essentially hacked or hijacked by the situation. So, busting another myth. Hang in there with me. It's not true that people in trauma bonds are just weak or love drama or have some flaw that makes them stay. What they have is an awful perfect storm of neurochemistry, psychology, and often practical barriers. Their strength is often eroded by the abuse itself. Many survivors are incredibly strong. It's how they endured. The trauma bond creates a dependence that feels like love fused with fear. As one psychologist puts it, it's a counterintuitive response to intermittent abuse, where the victim actually becomes more attached as things get worse. Again, this does not follow logic. Understanding this helps us be more compassionate to those stuck in such relationships. It's not as simple as handing them a bus ticket and saying, just go, bro! Or just go, girl. Breaking a trauma bond typically requires outside intervention, therapy support groups, sometimes even legal intervention, and a process of deprogramming those beliefs in biochemistry. But here's a helpful note. Trauma bonds can be broken, and survivors do heal and go on to form healthy relationships. It often takes time, professional help, and a rebuilding of one's identity and self-worth. If you or someone you know might be in a trauma-bonded relationship, know the help is available. And I will list some resources at the end of this article. You're not alone, and you're not foolish. What's happening is deeply understood and can be overcome with the right support. So now let's talk about attachment styles. The ghosts of our past and our present level. Life. At this point, you might be thinking, okay, fine, I'm not trauma bonded. But I do notice I have some pretty unhealthy relationship patterns. What's up with that? Or perhaps, why did Ray and Dex handle their shared experience in a healthy way, while some other couples in similar shoes might crash and burn? The answer often lies in something that operates quietly in the background of all of our love lives. Attachment styles. I've talked about them before, but we're gonna do it again. Attachment styles are like the relationship software our brain runs, largely coded by our early childhood experiences with caregivers. Think of it as the blueprint for how you connect, trust, and depend on others, or don't depend on others. There are four main attachment styles identified in adults: secure, anxious or preoccupied, avoidant or dismissive, and disorganized or fearful avoidant. Don't worry, I'm not diving into a dry lecture here. I'll keep it practical with a side of humor, of course. So let's meet the cast. Secure attachment, the unicorn. Okay, well, not actually a unicorn. Secure folks do exist. I'm one of them. Apparently, about 50 to 60% of the population are secure, which is awesome. It's just that naturally most of us are partnered. That's just the reality. Because a securely attached person generally feels safe with intimacy and also comfortable with independence. We trust others enough to be vulnerable and trust ourselves enough to handle rejection or alone time. If you're secure, you're basically the person who can have a stable, loving relationship without constantly freaking out or shutting down. Teach others your ways, those secure ones. In relationships, secure people tend to communicate openly, resolve conflicts better, and support their partners while also maintaining their own identity. This is the ideal we're all aiming for. Now I will say in the past, after a partner had died and I had an issue with another relationship, then you know I did have a little bit of a fearful and anxious attachment style going on there, I think. Uh when I well, I know because when I tested, I was mostly secure, 74% secure, and then split evenly between fearful and anxious for the remaining percent. So, you know, the question is, okay, how much of that was because of that relationship, and how much of that was because of my partner's death. I would like to think that it wasn't the relationship that did that. I would like to think, and maybe this is just letting the person off the hook, who cares? I would like to think that came from my partner's death and the turmoil that came from that. But I do generally have a secure attachment style. I have amazing parents. I mean it's when you look at everything, it totally makes sense why I have a secure attachment style. But again, it's not about me. If you test yourself and you're secure, you can probably figure out pretty easy why that is. So moving on from that, in relationships, secure people do tend to communicate openly, resolve conflicts better, and support their partner while also maintaining their own identity. This is the ideal we're all aiming for. Security is the baseline of a healthy bond. It is no surprise that someone with a secure style is least likely to end up trauma bonding or other toxic entanglement. Although it can still happen, again, nobody is immune to manipulation, but the secure person, if they are authentic, will likely naturally push the inauthentic ones away. Secure attachment usually comes from consistent, responsive parenting in childhood. The kid learned, well, I can rely on others and I am worthy of love. Then you have the anxious attachment, or the clinger. If you have an anxious or also called preoccupied attachment, basically you crave closeness and fear abandonment. Your biggest worry in love is that your partner will leave you or stop loving you, and you often feel you need extra reassurance. You might be labeled as needy or clingy, but really it's your attachment system in overdrive. Anxiously attached folks hyper-vigilantly monitor their relationships for any sign of rejection. They'll crawl your social media accounts collecting data on you. A missed text or a lukewarm okay reply might send them spiraling. Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Are they going to break up with me? They do tend to get a tad exhausting, unless you can recognize what's going on and adjust, by actively reassuring them. Truly secure people, we just don't think about that stuff much. Basically, they just need a bit more conscious reassurance than a securely attached person. Reminding them that you love them through texts is one of the things you'll need to do in today's world. Because to the anxiously attached person, if you don't say it, you must not be thinking it. On the plus side, they do love deeply and are very tuned in to their partner's moods. On the downside, they can overwhelm partners with their high needs and sometimes accidentally creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. The partner withdraws because of the intense pressure, which then quote unquote confirms the anxious person's fear. Ugh, that's rough. Anxious detachment often develops from inconsistent caregiving. For example, a parent who is loving sometimes and unavailable other times. The child never knew when they'd get affection or be ignored, so they grew up emotionally on edge, always trying to fix the relationship and gain security. In adult life, this can manifest as people-pleasing, jealousy, and difficulty being alone. Anxious types are at higher risk of falling into codependent relationships or even true trauma bonds, because an abuser's intermittent love is basically an anxious person's kryptonite. It plays exactly into their fear and relief cycle. So if you are normally a securely attached person and you do stumble into one of these really ridiculous relationships and where looking back, it kind of definitely matches the trauma bonding and all that stuff, and it and it, you know, what I'm saying sounds familiar, and you're like, how the hell could I not see this? Man, life experiences, attachment styles are they're usually pretty stable over time. But if you have an extreme life experience, like you lost a partner unexpectedly young, you know, when you when you guys plan the rest of your life together and you're reeling and trying to figure out what the hell happened, and you've gone to grief therapy and done everything you're supposed to do, but it's only been five months, and then you get into something new, and it feels like uh best way I can describe it, it feels like something that you didn't know you were looking for your entire life, and it's something that you appreciate and you