You end up pursuing an individual who causes you harm. You know, in your mind, you should break it off, but some heavy force continues to lure you back. You haven’t suddenly become stupid. You haven’t suddenly become weak. Your nervous system learned a way of survival, likely many years ago, and now it is governing, and its program is running you!
This is what the world refers to as a trauma bond. It’s one of the most perplexing and painful experiences that a person can go through. The difficulty with trauma bonding is that it feels like love (the intensity, the longing, the hope for it to change, the urge for it to work). It starts to mock our love so closely that if a person doesn’t pull away before they’re truly entangled, they often have no idea what they’re experiencing.
But here’s what is important: your body discovered this pattern. Your body can learn something other than that pattern. Embodywise works with people who are attempting to untangle from these cycles and does so in ways that move beyond talk therapy and into the nervous system itself, where the pattern resides.
What’s Actually Happening When You’re Trauma Bonded
A trauma bond develops as a consequence of someone hurting you, and then stopping, hurting you, and then stopping again. The stopping creates a glimmer of hope, and the unpredictability makes it difficult to tear yourself away.
It is present in different situations:
- A romantic partner who is abusive one moment and genuinely apologetic the next, and then abusive again.
- A parent who can be very critical/dismissive/cold, and then show unexpected warmth and caring.
- In a workplace scenario, your boss humiliates you then suddenly praises your contributions.
- A friendship where one person experiences a deep wound cause by the other, followed by acting like there isn’t a scar.
What they share is a cycle of harm and relief, over and over again.
You may be saying to yourself: “But that doesn’t describe me.” Many trauma bonds don’t appear like explicit abuse, and look more like someone who is not fully there for you, someone who promises to change but doesn’t, someone who makes you feel like you are the problem.
The key quality is not the nature of the harm, it is the inconsistency and unpredictability of the harm.
The Cycle: What’s Happening in Your Body
If you’re in a trauma bond, your body goes through three phases repeatedly.
Phase One: Building Tension
You sense that something isn’t quite right. Perhaps your partner is withdrawing or is irritable and agitated. They could be critiquing everything you do. Your body notices this. You find yourself tightening. Your breath becomes shallow. You frequently find yourself in a state of assessment to figure out what you may have done wrong or how you can avoid the next bad situation.
Your nervous system is in a state of hyper-vigilance. This state is called sympathetic activation. Your heart rate might be elevated. You may feel the inability to calm down. You are in a state of anticipation.
Phase Two: The Blowup
Everything that’s building erupts. This can be yelling, withdrawing, being cold, being cruel, or accusations. You may be in a complete survival mode – you may feel panic, rage, or total numbness.
Then something strange happens. A relief washes over you because the wait is now over. You are no longer waiting for something to happen. The explosion has arrived. Your nervous system, which has been wound up tight for days, has clarity about what is occurring, at least for now.
Phase Three: The Calm
Following the incident, everything calms down. Your partner might say they’re sorry, or show affection or care. They might also act as if nothing happened. In any case, the air has cleared.
Your body is flooded with relief. If there is physical closeness, your body gets a flood of chemicals. Oxytocin, which gives you that bond to your partner, endorphins, which make you feel good. Your nervous system is finally calm.
You feel connected. You may even feel like things may be different this time. Then it starts to build again in days or even weeks.
Why Your Brain Gets Stuck
It is not stupid of your brain to remain in this cycle. It is simply a reaction to chemistry.
Predictable rewards are less likely to strike your dopamine system as compared to unpredictable rewards. This is basic neuroscience. It is the principle of a slot machine. You do not get addicted to games where you win or lose all the time. You become addicted to the games in which you occasionally win.
Whenever your partner is nice and mean, your brain is receiving the slot machine treatment. You become obsessed. You are always thinking about them. You replay positive moments. You are asking yourself how you can make them nice again.
This isn’t love. It is the reward system of your brain going wrong.
Then there is oxytocin, the bonding chemical. It is discharged in the process of physical love and sexual intercourse. It does not matter whether the relationship is healthy. It simply does its work: it connects you with this person.
Patterns also get stuck in your nervous system. When you were growing up in disorganized, unpredictable situations, your system was taught that chaos is connection. Consistent, stable individuals may be boring or even dangerous since your nervous system is not receiving familiar activation.
All this put together and you have one who is addicted to a person. That is because neurologically, that is what is going on.
