They Are Not Your Soulmate. You’re Trauma-Bonded To Them
There’s a big difference.
Many trauma bonds look like a fairy-tale story in the beginning. You’re showered with affection and compliments, and they tell you everything you’ve always wanted to hear.
It feels incredibly magical and exciting, and you think you’re one of the lucky ones who managed to find their soulmate.
It’s the only explanation, right?
It’s not entirely your fault. As a society, we have the idea that true love has to be intense, passionate, and chaotic. It has to take your breath away and make you feel like you’re in a movie.
Here’s the problem: that’s not how real, healthy love works.
In Healthy Relationships, There’s No Love-Bombing
Emotionally healthy people don’t rush into relationships. They won’t shower you with love and affection days after meeting you, because they know good things take time to build.
Emotionally healthy people don’t need to tell you what you want to hear, because they don’t need to convince you of anything. Even if they’re falling in love with you, they will take their time to get to know you.
I know this is not what you want to hear when you’re being love-bombed, but it’s the truth.
I know you want to believe they’re your soulmate. I know you think your connection is special and genuine. I’ve been there.
But that’s exactly how trauma bonds feel like.
Just to be clear: trauma bonds are not about bonding over shared trauma. They’re about reenacting each other’s fears and insecurities, which leads to a never-ending cycle of push-pull dynamics.
Some signs you’re in a trauma-bonded relationship are:
- You can’t stop thinking about the other person;
- You share a very intense chemistry, and there’s a very big focus on sexual connection;
- You ignore their bad/inconsistent behavior while focusing more on the “good things” they do;
- The relationship has emotionally addictive cycles of “being abandoned” and then “chosen again”;
- You’re either madly in love with them or very frustrated/angry/anxious;
- There’s a strong desire to feel seen, heard, and loved by them;
The Addiction To Chaos
Trauma-bonded relationships are very emotionally addicting. You’re so used to the roller-coaster of feelings and emotions that you almost don’t know how to live without constantly thinking of them.
As time goes by, the push-pull cycle gets deeper and deeper, and you become emotionally addicted to the ups and downs:
- During the “ups”, you’re anticipating the next moment/conflict that will make you feel rejected and abandoned;
- During the “downs”, you’re feeling abandoned and obsessing over them.
The question you should ask yourself is why? Why do you get addicted to trauma bonds to begin with?
Here’s the answer: more often than not, we attract this kind of relationship because, as children, we absorbed the message that love was supposed to be unstable and chaotic. As a consequence, we attract partners who reinforce these beliefs.
These partners make us feel like…
- We don’t deserve to be treated well;
- Rejection and abandonment are inevitable;
- We can’t trust people;
- We’re not worthy of love;
The thing is, these beliefs were already stored in our brains. Trauma bonds only reinforce what is already within us.
“Ideally, our parents gave us secure attachments. Secure attachments means we could predict their behavior, we could depend on them to meet our needs (most of the time) and could rely on them to soothe us when we felt scared, confused, or stressed. Secure attachment in childhood results in flexibility, open-mindedness, trust and high self worth.
Insecure attachments means our parents were unpredictable, chaotic, fearful, shut down, or unavailable to meet our needs and help us regulate our emotions. Insecure attachments in childhood results in adult relationships that also unpredictable, don’t meet our needs, and leave us feeling unworthy or like we just perform for love.”
When we’re not conscious of our trauma, we tend to attract partners who make us feel unseen, abandoned, and invalidated.
They reflect back at us our subconscious beliefs about relationships: that love is not safe; that vulnerability leads to suffering; that we don’t deserve the real, secure, authentic love our soul is craving.
It’s our job to heal and free ourselves from them.
