We believe in functional mental wellness, a holistic approach to mental health. We know that there's hope for those of us who have experienced trauma, even profound trauma and that's why we created the universe is your therapist podcast, we believe whether you call it God, the universe, source, unity or love that there is something much greater than us that conspires for our good, we envision a world of healing and connection, and we teach you simple but powerful practices that integrate your mind, body and spirit so that you can come home to your highest self and your truest identity. You are not broken, you are loved, and you can heal. My name is Amy Hoyt, and together with my sister, Lena, we will take you on a journey of healing and self discovery.
In fact, sometimes feeling comfortable is a red flag.
Hi, on today's episode, we're talking about trauma bonds. And this episode is for anyone who's in a romantic relationship or wants to be in a romantic relationship. We cover how trauma bonds are actually our nervous system and our subconscious or autonomic responses to the environment we were raised in and how they can be mimicked, we also give you some tips on what to do if you find yourself in a relationship that is characterized by trauma bonds, as well as what to do to kind of avoid that dynamic and how to do some interventions for that. We hope you enjoy this. This is a wonderful episode for us to record, because we have personal experience with it as well. So Lena, what are trauma bonds,
trauma bonds are it well, it's a concept that came out of the addiction world, Dr. Patrick Carnes out of Arizona, he was working at The Meadows rehab facility, and he came up with the concept of trauma bonds, and trauma bonds comes out of the work of Dr. Patrick Carnes. And he worked for years as a psychologist at the meadows in Arizona, and it's a rehab facility. And he started to notice that a lot of the patients that he worked with, would end up in really problematic relationships. And when he explored further, he realized that what was happening is that when he explored, when he explored further, he realized that what was happening is that these people were accidentally recreating some of the chaos of their childhood. And they were accidentally or inadvertently picking partners, that mimicked an abusive parent. And there was no conscious awareness of this. But he started to pay attention to that. And that awareness has helped us understand some of why we choose the partners, romantic partners that
we do. And I think what's so interesting about this idea of trauma bonds is this is way before we knew about CO regulation and mirror neurons. And so he identified a pattern that we now know, is part of a physiological response as well,
yes. And I think we knew about mirror neurons, but I don't know that we understood exactly what role they play in terms of our most significant relationships.
That makes sense. Okay, so example of a trauma bond would be, I'm thinking of growing up in an abusive home. And then you, you know, perhaps, just theoretically, a violent home. Y'all know, we grew up in a violent home. So when I was growing up in an abusive home, I got sober. And then when I got married the first time, I chose accidentally, without any conscious awareness, a violent partner. And so what what that looks like is, it feels familiar, and it feels comfortable. And that sense of familiarity. And comfort doesn't necessarily mean that it's optimal for us, right? So I choose a violent partner, it comes out in the marriage after you know, several months, and I can't figure out why did I do this? I know better. Right? And so for me, it was a clue that I needed to do some more work and some more healing. But I'm curious, what are you seeing with your patients in terms of trauma bonds and how do you guide a client toward As a new choice,
what I have noticed is that it's immensely helpful for people to understand that this was their nervous system that was doing the picking, that it wasn't a conscious choice. And one of the things that the brain does in order to feel better about how events happen is it we've, the brain thinks that it blames itself. So if I'm that fault, then I can make sure it never happens again, because I'm going to do a much better job next time, I'm going to be more perfect. Or I'm going to be more calm or more funny or more skinny, or whatever it is. And it's a way that the brain helps calm itself down after a difficult event. So when we have an understanding that we did not pick this on purpose, that it didn't come from a conscious or willful choice, then we can start understanding with compassion, self compassion, how we end up in these relationships. And when we when we realize that instead of being mean and hypercritical of ourselves, we can then start being benevolently curious about why this felt so familiar. And why we ended up in a relationship that may have mimicked something in our childhood that we swore we would never end up in.
That's really helpful. What what is something if you have a client that comes in to the office for a session, and they've already married the person, or they're already in a long term partnership? What can they do in order to address this?
I firmly believe that unless there's an act of abuse currently happening, that one partner in a relationship can change the dynamic of the relationship. If there is active abuse occurring, and it's not stopping, then no matter what you do, you can't change the dynamic of the relationship because of the abuse. And so I want my clients to figure out how to be better at emotion regulation, how to calm down their nervous system, and how and, and encourage them to explore ways for them to interact with their current partner or spouse in a way that is more balanced. So instead of going into a fawn response, or into a freeze response, I'm looking to help my clients manage their nervous system responses so that when they engage with their partner, they're engaging from a different angle. They're engaging from a different awareness or place emotionally.
I think that's really, really important. And I love that if there's not active abuse, the priority is to keep the relationship intact, and to change the way that the connection is happening so that it's more optimal. What about someone like me, who got into a marriage and then realized, oh, my gosh, I accidentally just married the same dynamic, and I'm actually not safe. What? How would you handle that? Because I know how my therapist handled it when I started seeking help
for that. What did your therapist suggest? Well, he actually had
me start going to we women escaping a violent environment. And I was so insulted when he suggested it. Because part of that cycle of violence in that dynamic is of course, denial, right? So when I started going to weave there, it was kind of like starting a where there, your initial meeting, there's a lot of I do not belong here, these people are not me. And then the longer I went, I started seeing more connection points and realizing, Oh, this is troublesome. My relationship is problematic. And so being open to what my therapist encouraged me to do was important. And also just sticking with it when the first meeting didn't seem like it was relevant was really important.