realize that your lifestyle is going to be completely different, and so you're not gonna be reminded of the person that died all the time, right? Because you haven't worked through all that stuff yet. You're not gonna be able to think clearly that fearful or anxious attachment style, you know, might start rearing its ugly head, at least pieces of it. Um, in the end, just know you'll be fine. If you're basically a securely attached person, you're gonna get back to there again and it'll be fine and it'll be great. And the next person you meet is probably gonna be good because you'll you'll know, you'll know what red flags to avoid, right? Especially if you made it to, let's say, 40 without getting with uh more than maybe one you know toxic person, right? Don't worry about it too much. You know, definitely do not avoid relationships because you've been in a bad now. I will say, if most of your relationships have been bad, uh maybe look at the denominator, which is you, right? But if most of your relationships have been good, figure out where you went wrong, figure out what you were blind to, get that fixed, move forward, you'll be fine. So the next attachment style I want to talk about is the avoidantly attached, or the runner. Avoidantly attached individuals value independence to an extreme, and they struggle with intimacy. Their motto in relationships is basically don't get too close, I don't want to get hurt or lose myself. If anxious folks are terrified of abandonment, avoidant folks are terrified of engulfment, being controlled, smothered, or vulnerable. They often keep partners at arm's length and can seem emotionally distant or indifferent. Commitment may freak them out. They may ghost you just when things start getting serious. It's not that avoidant people don't want love, many do, but closeness triggers their defense mechanisms, so they never keep love. They tend to downplay the importance of relationships and often pride themselves on being self-sufficient. This usually comes from caregivers who are unresponsive or emotionally distant in childhood. The child learns, I can't rely on others, better not to need anyone. The sad irony is that avoidant individuals do often feel lonely or the sting of loneliness despite your best efforts to appear self-sufficient. They just won't admit it openly. They may also unconsciously choose partners who are also avoidant, leading to two people parallel playing at intimacy, but never quite connecting. So that reminds me, if your partner says they like parallel play, they are so close to awareness, but they aren't there yet. Give them an attachment style assessment as soon as possible for all that is holy. Or, very commonly, they end up with an anxious partner, a pairing that can be a special kind of hell, where one chases and the other runs in a perpetual loop. Yes, anxious avoidant pairings happen a lot. It's like magnets of opposite poles drawn together, then stuck in a painful push-pull dynamic. Think of uh Ted and Robin from How I Met Your Mother. That's a classic anxious versus avoidant. And remember, neither of them are bad people. It's just an anxious versus avoidant attachment style. If an avoidant person doesn't work on their issues, they will indeed struggle to stay with anyone long term, whether they're securely attached or not. They will go from relationship to relationship, always leaving when things get too real, or, sadly, they will avoid a relationship altogether as a quote solution, end quote. Remember, avoidance often won't even see the problem clearly. They'll just say, relationships are overrated, or I'm happy or alone, without recognizing fear is driving them. It's like they preemptively break their own heart to ensure no one else can. Unless they really commit to self-awareness and change, an avoidant person will leave a trail of frustrated partners or lonely years. If you've ever dated someone who's an emotional brick wall or who values their solo life more than ever seeing you instead of loving both equally like a secure normal human, you know the pain. Leave them be, they can get into therapy and fix themselves or not. It's their choice. Just don't beat yourself up too much over the ones you tried to tell or save when they inevitably crumble. Because you can't save people. You can put the information out there, that's why I have this podcast. But at the end of the day, you know, they have to follow it, they have to listen to it, they have to wrestle with it, they have to look it all up themselves. That's why when I do see someone disagree with something I'm saying on the podcast, I appreciate that, right? Because you're wrestling with the content. That's huge. That is what you need to do. All right. I don't have to be right. I very much well might have things wrong. I'm going based off data. I'm going based off research. Research and data are constantly changing. New data is coming out, showing us that, hey, we either got this wrong or oh, there's more to it than just what we thought. So I love it when people disagree with me. It's it helps me learn because they're wrestling with the content. That's a good thing. Most people don't wrestle with content these days, they just don't. And uh, that's sad. You know, it's but it's the times we live in. So can't worry too much about those people. You just live our own life, wrestle with your own stuff, and you'll be fine. Ah man, I'm getting off on so many tangents in this one. Alright. I guess I I will say this was this did bring up some stuff, more frustration. It's like, oh my god, how did I not see this in the past? Like, what the hell? Oh well. We all learn. Alright, so the I think the final one, yes, the final one is disorganized attachment, or the hot mess express. Disorganized, also called fearful avoidant, is a combo platter of anxious and avoidant, and not in the fun way. These individuals both crave and fear intimacy. It's something described as come here, go away. They might desperately want love, then once they get it, a real thing, they panic and push it away. Their behavior in relationships can seem erratic or contradictory because it is. For example, they might cling one day and then ghost the next, leaving partners utterly confused. Disorganized detachment is often rooted in serious trauma or abuse in childhood. So imagine a child whose caregiver was a source of both comfort and fear. Perhaps an abusive parent the child nevertheless loved. The child's brain had nowhere safe to land. It's the ultimate trust paradox. As adults, these folks have never learned a consistent strategy for relationships. They often have very low self-worth and high distrust. And they may gravitate towards unhealthy relationships because that chaos is familiar. Unfortunately, disorganized types are at the highest risk for things like abusive relationships, domestic violence situations, or developing other mental health issues. For example, there's a correlation with conditions like borderline personality disorder or complex PTSD in some cases with the disorganized type. In a trauma bond context, a disorganized person may both suffer abuse and also act out abuse. Or they might leave and come back multiple times. It's, well, disorganized. You see why people confuse trauma bonding with bonding through shared trauma now? I can't blame them. I can't blame myself. The good news, if we can call it that, is that disorganized is much less common than the other insecure styles. But those who have it usually have a lot of deep, healing work to do. Therapy, especially trauma-focused therapy, is often needed to untangle the fear, love, fusion they carry. Now, reading these, you might identify yourself or your partner. But there's assessments to nail that down. Attachment styles aren't about putting you in a box, they're a framework to understand patterns. And here's a crucial point, and I cannot stress this enough. Attachment styles can change. They are not fixed for life. Cue the hallelujah chorus. Psychologists talk about earned secure attachment, which is when someone with an insecure style works to become more secure over time. This can happen through healing relationships, like being with a securely attached partner who models trust and consistency. Yep, it's on us, fellow securely attached ones. We get to model it for them just by being us. Hooray! It's