We are told to stop fixating, face the fear of moving on, focus on yourself, and that time heals all wounds.

When in fact, the symptoms of a traumatic reaction to a trauma bond make these very things feel nearly impossible.

What’s more, when taken in the context of trauma bonding, prolonged grief over the loss of a relationship is far from irrational, even when that relationship was a toxic one. If you feel more stunned and immobilized as time wears on, this is the reaction of your organism actually working to protect you from a perceived, ongoing threat.

You are not crazy. Your body’s physiological state is just trying to communicate with you in a way that you may not quite understand yet.

Let me help you understand it.

What Is Trauma Bonding? (The Real Definition)

Trauma bonding is a psychological response to abuse where the victim forms an unhealthy emotional attachment to their abuser.

It’s not about loving someone deeply. It’s about your nervous system becoming addicted to the cycle of abuse, relief, abuse, relief—over and over until your brain literally rewires itself to crave the very person who’s destroying you.

According to Patrick Carnes, who developed this concept in “The Betrayal Bond,” trauma bonds are the dysfunctional attachments that occur in the presence of danger, shame, or exploitation. Trauma bonds occur when we are bonding to the very person who is the source of danger, fear, and exploitation.

They involve:

• Seduction followed by betrayal
• High intensity (extreme highs and devastating lows)
• An endless sense of helplessness and hopelessness
• Loyalty to an impossible, unresolvable bond
• Disbelieving the obvious and accepting the impossible

Here’s the gut punch that usually gets lost: When you’re in a trauma bond, and the bond “breaks,” the trauma remains.

If you’re a cookie in an Oreo and the other cookie leaves, guess who is stuck with what seems like even more trauma-filling than you started with?

This “trauma filling” can help to explain why your mind, body, and soul are registering a frenetic, obsessive, red level, emergency breaker craving for a toxic ex, toxic relationship, or situation.

Trauma Bonding vs. Love: Know the Difference

Before we go deeper, you need to understand: What you’re feeling is not love. It’s addiction.

If your relationship looks like the left column, you’re not in love. You’re in a trauma bond.

The 7 Stages of Trauma Bonding (And How It Traps You)

Trauma bonds don’t happen overnight. They’re created systematically, often unconsciously by the abuser. Here’s how it works:

Stage 1: Love Bombing

What happens: They come on STRONG. Intense attention, constant contact, overwhelming affection. You’ve never felt this desired, this seen, this special.

What they say:

• “I’ve never met anyone like you”
• “You’re my soulmate”
• “I’ve been waiting for you my whole life”
• “We’re meant to be together”

Red flags you miss:

• Moving too fast emotionally
• Declaring love within days/weeks
• Future faking (talking about marriage, kids, moving in immediately)
• Mirroring everything you say/want
• Isolating you from friends/family (“I just want you all to myself”)

Why it works: Your brain floods with dopamine and oxytocin. You feel euphoric. This creates the “high” that you’ll spend the rest of the relationship chasing.

Stage 2: Trust and Dependency

What happens: You open up completely. You share your fears, insecurities, past traumas, deepest secrets. They make you feel safe enough to be vulnerable.

What you don’t realize: They’re gathering ammunition. Every vulnerability you share will be used against you later.

What’s really happening: You’re becoming dependent on them for validation, security, and emotional regulation. They’re positioning themselves as the only person who “really gets you.”

Stage 3: Criticism

What happens: The shift begins. Subtle at first. A comment here, a “joke” there. You brush it off as them having a bad day.

What they say:

• “I was just kidding, you’re too sensitive”
• “You used to be more fun”
• “You’re acting crazy”
• “My ex never made me feel this way”
• “You’re being dramatic”

How you feel: Confused. Anxious. Like you’re walking on eggshells. You start questioning yourself and trying harder to please them.

Why it works: The criticism makes you work harder for their approval. You become hyper-focused on regaining the “love bombing” phase. Your self-worth becomes dependent on their mood.

Stage 4: Gaslighting

What happens: They deny things you know happened. They rewrite history. They make you question your memory, your perception, your sanity.

What they do:

• Deny saying things you clearly remember
• Accuse you of being “crazy” or “paranoid”
• Tell you you’re “remembering wrong”
• Twist situations so you end up apologizing
• Use your vulnerabilities against you

How you feel: Like you’re losing your mind. You can’t trust your own memory or perception anymore.