How Your Childhood Set This Up
The majority of trauma bonds do not occur by chance. Habits learned at a young age tend to trap people into them.
When you were brought up by a parent who was loving and at times withdrawn or harsh, you got to learn that love was not always consistent. You were taught to struggle to get pieces of love. Your nervous system was conditioned to perceive unpredictability as normal.
When your childhood was anarchic and dangerous, your nervous system was trained to be hypervigilant. You learned how to read the moods of people, how to control the moods of other people, how to attempt to avoid the bad things. Being an adult, you may be attracted to individuals who appear to require handling or those who keep you on your feet.
Others were brought up neglected. They were taught not to require anything. They may find themselves with people as adults who do not contribute much emotionally, as it is familiar.
Some people had actual abuse. Their nervous system got to know that the person who is injuring you is the same person that you must rely on. Love and fear were mixed together so well that the individual does not even know what a healthy attachment would look like.
All this does not imply that there is anything wrong with you. It is that your nervous system evolved adaptive mechanisms. Your body was struggling to endure a hard circumstance. The issue is that these tactics are not effective when one is an adult and has a relationship with a person who is not really dangerous.
And your body is not aware of that yet.
What Trauma Bonding Actually Feels Like in Your Body
You might notice:
When your phone does not light up with a message sent by them, your chest tightens. You feel your stomach drop when you see them typing but the message does not come. Your entire body relaxes when they finally get in touch. You get a rush.
You can not focus on anything. You are always thinking about them, re-running conversations, interpreting their words in a way that gives you a hidden meaning.
Whenever they are in a foul mood, you can feel it in your body. Your shoulders rise up to your ears. Your jaw tightens. You can’t eat. You can’t sleep.
You get the feeling that you can breathe when they are nice to you. You feel seen. You think that maybe it will be alright.
There is always a knot of anxiety in your stomach. Your nervous system is in a threat-detecting state.
As you attempt to exit, you experience physical withdrawal. Not only emotional heartbreak, but physical pain. You feel panicked. Your body needs to be linked with them.
You may even freeze when they are mean. You can actually not move or talk. Your nervous system has gone to a shut down mode.
The Core Problem: Your Nervous System Doesn’t Know It’s Safe
Your body was left in a state of threat activation. It believes that it has yet to survive the next explosion. Although you are aware logically that you can leave, your nervous system is telling you: If I leave, I do not know when the next threat is going to occur. At least here I am familiar with this individual.
Your nervous system favors foreseeable danger to unforeseeable safety. That’s not a character flaw. This is the way nervous systems operate.
Breaking a trauma bond is not just a matter of making a decision to leave. It involves having your nervous system to understand that you can be safe without this person. And that is the reason why going out and coming back is so numerous. Your nervous system is overpowered by the danger of leaving and the unfamiliar each time you attempt to do so. Going home is like your body rediscovering security, though you are aware in your head that it is not really safe.
What Healing Actually Involves
Healing from a trauma bond isn’t just about leaving the person. It’s about healing your nervous system.
First, you need to stabilize. Your nervous system needs to learn that being away from this person is actually safer than being with them. This takes time. You need practices that calm your system down. Grounding techniques. Breathing practices. Moving your body. Getting your nervous system to experience calm on a regular basis.
Second, you need to process what happened in your body. Your nervous system has been in survival mode for a long time. It’s holding activation, tension, and incomplete survival responses. Working with a somatic therapist, you can help your body complete these responses. You might need to cry, shake, or move in ways that help release what’s stored.
Third, you need to learn what healthy attachment actually feels like. Most people who come out of trauma bonds have no reference point for what a healthy relationship feels like. It feels boring. It feels like nothing is happening. That’s partly because your nervous system is no longer getting that dopamine hit from intermittent reinforcement. You have to retrain your system to feel safe in consistency and reliability.
Fourth, you need to rebuild your sense of self. Trauma bonds usually involve losing yourself. You’ve been focused on managing the other person’s moods, trying to please them, wondering what you did wrong. Healing means remembering who you are beyond the relationship.
Breaking Free: What It Actually Takes
Leaving a trauma bond is hard. Really hard. If you’ve tried to leave multiple times and came back, that’s not failure. That’s your nervous system doing its job to keep you alive.