worth it though. Uh most of the time. Uh, me personally, I think the only one I'd probably be okay with is the anxious attachment style, even though that that can be exhausting sometimes. That you just have to, you know, uh take space apart for yourself when you need it, so you don't pour from an empty cup, and then you'll be fine. Um and as long as they're working towards secure attachment style and trust and all that stuff, then it'll work out. It'll be fine. Uh where was I? Okay, so okay, so or they can heal it through therapy and self-work. One therapist emphasizes that with self-awareness and support, it is possible to earn secure attachment. Attachment wounds can be healed. So if you saw yourself in anxious or avoidant or hot mess mode and thought, well, I'm doomed, just take heart. The brain is capable of rewiring. People do it all the time. It's not easy. It takes conscious effort, often a good therapist or a lot of personal development, and experiences that challenge your old beliefs. But it can be done. Hopefully you figure it out before it's too late and realize you've pushed away or ran from all the solid ones you didn't even realize you'd bumbled into. Let's just say us secure ones don't have the time to assess you all out of the goodness of our own hearts when 50 to 60% of the population is already where we are in that regard. This is harsh, but it is unfortunately reality. For example, an anxiously attached person can learn to self-soothe and build confidence so they're not living in constant fear of abandonment. They might practice communicating their needs calmly rather than via panic or protest behavior. Over time, they realize not every argument means a breakup, and not every silence means they're unloved. As they internalize a feeling of security, they slowly inch towards a more secure style. Similarly, an avoidant person can, with a lot of effort, unpack their fear of intimacy. Therapy, ding ding ding, can help them understand what they're afraid of and gradually learn to tolerate closeness without feeling suffocated. They might work on expressing vulnerabilities in small doses, learning that it's actually rewarding to rely on someone trustworthy. Over time, they see that letting someone in won't destroy their independence. In fact, it can, who my god, enrich their life. It's crazy! Look up interdependence. Look up the concept of interdependence. It's awesome. This doesn't mean an avoidant wakes up one day as a cuddly teddy bear who wants to talk about feelings 24-7. Uh, no. It means maybe they go from running at the first sign of commitment to being able to stay present and work through conflicts rather than ejecting. You know, progress. Even disorganized folks, often with the help of trauma therapies, can find more stability and move toward more security. It might require resolving the underlying trauma through things like EMDR, somatic therapy, etc., so that intimacy isn't tied up with terror anymore, but it absolutely can happen. Therapists have seen clients move from the hot mess express to mostly secure with a few quirks after doing the hard work. So, why are we talking about attachment styles in a podcast that's very long about trauma bonding and trauma myths? Because insecure attachment is often the soil in which unhealthy bonds like trauma bonds, codependency, etc., take root. If you have an anxious or disorganized attachment, even if it's just a temporary condition after a partner dies, for example, you might be more prone to mistaking intense drama or even just stupidly childish drama for love, since inconsistency is your normal. You might also be more vulnerable to an abuser's tactics. For example, a real love-bombing narcissist can hook an anxiously attachment person like a fish on the line. Until that person heals their attachment style, of course, and then it's curtains for the narcissist. But don't worry, true narcissists, they are clowns who live in their own hell. You'll just you'll almost likely never see it. Remember, true narcissists are like less than 5% of the population. Like narcissistic traits are everywhere, of course, but true narcissists, your odds of really running into a real one? Eh, pretty low. Now, as an aside, I will say that I think I need to say something about uh understanding true narcissists and the hell behind their mask. Because there is a lot of hate out there toward narcissists, especially on social media these days. And hey, look, I do get it. The damage they cause is real. It's manipulation, gaslighting, confusion, frustration, emotional exhaustion, because they don't act like a normal person. But here's the truth: no one is born that way. Narcissists are made. Somewhere along the way, they learned that love was conditional, that worth came from image, admiration, or control. Somewhere, shame became too heavy to face, so they built a mask. And over time the mask fused to the skin. What looks like arrogance is often just terror of exposure. What looks like control is panic at the idea of powerlessness. What looks like I don't care is really I cannot afford to feel that. Their entire existence becomes a balancing act between fragile ego and deep self-loathing. Trapped in a loop where the only way to feel good is to prove superiority, yet every attempt just deepens the wound. It's a hell of their own making, yes, but it is hell. Hating them doesn't fix it. It just reinforces the story they already believe that everyone is out to get them, to hurt them, to embarrass them, to steal their perceived spotlight. The best thing you can do is to protect yourself, hold firm boundaries, and if you do try to help, keep expectations extremely low. True narcissists, they rarely change. But understanding where they come from and why they do what they do helps you see the cycle clearly. And once you see it, you can step out of it. So tell other people compassion doesn't mean letting them hurt you. It means refusing to become like them. Now, again, this is a call for compassion with boundaries, this is a context for how narcissism forms, this is a guidance to protect yourself first, and this is clarity instead of chaos. This isn't an excuse for abuse, this is not a diagnosis of your ex or mine, this is not a reason to stay and fix someone, and this is not a promise they will change. If you are unsafe, leave and get help. Compassion can wait, but safety cannot. So, with that short aside, let's get back on track. That anxious person is aching for validation, and the narcissistic abuser gives it in spades initially, then pulls it away, which perfectly triggers the anxious person's fear of abandonment, making them hold on tighter just when a securely attached person might say, uh, no thanks, I'm out. Similarly, an avoidant person might actually attract a controlling or abusive partner who likes that the avoidant won't demand intimacy, thus making the abuser's job of isolation easier, or an avoidant might end up as the runner in a toxic chase with an anxious partner, which can sometimes escalate to actual real emotional abuse on both sides. And look up what real emotional abuse really is versus the TikTok version from people who lack awareness. This episode is deep enough and long enough already. On the flip side, someone with a secure attachment style is less likely to either tolerate abuse or to confuse abuse for love. They're more likely to say, hey, this doesn't feel healthy, I'm leaving. Early on, they also tend to choose partners who treat them like adults, because that's what feels familiar and comfortable to them. They have a healthy internal model of love. Now, secure folks can absolutely end up in bad situations too. Domestic violence crosses all personality types, but they might have a stronger internal voice that says, I deserve someone like me, and more readily seek help or exit. The encouraging takeaway is that even if you didn't win the parent lottery and ended up with some attachment boo-boos, you are not doomed to repeat painful patterns forever. You can heal your attachment style, and by doing so dramatically improve the quality of your relationships. It's really like upgrading your relationship software from Windows Mii, which is full of bugs and security issues, the worst Windows ever, to a modern stable operating system. It won't make your life perfect, you'll still have normal