Why it works: When you can’t trust yourself, you become completely dependent on them to tell you what’s “real.” This is the point where the trauma bond solidifies.

Stage 5: Resignation

What happens: You give up trying to “fix” things or get them to see your perspective. You accept the relationship for what it is. You stop fighting back.

What you tell yourself:

• “This is just how relationships are”
• “No one’s perfect”
• “At least they’re not as bad as [someone else]”
• “I can’t do better than this”
• “This is my fault”

What’s really happening: Your spirit is breaking. You’re accepting unacceptable treatment as normal. You’re trauma bonded.

Stage 6: Loss of Self

What happens: You don’t recognize yourself anymore. Your interests, opinions, boundaries, dreams—all gone. You exist to manage their moods and meet their needs.

What you’ve lost:

• Hobbies you used to love
• Friends and family relationships
• Your own opinions and preferences
• Your sense of humor
• Your confidence
• Your identity

What you’ve become: A shell. Walking on eggshells. Hypervigilant. Anxious. Controlled. Dependent.

Stage 7: Addiction

What happens: Even if you leave (or they discard you), you can’t stop thinking about them. You crave them physically. You obsess over them constantly. You’d do anything to get them back.

This is withdrawal.

Your brain is chemically addicted to the cycle. The intermittent reinforcement (abuse then affection, abuse then affection) has created stronger neural pathways than consistent love ever could.

You’re not weak. You’re not crazy. You’re addicted.

And like any addiction, breaking free requires understanding what you’re dealing with.

📥 Free Training: The 3-Step ‘No B.S.’ Framework to Break Free from Toxic Relationships and Heal

The Signs of Trauma Bonding (Adapted from Patrick Carnes)

Check how many of these apply to you:

☐ You continue to be fixated on someone who hurt you and who’s no longer in your life

☐ You crave contact with someone who’s hurt you and who you know will cause you more pain

☐ You revolve around people who you know are taking advantage of you or exploiting you

☐ You’re committed to remaining loyal to someone who’s betrayed you, even though their actions indicate few signs of change

☐ You’re desperate to be understood, validated, or needed by those who’ve indicated they don’t care about you

☐ You go to great lengths to help, caretake, or consider people who’ve been destructive to you

☐ You defend their behavior to others despite knowing it’s wrong

☐ You can’t imagine life without them, even though life with them is miserable

☐ You feel like you “understand them in a way no one else does”

☐ You minimize the abuse (“it wasn’t that bad”)

☐ You blame yourself for their behavior

☐ You believe you can “save” or “fix” them

If you checked 3+ of these, you’re likely trauma bonded.

Why You Can’t Just “Leave” or “Get Over It”

Here’s what nobody tells you: Breaking a trauma bond comes with intense withdrawal symptoms.

When you try to leave or stay in no contact, you experience:

Physical Withdrawal:

• Chest pain (actual physical pain in your chest)
• Inability to eat or overeating
• Insomnia or sleeping too much
• Shaking, trembling
• Nausea
• Panic attacks

Psychological Withdrawal:

• Obsessive thoughts about them (every 2-3 minutes)
• Compulsive urge to contact them
• Inability to focus on anything else
• Flashbacks to good times (your brain editing out the bad)
• Cravings for them (like drug cravings)
• Feeling like you’re going crazy

Emotional Withdrawal:

• Grief (overwhelming, debilitating)
• Rage (at them, at yourself)
• Shame (for staying, for caring, for being “weak”)
• Terror (at being alone, starting over)
• Hopelessness (like you’ll feel this way forever)

This is counterintuitive, but these symptoms are confirmation that staying away is imperative to your health.

Your organism knows and reacts, at the core, gut, and instinctual level, when a person or situation is harmful.

All of this DOES NOT mean that your body is trying to indicate that you are forever cosmically tied to that dirtbag who mistreated you.

It means that the trauma that occurred before the relationship, during the relationship, and when the relationship ended, continues to live inside of you as a physiological state, without orientation to time and place.

You are feeling this way because, physiologically, you still don’t feel safe.

The Science: Why Your Body Won’t Let Go

Here’s what’s happening in your nervous system:

The Freeze State

When faced with danger, your body mobilizes tremendous energy to fight or flee. But in a trauma bond, you can neither fight (they’ll leave, gaslight, or punish you) nor flee (you’re financially dependent, emotionally attached, or hope they’ll change).

So you FREEZE.

