Loss and the trauma that follows a loss are not easy to overcome, but we can overcome them. We may have all experienced some sort of trauma in our lives, whether it was a car accident, a house fire or natural disaster like a tornado or a hurricane, divorce or the death of a friend or family member, being the victim of a violent crime or a victim of domestic violence.
It's been years since I was abused but for those of you who are new to my journal, being a victim and then a survivor is what started my healing. In my own life, I knew Aydan (the fictitious name of the man who abused me) had gone too far ... or I never would have called the law in the first place. It broke my heart. I didn't understand why I was so worried about Aydan and his feelings when he had already proven vividly how little he cared about mine? I had taken "ownership" of caring for Aydan and even though the relationship was OVER and I knew it, I still felt like it was "my job" to take care of him! This man pointed a loaded shotgun at me and I still felt like I needed to finish painting his living room and plant the shrubs at his house!
Crazy!
You might have found yourself in a similar place ... Or you may have a friend or family member who is going through something similar. It doesn't make any more sense to the one who is in the relationship then it does to someone who is watching the relationship. If anyone had asked me back then, "Why?", I could not have given an answer because I didn't know why.
I went in search of my own answers and some of those answers might help you understand what is happening to you or a loved one.
Dr. Carnes says, "There is always something kind, noble or redeeming about someone who has betrayed you. Victims of betrayal will hold to those good things even while the world crashes in around them." My world was crashing in around me when I found this book. The book is 11.95 and available on-line or at any bookstore. The 144 questions starting on page 37 are worth the 12.00! There was a post traumatic stress self-test on page 37 that was helpful ... I took it. I answered the questions honestly. I was surprised at my own answers and the results. Sometimes, we have no choice but to face reality ...
This is where I was at ... Now, what was I going to do about it?
BETRAYAL BOND
Breaking Free Of Exploitive Relationships
by Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D.
Betrayal. A breach of trust. Fear. What you thought was true - counted on to be true - was not. It was just smoke and mirrors, outright deceit and lies. Sometimes it was hard to tell because there was enough truth to make everything seem right. Even a little truth with just the right spin can cover the outrageous ...
Betrayal. You can't explain it away anymore. A pattern exists. You know that now. You can no longer return to the way it was (which was never really what it seemed). That would be unbearable. But to move forward means certain pain. No escape. No in-between. Choices have to be made today, not tomorrow. The usual ways you numb yourself will not work. The reality is too great, too relentless.
Betrayal. A form of abandonment. Often the abandonment is difficult to see because the betrayer can be still close, even intimate, or maybe intruding in your life. Yet your interests, your well-being is continually sacrificed.
Abandonment is at the core of addictions. Abandonment causes deep shame. Abandonment by betrayal is worse than mindless neglect. Betrayal is purposeful and self-serving. If severe enough, it is traumatic. What moves betrayal into the realm of trauma is fear and terror. If the wound is deep enough, and the terror big enough, your bodily systems shift to an alarm state. You no longer feel safe.
You're on full alert, just waiting for the hurt to begin again. In that state of readiness, you're unaware that apart of you has died. You are grieving. Like everyone who has loss, you have shock and disbelief, fear, loneliness and sadness. Yet, you are unaware of these feelings because your guard is up.
In your readiness, you abandon yourself. Yes, another abandonment.
But that is not the worst. The worst is a mind-numbing, highly addictive attachment to the people who have hurt you. You may even try to explain and help them understand what they are doing - convert them to non-abusers. You may even blame yourself, your defects, your failed efforts. You strive to do better as your life slips away in a swirl of intensity. These attachments cause you to distrust your own judgment, distort your own realities and place yourself at even greater risk. The great irony? You are bracing yourself against further hurt. The result? The guarantee of more pain. These attachments have a name. They are called betrayal bonds. These occur when a victim bonds with someone who is destructive to her.