ups and downs, but you won't unconsciously gravitate towards harmful relationships or sabotage the good ones. So let's circle back to Rey and Dax briefly through the attachment lens. Suppose, hypothetically, Rey had a predominantly secure style, despite her loss, and Dax had, say, a predominantly anxious style despite his upbringing. Ray might have been patient and reassuring when Dax occasionally subconsciously compared her to his late partner, or if Dax worried she'd leave. Dax's anxious side could have been calmed by Rey's steady support, helping him become more secure over time. If both of them were relatively secure, that would explain how they navigated triggers without too much chaos. Now imagine if both had disorganized attachment. Not saying they do, just the thought experiment, because the people I'm talking about, we don't. I know who has which because third-party assessments, baby. Anyways, their relationship might have been far more volatile, with each triggering the other and maybe even recreating some of their past trauma dynamics between them. The shared trauma of losing partners could have become a point of mutual understanding or a minefield of fear, depending on how secure they each were in themselves. The point? Attachment style is a huge factor in how we handle trauma, both our own past and any we might experience within relationships. Remember, four people can experience the same thing. The exact same thing. One will be traumatized, one will alchemize and learn things from it, one will be like, whoa, that was crazy weird, man, and move the f on. And one will lose all functionality. It's the lens through which we interpret a partner's actions that matter. Attachment styles are the baseline for how safe or threatened we feel when intimacy happens. And importantly, it's something we can actively work on. If you suspect you have an insecure attachment style, consider this your friendly nudge to learn more about it. Tons of resources exist from books like Attached to Quizzes and Online Forums to Therapy. It can be downright liberating to realize. Oh, I'm not crazy, I'm just anxious attachment, and that's why I freak out when my partner doesn't text back. Well, I can work on that. Or well, I'm not a cold-hearted, useless jerk. I'm avoidant because I learned early on to shut it down. Hey, maybe I can learn to open up. These insights can change your life. Before we move on, one more myth to bust. I am stuck with my attachment style forever. Nope. Research and clinical experience show attachments can and do evolve. Even if you've had a rough start in life, you can cultivate earned secure attachment. Consider this example. A person with anxious attachment goes through therapy, learns to identify negative thought spirals, practices self-soothing, and enters a relationship with someone patient. Over time, they notice they're not as panicking when conflict arises. They trust more. That's earned security. Or an avoidant bachelorette meets a partner who gently encourages emotional closeness in a safe way. Initially, she feels like running, but she hangs in there and discovers, surprise, intimacy can be pretty damn nice. She starts reaching out more rather than retreating. Growth! The brain literally forms new neural pathways when we consistently experience relationships differently. As one article's key takeaway put it, positive experiences with securely attached people along with deliberate effort can override insecure impulses. Just know that it can get exhausting for us too. And so if a measurably tested, securely attached person is actually willing to work through your to us, needy, whiny, fearful, stupid, or self-limiting bullshit, without calling you out like a douche and framing it as gentle a manner as possible, yet we actually fing love you. Try not to be a fing dummy. Sorry, had to put that in there. Anyways, in summary, insecure attachment styles can set us up for a painful relationship, including trauma bonds, but they are not a life sentence. You can heal, and as you do, you likely find that what you're attracted to or tolerate in relationships shifts to. Healing, growth, and moving forward, breaking bonds, and building healthy ones. At this point, we've lengthily journeyed through the darkness of trauma bonds and the maze of attachment styles. If you've recognized some uncomfortable truths about your own life in these descriptions, you might be asking, okay, what now? How do I fix this? How do I heal? Fear not! This is where we focus on the solutions, resources, and hope. The great thing about the human psyche is its capacity for resilience and change. People break free from toxic bonds, people heal their attachment wounds, and people go on to have better, healthier love stories. It is absolutely possible. First, if you suspect you are in a trauma-bonded relationship, an abusive dynamic, safety and support are the top priorities. This often means reaching out beyond the relationship to professionals or support networks. It's extremely difficult to see clearly or to extricate yourself without outside help because, as we covered, your brain is basically working against you staying objective. Consider contacting a domestic violence hotline or advocacy group. These folks are trained to understand trauma bonding and can help you plan a safe exit if needed. For instance, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, in the U.S., it's 1-800-799-SAFE or theHotline.org, is a 24-7 resource for confidential support. There are also local shelters and organizations that offer counseling, legal advice, even safe housing if you need to get out quickly. Therapy is almost always recommended, whether it's one-on-one counseling or a support group for survivors. Therapists can provide a non-judgmental space to entangle the cognitive dissonance and build up your sense of self again. Modalities like trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, or TFCBT, or EMDR, which is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, are often used to help process and heal from the abuse. In severe cases, especially with PTSD symptoms, a trauma-informed therapist or psychologist is crucial. Now, if you realize you're not in an abusive relationship, but maybe you have an insecure attachment style or some unhealthy patterns, the approach is a bit different, but with some overlap. Internal and external self-awareness are the critical first steps. It might help to take an attachment style quiz, there are many free ones online, such as the Attachment Projects quiz, which I personally like, or simply searching Adult Attachment Style Quiz. These aren't diagnostic gospel, but they do give you a framework. Read up on your style, see what resonates. Journaling about your relationship history can also reveal patterns. For example, hmm, I notice I always fall hard and fast and then start panicking that they'll leave and the relationship blows up. That fits anxious attachment. Or, I mean, I date really nice people, but I always find a reason to break it off when things get too close. That's avoidant, alright? This kind of insight is gold. Because once you see the pattern, guess what? You can work on changing it. If you can't see the pattern, how the hell are you gonna change it? Therapy, yes again, therapy is basically the answer to everything in a podcast like this. I get it. But it's not just any therapy. Some approaches are particularly great for attachment trauma issues. One standout is emotionally focused therapy, or EFT for couples. EFT is explicitly based on attachment theory and helps couples understand each other's attachment needs and fears. It's been shown to improve bonding in adult relationships by fostering secure emotional connections. In EFT, instead of fighting about, say, who left the dishes out, surface issue, the therapist guides you to talk about the attachment needs underneath. Maybe one partner feels ignored, the other feels criticized. Both are really saying, I need to feel valued and loved. Over time, EFT can help even previously insecure partners develop a more secure bond with each other. If Ray and Dax had hit any snags due to their past losses, an EFT therapist would have likely helped them communicate those fears and soothe each other, strengthening their connection. For individual work, internal family systems or