Trauma bonding

Trauma bonding (stockholm syndrome)

When you are in a relationship with someone who is physically or psychologically abusive, you cannot just leave the relationship like others would do in "normal" relationships. There are a number of reasons for this.

Trauma bonding occurs in destructive relationships and comes from the "cycles" that exist, of both the really good things in the relationship, but also the really bad things. It is the cycle that exists in the relationship that causes you to become "trauma bonded" to begin with. It is called the "destructive cycle".

This cycle includes everything from excessive love, attention, gifts, and compliments to turning into criticism, lies, controlling behavior, ignoring, isolating behavior, etc.

This makes it emotionally very difficult to navigate. Since the relationship has all the shifts from one extreme to the other, there is a special relationship between you and the narcissist called trauma bonding. This is also known as Stockholm Syndrome.