That tremendous, do-or-die energy doesn’t get released. Instead, your body constricts this incredible bundle of energy and contains it in your nervous system.

You are suspended in a highly mobilized emergency alert state, hypervigilant, brimming with energy that your body now has to manage through:

• Anxiety
• Obsessive thoughts
• Hypervigilance
• Flashbacks
• Physical symptoms

This is trauma.

An example: When you brace yourself during a car accident and later find yourself completely motionless, knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel, adrenaline coursing through you, heart racing, breathing heavily, with almost no memory of the event.

That’s your body in freeze.

Now imagine being in that state for MONTHS or YEARS because you’re in a relationship where you can’t fight or flee. That’s a trauma bond.

Why You Can’t Stop Thinking About Them

Your body is stuck in “trauma repetition review.”

After an animal goes into fight, flight, or freeze and releases the energy, it goes into a review state to figure out what happened and learn from the experience.

Trauma bonded humans also go into this state, except the review occurs while still in a highly anxious state because the energy was never released.

This is why:

• You can’t stop fixating on what occurred
• You have obsessive thoughts
• You replay old scripts constantly
• You feel abandoned and rejected long after it ended

You’re processing the trauma bond while still in a stressed and hyperaroused state.

This is why talking about it, rehashing with friends, and recycling anger doesn’t make you feel better and actually retraumatizes you.

The antidote: Remember that trauma lives in the body as a physiological state. Once activated, it shuts down your ability to process information. There’s nothing wrong with trying to figure out what happened, but doing so while triggered makes you feel like you need to return to the trauma bond.

Hypervigilance: Why You Can’t Stop Scanning for Them

Your body actively searches for the source of the threat, even when one can’t be found.

Your brain remembers:

• How the trauma bond felt
• Who was around
• The danger signals

Even out of the relationship, your brain scans for the source. It lands on the emotionally charged memory and image of someone associated with the trauma bond.

You’re plagued by images of your ex, but NOT because you need them. Because your body remembers them as a source of threat.

How to Break a Trauma Bond (The 7-Step Process)

Breaking a trauma bond isn’t about willpower. It’s about rewiring your nervous system to recognize you’re safe now.

Step 1: Accept That You’re Trauma Bonded

Stop calling it love. Stop romanticizing it. Name it for what it is: a trauma bond created by psychological abuse.

Write this down: “I am not weak for staying. I am not crazy for missing them. I am trauma bonded, and that is a physiological response to abuse, not a character flaw.”

Step 2: Implement Strict No Contact (Non-Negotiable)

This is first and foremost: If you are still in any way involved in the trauma bond, you are not safe.

It may feel like you’ve “hacked it” and you’re over it and ready for contact, but your physiological systems will tell you otherwise.

Block everywhere:

• Phone, text, email
• All social media
• Their friends’ accounts
• Any mutual spaces

No exceptions. No “just checking.” No closure conversations.

For complete guidance: The No Contact Rule: How It Works

Step 3: Ground Yourself in the Present

Trauma robs you of your ability to stay in the present. It drops you in a trance and prevents you from recognizing what you’re feeling.

When you start to feel triggered, remind yourself of where you are in time and space:

“I am [your name]. Today is [date]. I am in [location]. I am safe right now. What happened is in the past. I am not in danger right now.”

Grounding techniques:

• 5-4-3-2-1 sensory exercise (5 things you see, 4 you hear, 3 you feel, 2 you smell, 1 you taste)
• Cold water on your face
• Hold ice cubes
• Intense physical exercise
• Yoga and breathwork
• Meditation
• Journaling
• Time in nature

These won’t instantly release the trauma bond, but they bring awareness to your sensations and feelings, helping you stay present.

Step 4: Separate Past Trauma from Present Reality

Make two lists:

LIST 1: “What I Think I’m Missing” Write everything you miss about them and the relationship.

LIST 2: “The Reality of What Happened” Document specific incidents of:

• Gaslighting
• Manipulation
• Disrespect
• Lies
• Broken promises
• Times they hurt you

Read List 2 every time you romanticize List 1.

Your brain is editing out the bad. Force it to remember the truth.

Step 5: Recognize Your Triggers

Start noticing:

• What triggers obsessive thoughts (stress at work? Loneliness? Seeing couples?)
• When you feel hypervigilant
• When you’re reviewing/processing the relationship in a stressed state
• When flashbacks occur (often in response to current life stressors, not the ex)

Keep a trigger journal:

• Date/time
• What happened
• What you felt
• What you were actually responding to (often NOT the ex, but current stress)

You’ll discover patterns. When you see the patterns, you gain control.