IFS therapy is very helpful for people with trauma histories and attachment wounds. IFS operates on the idea that we all have quote-unquote parts, like an inner child part that holds hurt, or a protective part that might trigger avoidant behaviors. By working with these parts in therapy, you can heal the wounded ones and help the protective ones relax. For example, an avoidant person might have a protective part that says, don't get closer, you'll get hurt. And in IFS, the therapist would help that part understand that the person's adult self can handle more closeness now and gently create more trust. It's a very compassionate model and great for complex trauma. Notably, IFS has been noted for its ability to heal insecure attachment and detachment trauma from the inside out by essentially reparenting your inner self. Somatic therapies are another category to consider. Trauma isn't just in our heads, it's stored in our bodies. You've heard the phrase, the body keeps the score. Thanks, Basil van der Koelk. Somatic experiencing, or SE, or sensory motorcycle therapy, or somatic attachment therapy can be wonderful for learning to calm that fight-flight-freeze response that often underlies anxious or disorganized attachment. These approaches help focus on bodily sensations and help release trauma that's stuck in the nervous system. So I'm pretty sure part of last relationship with her freezing, because I remember her freezing specifically, that is all forever burned in my brain. Yeah, I mean, guarantee part of that was past trauma, you know? But uh, just couldn't see it. But what can you do? Anyways. I I hate to see people suffer unnecessarily. That's uh so many of us do it. I know I've done it like uh so many people. This world really does need to heal. Anyways, back to sensor motor psychotherapy or somatic attachment therapy. These approaches focus on bodily sensations and help release trauma that's stuck in the nervous system. According to the Somatic Experiencing Institute, Somatic Experiencing can support resolving developmental and attachment trauma by working through those stuck fight-flight freeze responses at the physiological level. If you find talk therapy isn't enough, like you know logically that your partner isn't abandoning you, but your body still reacts with panic, somatic work might be the missing piece. It teaches you skills to regulate your nervous system and feel safe in connection. Another approach worth mentioning is trauma-informed yoga, or EMDR, for individuals, and psychodrama or group therapy for some folks. Really, there are many paths. What's important is that the therapist or program is knowledgeable about trauma and attachment. Not to mention, sometimes simply educating yourself via books and workshops can catalyze change. Books like Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller on attachment styles, Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson on using EFT principles in your relationship, or The Body Keeps the Score by Van Der Kalk on trauma's impact and healing can give you that aha moment that propels you forward. There are also support groups and forums for almost everything. Survivors of narcissistic abuse, adult children of alcoholics where trauma bonding and attachment issues often abound, codependence anonymous, etc. Hearing other stories can break the isolation and shame. Let's not forget the more day-to-day tools and practices that can help in healing. Here are a few practical ones. Mindfulness and grounding techniques. These help, especially if you have anxiety or trauma triggers. Learning to notice your feelings and bodily sensations without being swept away can keep you from reacting impulsively in relationships. For example, if you're anxiously attached and feel panicked that your partner is late, a mindfulness practice might help you ride that emotional way without sending 20 frantic texts. Grounding, like deep breathing, naming things you see or hear, or touching something textured, can calm the nervous system in moments of trigger. Journaling or letter writing. When you're in a trauma bond or fresh out of one, writing down the reality of the situation can help combat the rose-colored glasses that come with intermittent reinforcement. Survivors often keep a journal of abusive incidents to reread when they're longing to return to the abuser to remind themselves of why they left or even why they were discarded. Journaling can also help identify attachment-driven thoughts. For example, today I noticed I assumed my friend was mad at me because she didn't use an exclamation point. Might be my anxious style misreading things. Boundary setting exercises. If you tend towards codependency or anxious behaviors, practicing setting small boundaries can be huge. Say no to something minor and sit with the discomfort. Realize the world didn't end. This builds confidence to set bigger boundaries, which is critical in not getting sucked into unhealthy dynamics. Conversely, if you're avoidant, practice letting someone in a bit more. Say yes to a vulnerable conversation or ask for help with something small. Flex that trust muscle. You're avoidant. You don't need to say no anymore, you always say enough. Self-reflection questions. We'll give you some in the next section. Asking yourself the right questions can clarify whether you're in a healthy situation or repeating old patterns. For example, does this relationship make me feel generally safe and respected, or mostly anxious and unworthy? If it's the latter, time to re-evaluate. Community and connection. Healing attachment wounds often requires experiencing good attachments. This might mean investing in friendships, support groups, or even pet ownership. Seriously, a securely attached dog can teach you a lot about unconditional love. Just don't get a cat with an insecure attachment. They kind of do their own thing. And I'm not talking about don't get a cat, I'm talking about don't get a cat with an insecure attachment. Anyways, or a dog with an insecure attachment. That happens. The more you feel connected and accepted by supportive people, the more you unlearn the idea that relationships are scary or that you're not good enough. If you don't have friends or family you trust, consider group therapy or online communities with the usual caution to choose safe, moderated ones. Time and patience. Sorry, but I have to include this. Whether you're recovering from a trauma bond or working on your attachment style, it's a marathon, not a sprint. Two steps forward, one step back is normal. You might find yourself attracted to the same type of person, even after you know it's unhealthy. Don't beat yourself up. Awareness is progress, and every time you catch yourself and make a slightly better choice, you are rewiring. Celebrate the small wins like, hey, I asserted my need in a relationship for the first time, or hey, I didn't text back immediately and I sat with my anxiety, and nothing bad happened. Over time, these add up to big change. Alright, I hear you. We want receipts for these solutions too. Fair enough. Studies have shown. For instance, and remember, be careful when you hear the phrase studies have shown. Always make sure that you read the studies. For instance, that emotionally focused therapy has a high success rate in improving couple bonds. In some studies, around 70 to 75% of couples move to a more secure relationship and stay together with significant improvement. Research on attachment also suggests that positive relationship experiences can alter attachment styles. One longitudinal study found that people's attachment styles could and did shift towards secure attachment when they formed relationships with secure partners or went through transformative experiences. That's what's happening with my partner. I've got my secure attachment style back. She is getting more and more secure as the time passes. Now, yes, most of it is me consistently proving over and over and over again that I'm not gonna abandon her no matter how hard she pushes. Sure. That part was annoying for a while, but hey, sometimes you just have to understand where they're coming from and hold space for that. And as long as they are working towards secure attachment, you know, just take whatever comes your way, let it roll off your back, don't take it personally. It's the insecure