Here’s what actually helps:
Build a support system first. This could be a therapist, friends, family, a support group. Your nervous system learned that this one person was your lifeline. It needs to learn that you have people who can care for you without hurting you.
Create physical distance when possible. If you can, move out or stop having contact. Your nervous system needs to actually experience that you can survive without them. This takes weeks or months to fully integrate.
Learn to notice and name what’s happening. When you feel the urge to reach out, pause and ask: Am I experiencing withdrawal? Is my nervous system in threat mode? Am I remembering good moments and forgetting the bad ones? Just naming what’s happening helps your prefrontal cortex come online instead of your automatic survival responses.
Develop nervous system regulation skills. These are things you can do when you feel the pull to go back: breathing practices, cold water on your face, intense exercise, time in nature, talking to a supportive person. Your nervous system has to learn that it can calm down without this person.
Work with trauma directly if possible. Many people benefit from somatic therapy like Somatic Experiencing or Hakomi, where a trained practitioner helps your body process the trauma and complete interrupted survival responses.
Grieve. You’re losing something, even if that something was hurting you. Your body might have felt seen by this person, even if they were also harming you. Let yourself feel sad about that loss.
Signs You’re Actually Healing
Healing doesn’t happen all at once. You might notice:
You do not think of them as much. Not because you are forcing it, but simply because your nervous system is slowly getting de-activated by their lack.
When you do see them or hear them, the attraction is not so great. The reaction of your body remains, but it is not so strong.
Other things can make you feel other than longing. You may experience anger or disgust which you were not able to experience before. These are in fact healing signs. It is that your nervous system is no longer in pure survival mode.
You begin to desire yourself once more. Your interests come back. You care about your own life.
You can be with them or even visit them and walk away without collapsing. Your nervous system has developed a certain tolerance of separation.
You begin to see red flags where you could not see them. This occurs when your nervous system is not so dysregulated. You get some clarity back.
There are times when you feel like yourself. These instances are extended with time.
A Different Kind of Attachment
You begin to experience what it is like to be safe as you heal. It’s not exciting. It’s not intense. It’s consistent. It’s reliable. It is dull in the most ideal sense of the word.
A safe person presents himself in the same manner. They do not leave you guessing about their emotions. They do not require you to control their feelings. They are able to be angry at you without you worrying that they will vanish. They do not have to be near you without making you feel that you are doing something wrong.
Healthy attachment is in fact easy since there is no need to strain your nervous system. You do not need to scan to be dangerous. You need not have anything to handle. You can just be.
This is not right to people who are emerging out of trauma bonds. Your nervous system became accustomed to the task of managing and scanning. Real security may seem like something lacking.
Keep going. Your nervous system will one day become familiar and find its peace.
Getting Help
If you’re trying to break free from a trauma bond, professional support makes a real difference. Look for a therapist who understands trauma and knows about somatic approaches. Talk therapy alone isn’t always enough because the attachment lives in your nervous system, not just your thoughts.
A therapist trained in Somatic Experiencing, Hakomi, or other body-based methods can help your nervous system actually heal, not just understand what happened.
Embodywise has a community of practitioners trained in these methods. Finding someone whose approach feels right matters. Your nervous system will know when you’re actually safe with someone.
You might also benefit from support groups, whether in person or online. Hearing other people’s stories helps your nervous system know that what you’re experiencing is real and that recovery is possible.
The Truth About Recovery
Your body learned this pattern. Your body can learn something different. It takes time. It’s not linear. You might have setbacks. You might leave and come back. That doesn’t mean you failed.
Every time you recognize what’s happening, you’re waking up a little more. Every time you manage your nervous system without reaching out to them, you’re building new neural pathways. Every time you experience genuine safety with someone else, your nervous system is slowly learning that safety is possible.
You don’t have to stay stuck in this cycle. Your body is trying to protect you. It just needs help learning new ways.
Where to Start
If this resonates with you, start small. Notice what your body feels like in different situations. When do you feel the pull to reach out? What’s happening in your body in that moment?
Find one grounding technique that works for you. Something simple you can do when you feel the activation building.
Talk to someone. A therapist, a trusted friend, someone who gets it.
Give yourself time. Healing takes months. Sometimes it takes years. That’s not a failure. That’s just how long it takes for your nervous system to unlearn what it learned.
You deserve to feel safe with someone. You deserve consistency and genuine care. Your body is capable of healing and learning new ways of connecting.
