Trauma Bonding: When Love Hurts and Leaving Feels Impossible

I didn’t set out to write about trauma bonding. I set out to write about connection. But over the past few months, I have responded to a few issues witih clients bringing a similar angst in a different wrapping. The quiet confusion….“Why does it still feel like love when I know it’s hurting me?”

So here I am, with this offering, triggered by the brave humans whom I work with, who are unravelling knots that should never have been tied so tightly in the first place.

Because sometimes love is not love as it should be. Sometimes it’s a loop. A hook. A highwire strung between ecstasy and eggshells. Sometimes, it’s trauma bonding.

What Even Is Trauma Bonding?

Trauma bonding is when someone forms a powerful emotional attachment to a person who is intermittently harmful….charming one moment, cutting or absent the next. A nervous system survival strategy, not a reflection of one’s worth or weakness.

It’s not about being gullible or needy. It’s about how the human brain wires itself to attach, especially when love and harm can come in the same breath. Imagine standing in the rain, shivering, and someone hands you an umbrella then snatches it away. And you end up thanking them anyway, because for a fleeting moment, you were dry. This can reflect what happens in early life when a primary care giver is seen as the one to love, but with that, they deliver a helping of abuse or trauma in some form. The association is fixed.

Where It Begins: The Love That Sweeps You Off Your Feet

It often starts like a dizzying dream. A whirlwind. A carnival of compliments. A text that makes your heart leap, a gaze that seems to see you. They remember to buy you your favourite ice cream. They quote back your own words. You feel found.

This is sometimes called “love bombing”; a sudden surge of affection, the sense of being the centre of their world. And who wouldn't want to be cherished like that?

But slowly, something shifts. The warmth starts to flicker. You get blamed for something that felt innocent. There's a sulk, a silence, a rule you didn’t know you were breaking. You start to scan the room for their moods. You second-guess your words. But just as you're pulling away, they reel you back with tenderness. A joke. A kiss. A long, soulful apology. The part of them you fell for resurfaces. Or at worst, they gaslight you by making out like they’ve done nothing and you give them a second, third, fourth chance.

You think: There they are. I knew they were still in there.

Hope Is the Hook

Hope is a powerful thing. It’s the part of us that believes people can change. And maybe they can. But when kindness is rationed and cruelty comes in waves, hope becomes the glue that keeps you stuck.

That flicker of who they could be is often stronger than the reality of who they consistently are. And that flicker is what keeps people clinging on, even as the pain mounts.

The Psychology Bit (But Don’t Worry, I’ll Make It Human)

There’s a psychological phenomenon called intermittent reinforcement. It’s what makes slot machines so addictive. Your brain gets hooked on the maybe; the idea that if you just pull the lever one more time, you might get the reward. When love and affection are given unpredictably; sometimes warm, sometimes withdrawn, it taps straight into that same neurological loop. You start working harder, bending more, trying to earn what should be freely given.

You might even start believing that the disappearance of love is your fault. That if you were quieter, funnier, more helpful, less needy, it wouldn’t keep vanishing. Your whole nervous system adapts….learning to anticipate shifts in mood, walking on eggshells, constantly scanning the emotional weather.

It’s not logical. It’s biological.
A survival response dressed up as love.

The hardest part? Sometimes, those crumbs of affection feel even sweeter, because you’ve been starved for so long. But this is how the cycle grips you. Not because you’re weak. But because you're wired to connect. You’re human.

And yes! it’s exhausting. Soul-tired. The kind of tired that doesn’t go away with sleep, because it lives in your bones, your breath, and your body is continually bracing. You’re not broken. You’re responding exactly as any nervous system would, under emotional drought.

Why It Feels So Hard to Leave

By the time someone realises they might be in a trauma bond, their sense of self has usually been stretched thin. They might doubt their reality, question their memories, and find themselves justifying things that used to be unacceptable.

They may also be physically cut off from their support network. They might share a home, a child, a bank account or a version of the past that still feels magnetic.

People often say, “Why don’t you just leave?” But trauma bonding is rarely a clean cut. It’s a foggy, tangled journey back to yourself.

But I Love Them...

Ah, the hardest question of all. One I hear often, sometimes in whispers, sometimes in tears. “But what if I love them?”

And my answer is always this: Love doesn’t erase harm. And harm doesn’t mean you’re incapable of love. You can love someone and still not be safe with them. Love without safety is not love that heals. It’s love that leaves bruises.

In trauma bonds, love is often mixed with fear, obligation and a longing for the version of them that only shows up just long enough to keep you hanging on. That’s not your fault. That’s the loop.

The Slow Unhooking

Leaving a trauma bond isn’t about marching out in a blaze of glory (though if that’s your style, go for it). More often, it’s quiet. It starts with noticing. Naming. Saying to yourself, This doesn’t feel like love anymore.

It might mean writing things down. Speaking to a therapist. Reaching out to a friend who won’t say, “Told you so.” It might mean walking in the woods and remembering you belong to the earth, not just to someone else’s idea of you.

Healing is messy. It doesn’t always feel like progress. But every time you speak kindly to yourself, every time you say no instead of yes-when-you-meant-no, you’re unhooking.

You Are Not Broken

You are not broken for staying. You are not weak for having loved.

You adapted. You survived. Your nervous system did what it had to do. That’s not weakness. That’s wisdom, dressed in armour.

Trauma bonds thrive in silence and shame. But the moment you begin to name what’s happening, the spell begins to break. And if this piece has struck a chord please, know this:

You are not alone. You are not dramatic, needy, or mad.

You are human.

If This Resonates….

Start where you are. Keep a journal. Let yourself rage. Cry. Laugh. Mourn what was promised, not just what was given.

Speak to someone who sees the light in you - even when you can’t see it yet.

You are not meant to live on a battlefield.

You are meant to be held gently. Not gripped tightly.
You are allowed to step out of the storm.
You are allowed to choose the quiet.
You are allowed to heal.
And you will.

Speak to a qualified therapist & coach https://stepping-out.life/

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