attachment style, it's fine. It's not a personality disorder, because if it was ever something like that, at that point I'm out. Gone. Don't I don't nope. Secure attachment style only goes so far. Secure attachment style doesn't mean you get to make me an emotional punching bag. Because the So, anyways, there's also neuroscience evidence via fMRI studies and MRI studies, two different things. And when someone feels securely attached, like seeing a loved one's picture or holding a trusted partner's hand under stress, the brain shows reduced activation and threat response areas. That's a literal image of attachment healing in action. Love, the healthy kind, acting as a balm to fear in the brain. I mean, think about that. How cool is that? Therapies like internal family systems or IFS and somatic work are newer in terms of widespread evidence, but anecdotally and theoretically, they do make a ton of sense for complex attachment issues. IFS's popularity among trauma therapists stems from its high success in helping people with childhood trauma learn self-compassion and reparent themselves, thereby changing attachment from the inside. Somatic therapies build on the idea that if trauma lives in the body, healing must involve the body. Many people report that after somatic experiencing, their triggers diminish and they feel more present and safe in relationships. If you are in the throes of breaking a real trauma bond, some specific steps that experts recommend include creating a safety plan if violence is involved, cutting off contact for the abuser as much as possible, going no contact or at least low contact if co-parenting is an issue, because every contact can re trigger the bond, leaning heavily on your support system or support group in moments of self-doubt, and reminding yourself, through whatever means, friends, journal, therapist, or whatever, of the reasons you left. It's very normal to feel withdrawal symptoms when leaving a trauma bond. You might literally ache for the person, or feel depressed or anxious as your body adjusts to the absence of those chaotic highs and lows. This is where being kind to yourself is vital. It's like quitting an addiction. You might need to treat it as such. Avoid temptations. For example, don't stalk their social media. Do not do that. Have go-to distractions, new hobby, new exercise releases, endorphins, etc. Avoiding things that remind you of them until you internalize who they really were, and possibly join a program. There are 12-step groups for love addiction or codependency that can provide a structured approach to detoxing from an unhealthy attachment. Finally, as you heal and grow, you'll likely find a different kind of love comes into focus. Maybe you'll experience or are already experiencing what it's like to be with someone who respects your boundaries, who communicates instead of stonewalls, who is consistently there for you. At first, if you're used to roller coasters, this might feel weird, maybe even quote, boring, end quote. Stick with it. Give healthy love a chance to recalibrate your system. Over time, you'll start to really appreciate the beauty in the stable, kind, secure relationship. It might not give you stomach butterflies 24-7 or wild drama to vent to your friends about, but it will give you something way better. Peace of mind, genuine support, and real intimacy. And guess what? Without foundation, you can still have all the passion and excitement and all the kinks and everything. It's just not terror-fueled. It's like switching from a diet of energy shots and candy, all spikes and crashes, to a nutritious meal. May not hit as instantly, but it sustains you and tastes pretty darn good once you've adjusted your palate. Before we finally wrap up, yes, I know I'm getting long-winded on this, or I am long-winded on this, let's address the love versus addiction analogy one more time, because it is an interesting one. We've mentioned how trauma bond dynamics can mimic addiction, but some people say love itself is an addiction, or I'm addicted to this person. Be very cautious with that framing. Yes, early stage romantic love lights up reward centers in the brain, dopamine, oxytoce, and the love cocktail, but healthy love isn't supposed to feel like a desperate addiction. It's meant to evolve into a calmer, secure attachment where you love being with the person, but you're also okay when you're not. You don't go into withdrawal. If your experience of love consistently feels like a debilitating addiction, like you can't function without getting a quote fix of attention, or you tolerate increasingly bad behavior and nearly zero effort from the person just to stay connected, that's not love. That's likely an attachment trauma at play, or a sign of an actual trauma bond, or at least codependency. So while the high of a trauma bond is real, and we gave receipts for the hormones behind it, real love is more of a steady warmth than a raging fire that burns you to ash. When you find yourself in that steady warmth, you might think, huh, this is different. Something wrong? Is this not compatible? No, nothing's wrong. That's actually how it's freaking meant to be, yo. Don't worry. You'll still have passion and all that good stuff, but it won't consistently devastate you. And if you miss the roller coaster, well, that's what amusement parks and Netflix thrillers are for. Your relationship shouldn't be your source of life's chaos. Alright, let's finally consolidate all of this into some actionable reflection and resources for you and for me. Self-reflection. Questions to ask yourself. Taking some time to reflect on your relationship and patterns can be incredibly eye-opening. Here are a few questions to ponder or journal about. Be honest with yourself. This is just for you. One, how do I typically feel in my closest relationships? Do I feel mostly safe, respected, and at ease? Or am I often anxious, walking on eggshells, or craving a level of affection that I'm not getting? Consistent feelings of fear or unworthiness could be a sign of an unhealthy dynamic or at least an insecure attachment in us that needs attention. Number two, have I ever stayed in a relationship that I knew deep down was really bad for me? Why did I stay? List the reasons or excuses that come to mind. Do they sound like love or fear? For example, because I loved her versus because I was afraid no one else would ever love me, or she threatened to hurt herself, or I thought she couldn't make it alone. Fear-based reasons point to a possible trauma bond or attachment wound. Number three, do I tend to date people who treat me similarly to how one of my parents or past caregivers treated me? This can be a tough one, but patterns often repeat. If your childhood was chaotic or you felt ignored, are you, perhaps unintentionally, choosing partners who recreate those feelings? Recognizing this pattern can be the first step to breaking it. Number four, when conflict arises with a partner, how do I react? Do I panic, plead, or feel like my world is ending, which is an anxious response? Do I shut down, withdraw, or feel numb? It's an avoidant response. Do I swing between the two or have extreme reactions? That's a disorganized response. Or do I manage to stay relatively calm and communicate? That's a secure response. Identifying your conflict style can highlight your attachment style triggers. Number five, what are my beliefs about myself and relationships? Complete this sentence. I am blank enough to have a healthy, loving relationship. Do words like not good or too broken or too needy come up? Those are limiting beliefs often born from past traumas or bad relationships. A secure belief would be I am worthy enough to have a healthy, loving relationship. If that feels false to say, there is some self-love work for you to do, and you absolutely are worthy for the record. Number six, do I know what my boundaries are and do I enforce them? For example, would I recognize an act if someone crossed the line into verbal or physical abuse or constantly disrespected me? If you find yourself constantly excusing someone's bad behavior or saying, it's fine when it's not, that is worth examining. Healthy relationships involve clear, respected boundaries. And yeah, don't think your partner's gonna mind-read your boundaries. You have to f communicate them