Shawshanking 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.
