The Trauma Bond

The Pleasure / Punishment phase of a Narcissists abuse cycle creates a “Trauma Bond” – its kind of complicated but it triggers chemicals in your brain to respond with positive pleasure to negative punishment / pain. This crosswires your brain and allows them to manipulate you to do what they want. IE: you lose a bit of your own will, slowly, over time, the more time that it goes on the more of your own will you lose.

Another key element to the Trauma Bond, is when you try to break it you are addicted to it and the narcissist will always claim “it will get better, if only you will do this.”

As shown in my other videos here and on YouTube Tara McFadden admits to using these forms of abuse against me (See “Emotional Withholding” video here). You can also see her Gaslighting, Blame shifting, and Distraction from guilt which are classic Narcissistic tactics.

While that does not even really touch base with what a trauma bond is, as it is overly complicated – it is the hardest part of the abuse cycle to break. This is how the narcissist can draw you back into the relationship after they have discarded you for the better one, and the better one turns sour (or as in most cases they get discovered and kicked out)

This all plays into the “Shared Fantasy”
The “Shared Fantasy” – when your abuser meets you they ‘mirror’ you and then draw out of you your fantasy about the future. They then use this with a lot of seduction (love bombing) to force you to create an illusionary fantasy with them. Sounds strange but once you break out of that fantasy you can see it, and how they did it.

Once you have created the “Shared Fantasy” with your abuser, they then “Love Bomb” you (seduce you) into letting them share it with you – these people have no sense of self and can’t live in their own reality (IE: why a Narcissist can’t be alone).
At this point they move into your shared fantasy and pretended to be the person you want them to be, in an attempt to make emotional connections that they cannot make because as a child they never learned how.

This is the point of the “Covert Contract” – it is at the end of the seduction phase that they take control of you by basically stating I will keep up this fantasy with you, if you will only do whatever I want. In my case I allowed her to have affairs on me and kept forgiving her (only in the fantasy though, that is why I could never really forgive her in real life). Of course, she does not know what Trust is, or how to rebuild it and that is another element in why I couldn’t forgive her on it. While not the only thing, it is a good example.

Now the abuse cycle starts, see the “Dual Mothership” model for why – as it is way too complicated for this part.

As part of the healing process I have to understand this so I can react to it like I should. Because I was manipulated I was not reacting to these things properly, and so I could not break free of the actions. Of course I know now and I’m ready for, and react properly to them – this means that her ‘hold’ over me is gone along with the addiction she spawned in me.