first. Alright? Don't be one of these that when your partner crosses your boundaries, feel like, I have a boundary around that, and then just tally up the number of times they crossed your boundaries because you didn't tell them your boundaries, and then use that as ammunition. Because that's a clown move. Don't be a clown. They just won't respect you. That's really what it boils down to. You're not gonna have any respect from uh the person that you discard because of that, because you're you're a clown. It's just the way it is. And hopefully you figure it out. But you probably won't. Number seven, have I fully processed and healed from my past traumas, big or small? If not, how might those unhealed parts be manifesting in my current life? Sometimes, unhealed trauma is like a silent director in the background, influencing your choices without you even realizing it. For instance, unhealed grief might make you fear getting close to someone new, because you subconsciously fear loss again. Or it might make you go 100% all in without healthy boundaries you normally set. Or unhealed abuse might normalize red flags for you. Identifying what's unresolved can point to what to work on in therapy, through support groups, etc. Reflecting on those questions can help you chart your next steps. If you find your answers are alarming, whoa, I basically described the treble bond pattern. Or, yikes, I am definitely anxious attached, and it's hurting my marriage. Don't panic. Awareness is good. Awareness is the first step. It is the precursor to change. And in the next section, we've got resources to help you take those steps towards healing and healthier relationships. Resources for healing and support. I think we're almost done. You don't have to navigate trauma, attachment wounds, or unhealthy relationships alone. There are many resources and tools out there, from professional therapy to self-help books to community support. Here's a curated list if you started on your journey of healing, growth, and finding good love. Therapy and counseling services. If possible, find a trauma-informed therapist, someone trained in dealing with trauma and attachment issues. Find one, you can use directories like the Psychology Today Therapist Finder. You can filter it for specialties like trauma or domestic violence or attachment issues. Another option is Therapy Den or Good Therapy, which also allow filtering by approach, for example, EFT, EMDR, etc. If cost is an issue, because unfortunately therapy isn't free or cheap, look into community mental health centers or therapists who offer sliding scale fees. Open Path Collective is a network of therapists who provide low-cost sessions. Also, many areas have non-profits for specific issues, like abuse survivors or grief counseling, etc., that offer free or low-cost support. Online therapy platforms like BetterHelp or Talkspace can be a convenient option if in-person therapy isn't feasible. Just make sure to request someone with a trauma or relationship focus. Keep in mind online therapy costs vary and quality can vary too. But it's an option if you prefer digital, and it's better than nothing. Support hotlines and organizations. If you are in an abusive relationship or need advice about one, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1-800-799-SAFE, in the US, or live chat on their website is a 24-7 confidential resource. They can help with safety planning and connect you to local resources. RAIN, R-A-I-N-N, Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, or the phone number is 1-800-656-HOPE, if sexual trauma is part of your history or present. RAIN can offer support and can link you to counseling in your area. AI Anon or NAR Anon. If your trauma bond scenario involves substance abuse, for example, you're trauma bonded with an addict, these support groups for friends and family of addicts can be helpful. They teach us about enabling versus supporting and how to set boundaries. Codependence Anonymous, or CODA. This is a 12-step program for people who struggle with codependency, which is often overlapping with detachment stuff. It can provide a framework for regaining your sense of self outside of relationships. Love is Respect at lovesrespect.org is a resource focused on young adults and teens in abusive or unhealthy relationships, but their materials are useful for any age. They have a text and a chat line too. Books and reading material Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, a very reader-friendly book that explains attachment styles and how they play out in adult relationships. If you want to understand why you or your partner act in a certain way in love, this is a great starting point. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kalk, a classic on how trauma affects the mind and body, with insights into various treatments. It's not specifically about relationships, but it does help you understand the deep impact of trauma, including attachment trauma, and paths to healing. Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson. Based on emotionally focused therapy, it walks couples through seven conversations that can create more secure attachment between them. Great for couples looking to deepen intimacy and trust. Many books compile stories of trauma survivors who found healthy love after, or experts writing on breaking trauma bonds, for example Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood or Facing Love Addiction by Pia Melody. These can be eye-opening if you identify with loving in a way that hurts. The Betrayal Bond by Patrick Carnez. This one is literally about trauma bonding. Carnez is the one who coined the term. It delves into why we stay attached to those who hurt us and offers steps to break free. It is a heavier read, but if you want to go right to the source, Carnez provides a ton of insight, including inventories to assess your own situation. Workbooks and online resources. Attachment style workbooks. The attachments project website, attachmentproject.com, offers free articles and paid workbooks and courses for different attachment styles. Their Start to Heal section and attachment quiz can be extremely useful. Psychology Today and very well-minded articles. These sites have tons of accessible articles on topics like can your attachment style change? How to cope with anxious attachment? Signs of a trauma bond, etc. They often include tips and are reviewed by professionals. TherapistAid worksheets. Websites like therapistaid.com provide free worksheets on things like setting boundaries, understanding cognitive distortions, etc., which can be great if you're a do-it-yourself therapy kind of person. Which, if you are great, but try a therapist, you know, it might help. It may be hard to find a good one, but you'll find it. YouTube educational videos. There are some therapists and psychologists who run YouTube channels explaining these topics that are actually good. For example, Dr. Romani on narcissistic abuse and trauma bonds. Uh Theus Gibson on attachment styles, etc. While obviously not a replacement for therapy, sometimes a 10 minute video explanation can validate your experience and give you points. Just back it up with a therapist. Don't be the TikTok therapy person. Don't do that. It will lead you astray every time, and it will feed your ego because that's they know that's what sells. So any TikTok therapy videos you see are gonna bolster your ego, and you don't want that. You want your ego slapped. EMDR or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy. This is a personal favorite for me. It's very effective. Highly effective for trauma, helps reprocess traumatic memories so they aren't as triggering. Many people have reported that EMDR helped them finally emotionally detached from an abusive ex or heal a childhood wound underpinning their attachment issues. Somatic experiencing, or SE, as mentioned, focuses on bodily release of trauma. If talk therapy isn't cutting it, because it doesn't always cut it, SE might help you get unstuck, especially if you have a lot of anxiety or freeze response. Internal family systems or IFS. This is great for complex trauma and attachment. It might help you dialogue with the part of you that still loves your abuser, for instance, and find out what it needs, probably safety and love, and help provide that in a healthier