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Today in therapy I learnt about trauma bonding in romantic relationships and how the influence Covid has.(THREAD)
So trauma bonding relationship is reflective of an attachment that is created by repeated physical or emotional trauma with intermittent positive reinforcement.
So basically to put it simply, when in a relationship with trauma bonding, there’s “la lot of really terrible stuff that happens and then occasionally really great stuff happening.
That’s why in cases of domestic violence or abuse, a lot of people have difficulty leaving abusers, because they have a strong connection to them that is able to keep them there even when things are very bad
There’s a whole physiological explanation why trauma bonding happens, but in summary it happens due to the body’s natural stress response. ( fight or flight part)
When you become stressed, your body activates the “fight or flight” stress response. When that part in the brain is in control, the parts of our brain that do things like long-term planning or risk analysis in our prefrontal cortex are shut off
So when this happens the person being traumatized by abuse is not able to be as effective because their brain is focused on just getting them through this trauma.
This helps to explain why it is so easy to become attached to anything that helps you get through a traumatic event: your brain associates that thing or person with safety.
So, when an abusive person decides to comfort you or apologize—even though they put you through the trauma your brain latches on to the positive reinforcement rather than thinks through the long-term effects of staying with the abuser.
Or when you and your partner go through a traumatic experience togther ie a death, abortion etc and Ofcause he is amazing and supportive togther even though he is a Shitty person your brain attaches his presence as “safe”.
Covid 19 is actually defined as a traumatic experience.
because there’s a very real threat of death from just leaving your house. To survive this threat, we’ve isolated but that is not how humans are designed to operate,so in this way trauma bond relationships can form
So when you start seeing someone during Covid the only way to see your partner is by living with them and they create a safe space & then during this time, we might not reinforce the boundaries that we usually would when we first start dating someone.
This can result in missing red flags or manipulative behaviors, and then, once toxic or abusive behavior unfolds, you may not react like you normally do.
Eish I wish I can continue but I’m triggered all over again. So I’m gonna stop 
Those in my DM’s asking about my therapist, her name is Antoinette Nicolaou, been with her for almost 2 years. She’s amazing! [email protected]