Step 6: Build Safety in Your Current Life

You can’t heal in the same environment that made you sick.

Remove other toxic people and situations:

• Toxic friends who drain you
• Toxic family dynamics
• Toxic work environment
• Any situation where you can’t be yourself

Add safety signals:

• Supportive people who affirm your worth
• Therapy with a trauma-informed therapist
• Support groups
• Routines that ground you
• Physical space that feels safe (redecorate, move, create sanctuary)

When you feel more safe in your current life, the trauma bond weakens.

Step 7: Slowly Release the Stored Trauma Energy

This is the hardest part and requires professional help.

The negative emotions (fear, shame, rage) stored inside you need to be released. But your body internalized them instead of using them to fight or flee.

These emotions aren’t yours. You’re safe now. You no longer need them. But you need a really safe base to slowly release them.

How to release:

Somatic therapy: Works with the body’s stored trauma (EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy)

Trauma-informed therapy: With a therapist who understands trauma bonding (not just regular talk therapy)

Body-based practices:

• Trauma-sensitive yoga
• Breathwork
• Dance/movement therapy
• Martial arts (controlled aggression release)

Journaling the rage:

• Uncensored. Unfiltered. No one will read it.
• Let ALL the anger out on paper
• Scream into a pillow
• Physical release (punch a bag, intense cardio, break dishes in a safe way)

DO NOT:

• Contact your ex to tell them how they hurt you (re-traumatizes you)
• Try to “make them understand” (they can’t/won’t)
• Seek validation from them (perpetuates the bond)

A symptom of being trauma bonded is an intense desire to inform the person who hurt you about your healing. Don’t do that. It will only entrench you further.

Your stored negative energy is not your own, but it’s not your ex’s either. You can’t put it somewhere else. You replace it with the knowledge this energy is no longer necessary to protect you, because you are safe now.

What NOT to Do While Healing from Trauma Bonding

❌ Don’t Rush the Process

Trauma bonds don’t “heal with time” on their own because trauma doesn’t have a sense of time.

Expect 6-18 months of active healing work, not 30-60 days.

❌ Don’t Rebound

You will be tempted to fill the void with someone new. Don’t. You’ll either:

• Recreate the same dynamic (attracted to similar toxicity)
• Trauma bond to someone new
• Use them as a band-aid (unfair to them)

❌ Don’t Believe “Closure” Will Help

You don’t need closure from them. You need distance from them.

Closure is understanding that someone who abused you will never give you the acknowledgment you need. That IS the closure.

❌ Don’t Follow Them on Social Media

Every look is feeding the addiction. Every check resets your healing.

❌ Don’t Try to Be Friends

Friendship with an abuser is impossible. What you’re actually seeking is:

• Access to them (addiction)
• Hope they’ll change (they won’t)
• Validation from them (they can’t give it)

❌ Don’t Blame Yourself

“If only I had been [better/different/more understanding], they would have loved me right.”

Stop. They’re incapable of loving anyone properly. This has nothing to do with you.

How Long Does It Take to Break a Trauma Bond?

The honest answer: 6-18 months of active healing work.

Factors that affect timeline:

• Length of relationship (longer = more time)
• Severity of abuse (more severe = more time)
• Whether you maintain no contact (breaking it resets the clock)
• Your support system (good support = faster healing)
• Whether you do therapy (trauma-informed therapy accelerates healing significantly)
• Prior trauma history (childhood trauma + relationship trauma = longer recovery)

The stages you’ll go through:

Months 1-3: Withdrawal Hell Physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms peak. This is the hardest phase.

Months 4-6: Clarity Emerging The fog lifts. You see the relationship more clearly. Obsessive thoughts decrease by 50-70%.

Months 7-12: Reconstruction You’re rebuilding yourself. You’re setting new boundaries. You’re remembering who you are.

Months 12-18: Freedom They become neutral. A memory. You’re grateful it ended. You’ve transformed.

Don’t expect to never feel triggered. Feeling triggered doesn’t mean you’re “back to square one.” It means you’re experiencing traumatic anxiety, which makes you feel frozen again.

The smallest bit of awareness of what is occurring will help you unfreeze. And this gets more automatic and manageable as you increase awareness.

Frequently Asked Questions About Trauma Bonding

Can a trauma bond turn into real love?

