Shall I Stay or Shall I Go?
You may have become unknowingly addicted to your narcissistic partner. If you keep asking yourself the question “Shall I go, or shall I stay?” when you know the relationship is damaging you, then it’s likely that you are addicted to the narcissist through a trauma bond.
How could this happen, I hear you ask yourself.
Trauma bonds occur when we go through periods of intense love and excitement with a person followed by periods of abuse, neglect, and mistreatment. The cycle of being devalued and then rewarded over and over, works overtime to create a strong chemical and hormonal bond between a victim and his or her abuser. This is why victims of abuse often describe feeling more deeply bonded to their abuser than they do to people who actually consistently treat them well.
The narcissists abusive behaviour followed by love bombing releases a cocktail of oxytocin, dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin into your system creating a high like a hit of heroin. That’s why it’s so hard to leave, and when you do leave, you have a compulsive need to be with them despite perhaps abuse at every level.
So they have you entrapped, you have become an abuse junkie. Of course this was never intentional on your part, but usually was part of their agenda to gain complete coercive control over you. Here’s the thing, it’s not your fault. Once you understand what’s happened in your brain, you can begin to heal.
“How could this happen”
I hear you ask yourself
Anyone who is in an abusive relationship can become trauma bonded to their abuser, but people who experienced traumatic relationships as children may be more prone to these types of bonds. After all, we already experienced these types of relationships with our parents or other caregivers, so our nervous system is already primed up to fall into the cycle. Basically, we are set up to tolerate abuse because this was our norm. To get out of this pattern we need to work with our Inner Child, that young part of us that had to tolerate the abuse to survive. The difference is, we’re now capable adults not young children and we can work through what we are carrying from our past that no longer serves us.
Do any of these sound like you?
• You want to leave someone, but you simply cannot bring yourself to cut them out of your life.
• You’re in a relationship that you would never want any of your loved ones to be in.
• The person has some characteristics that remind you of a toxic parent or another caregiver.
• You find yourself trying to get back to the past
• You’re justifying behaviour that you know is wrong.
If they do, you’re most likely stuck in a trauma bond.
Healing is a journey, but please know you’re not alone!
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