Adult survivors of abuse and dysfunctional families struggle with bond that are rooted in their own betrayal experiences. Loyalty to that which does not work, or worse, to a person who is toxic, exploitive or destructive to you is a form of insanity.
Betrayal Bond?
- When everyone around you has strong negative reactions, yet you continue covering up, defending or explaining a relationship.
- When there is a constant pattern of nonperformance and yet you continue to believe false promises.
- When there are repetitive, destructive fights that nobody wins.
- When others are horrified by something that has happened to you and you are not.
- When you obsess over showing someone that he or she is wrong about you, your relationship or the person's treatment of you.
- Whenyou feel stuck because you know what the other person is doing is destructive but believe you cannot do anything about it.
- When you feel loyal to someone even though you harbor secrets that are damaging to others.
- When you move closer to someone you know is destructive to you with the desire of converting them to a non-abuser.
- When someone's talents, charisma or contributions cause you to overlook destructive, exploitive or degrading acts.
- When you cannot detach from someone even though you do not trust, like or care for the person.
- When you find yourself missing a relationship, even to the point of nostalgia and longing, that was so awful, it almost destroyed you.
- When extraordinary demands are placed upon you to measure up as a way to cover up that you have been exploited.
- When you keep secret someone's destructive behavior toward you because of all the good they have done or the importance of their position or career.
- When the history of your relationship is about contracts or promises that have been broken and that you are asked to overlook.
If you are reading this book (or journal), a clear betrayal has probably happened in your life. Chances are that you have also bonded with the person or persons who have let you down. Now, here is the important part:
YOU WILL NEVER MEND
THE WOUND WITHOUT DEALING
WITH THE BETRAYAL BOND.
Like gravity, you may defy it for a while, but ultimately it will pull you back. You cannot walk away from it. Time alone will not heal it. Burying yourself in compulsive and addictive behaviors will bring no relief, just more pain. Being crazy will not make it better. No amount of therapy, long-term or short-term, will help without confronting it. Your ability to have a spiritualexperience will be impaired. Any form of conversion or starting over only postpones the inevitable. And there is no credit for feeling sorry for yourself. You must acknowledge, understand and come to terms with the relationship.
Betrayal can bring forth every issue, secret and unfinished business a person has, all of which are important. Further, fear and crisis are often part of the scene. So the immediate problems come first. As a result, the betrayal bond itself may be ignored.
Signs that trauma bonds exist in your life:
- When you obsess about people who have hurt you and they are long gone (obsess means preoccupied, fantasize about and wonder about even though you do not want to).
- When you continue to seek contact with people who you know will cause you further pain.
- When you go "overboard" to help people who have been destructive to you.
- When you continue being a "team" member when obviously things are becoming destructive.
- When you continue attempts to get people who are clearly using you to like you.
- When you again and again trust people who have proved to be unreliable.
- When you are unable to distance yourself from unhealthy relationships.
- When you want to be understood by those who clearly do not care.
- When you choose to stay in conflict with others when it would cost you nothing to walk away.
- When you persist in trying to convince people that there is a problem and they are not willing to listen.
- When you are loyal to people who have betrayed you.
- When you are attracted to untrustworthy people.
- When you keep damagingsecrets about exploitation or abuse.
- When you continue contact with an abuser who acknowledges no responsibility.
How do trauma bonds become addictive?
The answer is in the same way other addictions work. The criteria for addiction are the following:
- Compulsivity: loss of the ability to choose freely whether to stop or continue a behavior.
- Continuation of the behavior despite adverse consequences such as loss of health, job, marriage or freedom.
- Obsession with the behavior.
Betrayal, addiction and trauma weave a design of continually recycled wounds that create an overarching pattern of compulsive relationships.
11 ways that trauma bonds are made stronger:
- when there are repetitive cycles of abuse.
- when the victim and the victimizer believe in their own uniqueness.
- when high intensity is mistaken for intimacy.
- when there is confusion about love.
- when there are increasing amounts of fear.
