You’ve heard it over and over, “Why don’t you just leave?” When you’re in a relationship with a narcissistic abuser, it’s not as simple as just walking away. The abuser uses methods and techniques that keep you in a toxic relationship for years. The reason you don’t just leave is that there’s been a trauma bond formed.
Trauma bonding is an intense emotional connection that causes you to stay for as long as you do. It forms when there is a cycle of abuse through patterns of admiration and reward, eventually leading to punishments and back to admiration.
It can be incredibly difficult to recognize when you’re in the cycle of abuse, but it’s important to know how to recognize the signs in order to begin the healing process and learn how to break free. Read on to learn more about the 7 stages of trauma bonding.
Stage 1: Love Bombing
Love bombing begins at the start of your relationship, where the narcissist will shower you with love through praise, flattery, gifts, and attention. The admiration and attention make you feel intense emotions toward the narcissist and hook you into believing you’ve found the one. Love bombing isn’t exclusive to just the beginning of the relationship. The narcissist will use this manipulation tactic on you whenever he feels you’re pulling away to hook you back in.
Stage 2: Earn Trust & Gain Dependency
In the next stage of a trauma bond, the narcissist will do anything to earn your trust. They use tactics to get into your head and make you feel as if they are the only ones you can trust through love and validation. If you ever question their trust, they will get angry at you for even questioning it. This technique leads you to eventually create a dependency on them. It lets your abuser know that you are officially bonded to them.
Stage 3: Criticism & Devaluation
Once your abuser has confirmed that you are bonded and dependent on them, they will start the criticism and devaluation stage of the relationship. This is when the narcissist begins criticizing you, diminishing your self-worth and confidence. As your self-worth begins to fade, it gives the narcissist or abuser more power over you. It’s at this stage where it becomes increasingly harder to leave, and you’re truly stuck in the cycle of abuse. The narcissist will make you believe they are the only person who can love and accept you.
Stage 4: Gaslighting
Gaslighting is the narcissists’ biggest tool for manipulation. Gaslighting is when they cause you to question your own sanity and doubt your memory. It’s a way that your abuser will control you by making you feel as if you’re crazy if you doubt or question your partner. During this stage, you begin to feel as if you’re the problem, leading you to hold in your emotions to avoid conflict.
Stage 5: Resignation & Submission
During the relationship with a narcissist, the trauma bond leads you to a cycle of abuse of love bombing, devaluation, and back to love bombing. It feels like it never ends, and you feel exhausted and like there’s nowhere to go. You eventually resign and submit to the abuse.
Stage 6: Loss of Self
Eventually, the abuse has gone on for so long that you begin to lose your sense of self. It’s often the most difficult stage as it’s hard to remember who you were and what made you even happy before the relationship began. You’re entire relationship, you begin to mold and change yourself into the image of who the narcissist believes you should be.
Stage 7: Emotional Addiction
You’ll eventually form an emotional addiction to your abuser where you’re so used to the abuse because it occurs in cycles. You become addicted to the lows because you know the moments of peace are coming when the love bombing begins again. It makes you feel loved, relieved, and wanted and just reinforces the dependency on the abusive cycle.
The seven stages of trauma bonding are filled with intense highs and lows. They can leave you feeling isolated, lower your self-worth, and lose yourself in the relationship. There are ways to break free of the trauma bond and reclaim your life, but it is not easy and requires as much support as possible.
Seeking the help of a professional can help you not only identify the signs of abuse relating to your relationship but can help develop a safety plan that will help you break free and begin to heal and live your life as you want.
Recognizing the signs and learning how to heal can be challenging, and you don’t have to take it on alone. I help people learn to break the trauma bond and start on a path to recovery through my Emotional Abuse Breakthrough Course. I’ll walk you through how to identify the signs and learn how to respond in a way that will help you safely and confidently break the bond.