And that's really impressive. When I'm talking to people that I coach, I encourage them to attend these these types of things four times in four weeks so that they can get used to it before they make a decision about whether or not it's helpful for them. And something you said brought up the idea for me about how difficult it is to be a loved one on the outside of an abusive relationship when you're terrified for the safety of the person you love. And unfortunately, with trauma bonds, they're they don't respond to logic. So some of the some of the things are the theories that have been promoted around trauma bonds I'm not sure I agree with. One such theory is that trauma bonds occur when we are waiting for the other person or seeking for the other person to meet all of our needs. I actually think it's a much more basic nervous system response that is not about codependence, it's about safety. And if you're comfortable with chaos, then you're going to date and marry chaos. And so when we understand that the nervous system is the one driving the bus, the subconscious nervous system, then we can start to become more aware. And those who have loved ones in abusive situations, please know that no amount of logic will help. It doesn't matter what you say to the person. Because one of the one of the most significant things about trauma bonds is the person who hurts you is also the person who comforts you.
Yes, and that is definitely part of the cycle of violence. Whether that's emotional violence, physical violence, sexual violence, it is the incident of abuse followed by deep regret of the abuser, right and a sincere apology, right. And a, an attempt to repair and the abuser has no intention of abusing again. Correct. And so it is sincere, and then the cycle begins again, because they need professional help. Yes, that's one of the things that, you know, as the abuser, you're not going to be able to get out of that without someone to teach you some skills.
Absolutely. Because, as we've talked about so much on our podcast, and in our work together, the when we're in our prefrontal cortex or our wise mind, we truly do not intend to ever make a maladaptive move again, we really don't. And so if you don't have somebody who can help you soothe your nervous system and can help you find ways to engage differently, then you're going to continue to abuse even if you have no intention of doing that, because you are reenacting what you experienced in early life.
That's right. I think one of the things that I want to address with trauma bonds that I found very startling, in my own personal experience is the feeling of discomfort when dating someone who wasn't abusive and wasn't chaotic. Yes. And I think this is so important, because I think this is one of my biggest lessons as an adult. Is that my nervous system when I'm when I was dating my current husband, my nervous system was telling me to get out. He was too calm. He was boring. my nervous system and my brain. Were telling me these things. Yeah. And so I kept trying to end the relationship because it didn't feel comfortable. Yes. And that goes against a lot of the popular culture. terminology we use, you know, I don't feel comfortable or I do feel comfortable and sometimes feeling comfortable. Isn't our litmus test.
Correct. In fact, sometimes feeling comfortable is a red flag.
Okay, so here's my question, because obviously, I got through the discomfort. And through a lot of prayer and meditation about I knew I wanted to make a different choice. I knew that this was a good person, and I couldn't figure out why. I couldn't feel that. I mean, I knew it logically. But my nervous system was like, Get out of here. So through for me, it was a lot of meditation and prayer and talking it out with people I really trust. And of course, I you know, we've been married 21 years now and I thank God every single day for this man who is calm and kind and completely different than how I was raised. But how, as a therapist or as a mental health professional, how do we coach people? How do we let people know that If they have experienced early childhood abuse, and they're dating, and their nervous system is saying, This guy's boring, or this woman is so not my type, how do we know? What's the intervention for our listeners here to know whether it's a red flag, or it's just not a good fit romantically.
One thing to really keep in mind that I think is vitally important is that most of us seek relationship advice from the people we are close to. And most of the time, not always. But most of the time, the people we are close to, are not well qualified to give us healthy or productive relationship advice. And so sometimes we'll go to somebody and seek some feedback about something. And you mentioned earlier, the popular culture which which is very invested in, do what feels right and do what makes you happy. And the challenge that can occur with that is that we have long term happiness versus short term happiness. And if we're wired to engage with somebody romantically who's dangerous and chaotic, then doing what makes you happy, in that arena, will bring you a lot of pain and sorrow. When we can understand the patterns in our lives and why we do things, and then we can start seeking out ways to heal our nervous system, then we start opening up opportunities for new choices, and our partners. And at first, it is boring, it is to calm it is not exciting. But that's not because it truly is boring and not exciting. It's because the nervous system has been so amped up by our childhood experiences, that anything that's not chaotic, or big or reactive, just doesn't seem you don't feel much, there's just doesn't seem a lot of passion. And I think sometimes we mix up passion, with love. And those are two different things.
I appreciate that distinction. So as a listener, if you are listening, and you're thinking, I feel so comfortable with this person. And there haven't been any red flags at all. But if you have your own childhood trauma, it would be excellent for you to go into the relationship without recognition that there may be some subconscious autonomic patterns that are going on. And then we have a quiz on our website mending trauma.com. And that will walk you through whether you do have childhood trauma, and that can help you understand if that's something you do need to be concerned about. Now, we're not saying every relationship where you feel comfortable is dangerous. We're not saying that at all. We're saying sometimes comfort or immediate happiness isn't the litmus test and we want to seek if we have any questions, seek advice from someone who's a qualified mental health professional, to guide us and be aware that those feelings of being bored could be in fact a nervous system response. Well, thank you so much. We hope this episode was helpful for you and we will see you next time. Take care. If you want to talk further about this reach out at Hello at many trauma.com we are also so up to listening to any of your ideas for future episodes. Go ahead and share and we would love for you to rate this podcast as well if you found value with it, and we will see you next episode where we discuss people pleasing and how that relates to our trauma responses. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you want