- when children are faced with terror.
- when there is a history of abuse.
- when exploitation endures over time.
- when the community, family or social structure reacts in the extremes.
- when there is a familiar role and script to be fulfilled.
- whenvictims and victimizers switch rolesof rescue and abuse.
For successful recovery, the victim has to be able to break through denial and see the compulsive patterns for what they are ... When you live with someone dangerous, you learn to keep the waters smooth. Thus there exists a web of rules against anger and a deep, almost preverbal, primitive fear of holding an abuser accountable ... Every person who has experienced compulsive relationship behavior has had consequences because of that behavior.
You certainly should have felt anger, maybe even enough anger that you are determined to change your patterns ... No more will you disbelieve the obvious and believe the improbable. In the future, your anger will make you intolerant of being exploited and used ... You may also have feelings of sadness, loss and regret. Knowing your own hurt and expressing that hurt is critical to healing. First of all the sadness moves the survivor beyond the anger. Sometimes, those in trauma bonds hold on to the anger as a way to stay connected to the abuser.
An example would be the divorcing couple who start off expressing their anger and telling stories about why they are angry to all their friends. One partner, however, moves beyond that point and realizes, that she, too, has significant responsibility for what happened. This partner learns from her experiences and goes on to reconstruct her life. The other partner stays stuck in the anger, and years later is still telling the blaming stories to anyone who will listen.
That partner has used anger to stay in the relationship, and is probably too scared to accept the pain of loss.
By blaming the other for the problems in his life, the blaming partner can prevent the actual acceptance of the loss of the relationship or the losses caused by the relationship. HEALTHY anger expresses limitations. BLAMING anger recycles the history of betrayal and all the intense feelings that are a part of a trauma bond.
It (anger and blaming) is a negative way to keep the old person around.
To finally grieve means to accept that your life did not turn out the way you wanted, the way you deserved or the way it should have. Those who are trauma bonded have to accept not only the reality of compulsive relationships but also the accumulated losses in their lives going back to whatever created the original working model for relationships.
GOD GRANT ME THE SERENITY
TO ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE,
THE COURAGE
TO CHANGE THE THINGS I CAN,
AND THE WISDOM
TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.
They were able to transform suffering into meaning! I believe survivors of any form of abuse have that essential task. Out of the incredible pain comes clarity of belief and depth of purpose. They become people of substance, with no more tolerance of living in the lie. They know evil for what it is and arm themselves with rituals that keep meaning close to their hearts. They have a high regard for that which connects, and reject all that divides or hides. Inescapable pain creates enduring honesty and accountability.
Do you want things to be different?
Trauma bonds can be disrupted when healthy bonds are available ... Finding supportive healthy relationships is the foundation of recovery ... Support is the ground floor of any recovery effort ... People who specialize in helping these survivors with their trauma have found that the first part of recovery is to give a detailed description of what happened to a sympathetic audience ... By telling their story, they are "reunited" with other humans who care for them. It now means something to survive.
Dr. Carnes offers several good exercises in his book that will help take you consciously through recovery. You can take your time thinking about the questions and how you will answer. You can work on your recovery at your own pace.
Recovery?
There really isn't a better choice, you know? If you were hiking in the wilderness and broke your leg, you would have to DO SOMETHING. You couldn't just get up and walk away, pretending nothing happened! Even after you tended to the leg, you would have to make changes in your routine and give your leg time to heal.
There are no shortcuts.
You can't rush the healing.
In fact, no one really knows exactly when we will be totally healed because everyone heals differently. Just because life has been this painful so far doesn't mean it has to keep hurting. Life doesn't have to hurt so much, and it won't - if we begin to change. It may not be all roses from here on out, but it doesn't have to be all thorns either. We need to and can develop our own lives.
Getting our balance and keeping it once we have found it is what recovery is all about. If that sounds like a big order, don't worry.
We can do it!
We can learn to live again.
