Shawshanking Yourself Free Of A Trauma Bond With A Narcissist

A relationship with a narcissist consists of layers which, much like endless cloud cover, eventually shroud your days in darkness.

It begins with a bright fantasy, as the narcissist conjures grand visions of love, deep connection, family, success and boundless adventure.

Meanwhile, the narcissist combines this with love bombing, which gradually entangles and suffocates you in a spider web of attachment.

The narcissist then fills your every waking minute with their voice, desires and presence. Every inch of real estate in your mind and soul becomes theirs, leaving you unable to imagine a life without them.

The final layer is intermittent reinforcement, where the narcissist flip-flops from showering you with care, hope and attention, to terrorising, humiliating, confusing, manipulating, abusing and gaslighting you. Much like the person who sits for hours on end in front of a slot machine pulling the lever, you become addicted to the narcissist, hoping that the ideal fantasy they sold you and sprinkled into your life will magically replace their abusiveness for good. That is, you hope to ‘hit the jackpot’ with the narcissist — a jackpot which they promised you.

These four layers meshed together form a trauma bond; a dystopian, pain-filled ‘love’ which targets of narcissism find near-impossible to break free from. As is the case with all narcissistic relationships, a person eventually reaches a point where the pain becomes greater than the pleasure. The fantasy flickers and morphs into a nightmare, while harsh reality seeps in through the cracks.

It is at this point that you might decide to leave the relationship. Yet making a conscious choice is one thing, following through is another. Once the trauma bond has set in, it permeates your mind, body and soul. It is like you have stared into Medusa’s eyes and turned to stone. Every time you try to leave or move on, you are flooded by aches, longings, doubts, fear and yearnings which pull you back into the narcissist’s sphere. It seems like you will never find freedom.

However, by working within the layers of the trauma bond, a person can find hidden doorways out of the pain and confusion. Emanating through these doors are rays of light, shining the way to freedom and transformation.

The four-step process to breaking free of a trauma bond is as follows:

Expose The Fantasy

Targets of narcissism become emotionally attached to the potential of their relationship. That is, they fall in love with the idea of the narcissist.

During the heady first months of their relationship to the narcissist, they feel amazing. They are filled with hope, dopamine and audacity. They build a house of cards in their imagination filled with everything their relationship could be. Because the narcissist is so certain, so energised and so confident in this vision, it gradually becomes what the relationship will be.

Flickers in this fantasy show when the narcissist’s true nature breaks through, which happens more and more after the initial honeymoon period wanes.

The first step in breaking a trauma bond is to make a list of all the things which excited you about the relationship, and then consider how grounded in reality they were. Many elements of a narcissistic relationship are fuelled by dopamine. Sex, emotionally-charged language, declarations of love, musings about your ‘bright’ future together; these all cloud your consciousness and have you falling in love with a fantasy.

Take the time to meditate on this. It is a process of moving in and out of reality until you are ready to face the full weight of it.

Weaken Your Attachment

Attachment is an invisible umbilical cord that helps us to deeply connect with someone, makes us feel safe, and allows us to get our needs met. When used responsibly, it can be the foundation of an empowering relationship.

In the case of a narcissistic relationship, attachment becomes an enormous liability. This is because breaking away from someone you are attached to is incredibly painful. So you remain with them to avoid the howling aches and sleepless nights of a broken attachment which has remained intact within you.

Attachment is also a liability because it makes you more vulnerable and susceptible to the narcissist’s influence, manipulation and control. Therefore, it is crucial to weaken your attachment as part of the process of breaking free of the trauma bond.

First, you need to understand how attachment is created via activating strategies. Examples of activating strategies which aim to strengthenattachment are:

• Physical closeness and touch.

• Divulging your feelings and inner state.

• Thinking positively of the other person and focussing on their good qualities.

• Refusing to see the other person’s flaws.

• Remaining in constant contact, including calling and texting often as well as spending lots of time together.

• Putting someone on a pedestal while seeing yourself as beneath them.

• Giving the person preferential treatment over others.

Next, you need to know how to dismantle an attachment via deactivating strategies. Examples of deactivating strategies which aim to weakenattachment are:

• Physically isolating yourself or withholding touch.

• Sharing less than the other person about your feelings and inner state.