No. Trauma bonds are built on abuse, manipulation, and intermittent reinforcement. Real love is built on safety, respect, and consistency. These are fundamentally incompatible foundations. The relationship would need to completely end, both people would need years of intensive therapy, and they’d essentially need to become different people. At that point, why go back?

Can the abuser be trauma bonded too?

Sometimes, yes. But it’s important to understand that their healing is not your responsibility. Often, what looks like them being “trauma bonded” is actually them losing their source of narcissistic supply (you). Focus on YOUR healing, not analyzing theirs.

How do I know if it’s trauma bonding or just love?

Love feels safe. Trauma bonding feels addictive. Love is consistent. Trauma bonding is a roller coaster. Love makes you more yourself. Trauma bonding makes you lose yourself. If you’re questioning whether you’re trauma bonded, you probably are—healthy relationships don’t make you question your sanity.

Will they trauma bond with their next partner?

Most likely, yes. Abusers have patterns. But their future is not your concern. Your healing is. Let their next partner be someone else’s cautionary tale. You focus on making sure YOU never end up in this situation again.

What if I’m trauma bonded to a family member?

Trauma bonds can form with parents, siblings, or other family members. The healing process is similar, though no contact might be more complicated. Low contact (boundaries with minimal emotional engagement) or structured contact (only at holidays, etc.) might be necessary instead of full no contact.

Can you be trauma bonded to a friend?

Yes. Trauma bonds can form in any relationship involving manipulation, intermittent reinforcement, and power imbalance. The healing process is the same.

What if I go back to them?

On average, it takes 7 attempts to leave an abusive relationship. If you go back, you’re not weak—you’re human. The trauma bond is strong. But understand: each time you go back, the bond gets stronger and harder to break. Use your return as information about what healing work you still need to do.

You Are Not Weak. You Are Trauma Bonded.

Trauma-bonded people are usually the foremost experts on their exes.

In order to survive, you learned to discern mood changes from small facial movements, sideways grunts, or the way they’re standing.

Start becoming this aware of YOURSELF.

Start noticing:

• What triggers you
• When you’re feeling hypervigilant
• When you’re reviewing the relationship in a stressed state
• When flashbacks occur
• What other toxic people/situations in your current life you need to let go of

In becoming aware of this, you may find other toxic bonds falling away. When they do, you’ll feel more ready to be yourself.

When you feel more ready to be yourself, you’ll become less ashamed and more emotionally aware.

You’ll start to recognize which thoughts and emotions aren’t actually yours.

When you separate these, you’ll feel even more safe.

Becoming self-aware is work with a huge payoff, and you’re already so good at doing it with everyone but yourself.

When you separate the past from the present, you will start to have more fun in the present. You will solve present problems better. You will start to feel like yourself again.

You are safe now.

And soon… You will be free.

Your Next Step: Get Professional Support

Breaking a trauma bond requires more than willpower. It requires understanding what you’re dealing with and getting professional help.

If you’re ready to break free:

My book Win Your Breakup: How To Be The One That Got Away includes a complete chapter on trauma bonding and how to heal from toxic relationships.

If you need personalized guidance:

One-on-one coaching with me provides trauma-informed support, accountability, and strategies specific to your situation.

If you need community:

Join the Natasha Adamo Community for ongoing support, courses on healing trauma bonds, and connection with others who understand.

If you need immediate professional help:

Find a trauma-informed therapist who specializes in:

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
• Somatic Experiencing
• Trauma-Focused CBT
• Internal Family Systems (IFS)

You will NOT be the person who longs for the person who mistreated you forever.

But it’s going to be hard to get there if your strategy is to grit your teeth and fight your body’s physiological responses through sheer will, when you’re already frozen in emergency mode.

Be kind to yourself. It’s not easy to let go.

But you can do it.

And when you do, you will be free.

Written by: Natasha Adamo

If you’re looking for further and more specific help; if you’re tired of waiting to be chosen and ready to choose yourself, personalized coaching with Natasha Adamo is the answer. Book your one-on-one session today.

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• How to Move On From Your Ex: Complete Guide
• Red Flags in a Relationship: 27 Warning Signs
• The No Contact Rule: Complete Timeline
• Gaslighting in Relationships: 7 Signs
• How To Deal With A Narcissist
• Why Am I Attracted to Toxic People?
• Codependency: Signs & How to Overcome
• How to Set Boundaries With Toxic People