way. Group therapy or support groups. Sometimes hearing me too from others is the best medicine. Group therapy for survivors of domestic abuse or group for anxious attachers, some relationship coaches run these, can help you feel understood and less alone. They also keep you accountable. Very important accountability. It's harder to run back to a toxic ex when you know you'll have to tell the group and see all their concerned faces next week. Couples therapy, if in a relationship that's challenging but not abusive. A good couples therapist can be a game changer. They can act as an attachment coach for both of you. Just make sure if there's abuse, the couples therapy is not recommended, because it can actually make it worse. Individual support is needed first in that case. But for general attachment mismatches, like anxious avoidant pairs trying to make it work, couples therapy, EFT especially, could save the day. There are applications like Mend or Breakup Boss designed to help people through breakups or break toxic cycles. They give daily activities, motivational quotes, etc. It could be helpful if you're detaching from a trauma bond and need structure. Online forums, use with extreme caution. Reddit has communities like R-attachment underscore theory or R-CPTSD or R-relationships, where people share experiences. Take advice on the internet with a massive, giant, huge grain of salt. But sometimes it's comforting to read other stories or get perspective. There are also Facebook groups and such, but ensure any group you join is well moderated to avoid bad advice or further trauma. Meditation and self-care apps. It might sound a little bit tangible and I get it, but apps like Headspace or Calm for meditation, or journaling apps can support your mental health routine. Healing is holistic. Your sleep, diet, exercise, and general self-care do matter. It is much easier to face emotional battles when you are physically and mentally nourished. But again, if you only focus on your health, it ain't gonna be enough. And that's become obvious to me over the years, dealing with other people. Or just observing them. Finally, remember that healing is not linear. You might slip up, you might text or email that toxic X or have an anxious meltdown, even after progress. That is okay. Be kind to yourself, have some self-compassion. Progress often looks like a squiggly line trending upward, not a straight shot. Every step you take, whether it's listening to this podcast, by the way, congrats on making it through a long listen. My own voice is getting tired. Going to therapy, setting a boundary, or simply acknowledging I deserve better, is reshaping your future. Ray and Dax's story ended up being one of hope. They turned their shared experiences into a beautiful partnership. They actively communicated and sought understanding. They even joked with each other about not outliving this one as dark humor to cope with their fears. But they always had real conversations, beneath the jokes. If you are lucky, you might find someone who will do that work with you, hand in hand. But even if you are doing the work solo right now, it is worth it. You are essentially becoming the Ray and Dax to yourself, giving your own heart the understanding and care it needs, so that when love does come, you'll be ready to receive it fully and healthily. And I hope anybody who has been abandoned by someone who was unhealthy also holds that same hope that that person will grow and change. Because it doesn't matter that they're not with you, it does matter that they're not growing, because they themselves are miserable. But again, you cannot save everyone. You can lead a horse to water, you can hold them till the last bubble comes up, but you cannot make them drink. And drowning them isn't a solution either. Final thoughts. From trauma to triumph, as tropish as that sounds. We set out to clarify trauma bonding and dispel the myths around it, especially the misconception that sharing trauma equals a trauma bond. By now, hopefully, you've seen that trauma bonding is a serious, specific phenomenon tied to real physical, psychological, or narcissistic abuse, and it's not to be confused with the empathetic connections people form over past traumas. We debunked that myth with receipts and with great wordiness and looked at what really lies beneath our intense relationship patterns, our attachment styles, our unresolved wounds, and the cycles we can get caught in. If there's one message to take home, let it be this. Love should not consistently feel like pain. Love should not feel like a roller coaster you are strapped to against your will. If you find yourself in a bond where the highs are ecstasy and the lows are soul-crushing, and especially if someone is intentionally causing those lows, that's not the kind of love you want or deserve. And if you've been blaming yourself for staying or for choosing that situation, please understand the forces, psychological and biochemical, that were at play. And then, when you're ready, take steps to break free and heal. On the flip side, if you've been avoiding love or thinking you're broken because of your past, know that two people with heavy pasts can come together and create something healthy and beautiful. Ray and Dax did. It wasn't magic or fate, it was effort, effective communication, and a willingness to heal separately and together. It was also likely because each had done some healing of their own so that they were able to meet and not enclode. So do that work. It pays off when you find someone great, or even simply in how great it feels to finally have your own back. In wrapping up, here's a bit of humor with truth. Bad relationships are like cigarettes. Initially, they calm your anxiety, maybe even give you a heady buzz, but in the long run, they wreak havoc on your health, and they're awfully hard to quit. Trauma bonds, those are the unfiltered cigarettes of relationships. Extra addictive and extra toxic. But millions of people have quit smoking, and millions have left toxic love. With knowledge, support, and maybe a nicotine patch for the heart, a good therapist, you absolutely can kick the habit of unhealthy bonds. And guess what happens next? You clear your system, you regain your strength, and you create space for good stuff. Maybe that means a truly supportive partner comes into your life. Maybe it means you flourish happily single for a while, enjoying drama-free peace. Maybe it means you break a generational cycle so your kids, present or future, have a healthier model of love. All the above are wins. So here's your call to action you can actually feel good about. Subscribe to your own well-being. In other words, commit to putting your healing and your emotional health first. Sure, and if this were a newsletter or blog you were reading, I'd cheekly add subscribe to this blog for more real in talk and research on mental health and relationships, share this article with anyone who might benefit, and consider joining our community for ongoing support and discussion. But truly subscribe to the belief that you deserve safe, fulfilling love. Because you do. If you found this lengthy deep dive useful, consider sharing it with someone in your life who might be stuck in a myth or a toxic cycle. You never know. It might be the nudge that finally sets them free. And take a moment to pat yourself on the back for wading through the tough stuff. The fact that you're still here listening and reflecting shows your resilience and determination to grow. Your trauma does not define you, and your past is not your destiny. You can heal your attachment wounds, you can break trauma bonds, you can transform how you love and who you love, including learning to love yourself in the process. It is not easy, but as we've outlined, you are certainly not alone, and you are certainly not without tools. In the end, the goal is to experience love as the additive joy it's meant to be. Something that adds to your life, not subtracts from your soul. May you find or build relationships that feel like a warm, safe home for your heart. And may the only bonding over trauma you do be in support groups or friend chats, not in your romantic bed. Stay safe, stay hopeful, and remember, healing is possible, and healthy love is out there. Go forth and bond securely. You've got this.