• Cutting off your emotions and communicating superficially.

• Reducing contact by calling or texting less, or by going missing.

• Setting harsh boundaries.

• Blaming the other person when things go wrong.

• Judging the other person as inferior, flawed or unworthy in some way.

• Letting down or mistreating the other person to create emotional hurt in them.

To weaken your attachment to a narcissist, you will need to reduce activating strategies as much as possible, and deactivate more.

However, this is not to be done in a manipulative or hurtful way. Rather than blaming the narcissist, judging them as inferior or mistreating them, you simply need to create a list of all the flaws in your relationship, and keep it close. Whenever you feel yourself longing for the narcissist, or wanting to reach out, go over the list again and remind yourself of all the hurtful and painful things they did to you. Go deeper and be honest about all the ways the narcissist fell short of being a humble, loyal and value-driven partner.

Be careful not to activate the attachment by ruminating on all the ‘good things’ — which were likely based in fantasy. Focus on the reality of the relationship, which if it was narcissistic, will consist of countless betrayals, frustrations, manipulations and abuses. Focus on the narcissist’s flaws and shortcomings. See the narcissist for what they are, which will help you move toward the next stage.

Fall

Once you expose the fantasy elements of your relationship with the narcissist and sufficiently deactivate your attachment to them, you will be met with the underlying pain and emptiness which the relationship distracted you from.

A difficult truth about toxic relationships is that we get into them to shield ourselves from the trauma we carry, as well as the deficiencies of our lives. Loving an ‘ideal’ person is a convenient way to transcend our past and our pain, and to hide from the spectre of terror and death.

With every trauma bond comes the inevitable fall — a period where you need to face the void inside and all the pain that comes howling out of it. With this pain comes the desperate desire to contact the narcissist, to activate the attachment again in a desperate attempt to relieve your pain and restore the sustenance for your inner emptiness.

The upcoming final stage will help you deal with this, but there is something crucial to remember: You have to allow yourself to fall.

The emergence of the void is in fact your doorway to freedom. Within the darkness, the light awaits you. Within the pain lies transcendence and growth. Keeping this in mind as you suffer the ‘dark night of the soul’ is crucial. Breaking a trauma bond will hurt, but this is a good thing (Even if it doesn’t feel that way).

Address The Core Addiction

Often when the pain and emptiness are at their worst, you will have the strongest longings to restore your relationship. In order to relieve the pain, you find yourself fantasising about and idealising the relationship. This is the crucial moment where you either fall back into the narcissist’s dystopian sphere, or find lasting freedom. What you choose here will make or break the entire process.

Focussing on your list of relationship flaws and abuses is a powerful way to sober you. By remembering the pain, confusion and frustration of the relationship, you are less inclined to return. Furthermore, the fantasy has to contend with reality, which dampens its potency and hold over you.

The trauma bond can feel like a terrible knot inside your heart. Every time you try to untangle it, it becomes even more knotted. This is because the trauma bond is an addiction, and must be treated as such.

Begin by activating your attachment to non-romantic others in your circle. Share your feelings with a therapist, and spend quality time with a friend. Pursue a spiritual practice. Fill the emptiness with God as you understand God. Spend time immersed in nature. Do breathing exercises. Meditate. Do yoga. Do sports. Join a class or a support group. By getting your core needs met anywhere but through the narcissist, you will eventually untangle the knot and find peace and healing.

Breaking out of a trauma bond is much like leaving prison. Having been institutionalised for so long, you forget what life outside was like. Fear, uncertainty and pain can threaten to pull you back into the illusory security of a narcissistic relationship. The work begins when you break out.

Yet this is beautiful work. Finding your freedom from a trauma bond is not about what you lose, but what you gain. By focussing your energy on discovering meaning and true, vulnerable love, you can shatter the trauma bond for good. Above all, by doing ‘the work’, you will finally have a chance to release your lifelong pain.

The final step when you have smelt that free air will be to reach your hand back inside, grasp your vulnerable inner child’s tiny hand, and pull them out as well. And with that, your freedom will be complete: You will be whole again.

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Browse more of my articles:

Narcissistic Relationships | Knowing The Narcissist | Abuse Recovery | The Narcissistic Family| Exploring Narcissism | Borderline & Histrionic

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