If you've ever thought, "I know they were wrong for me, so why do I still want them back?" this video is for you. ❤️ #traumabond #narcissisticabuse #emotionalabuse #HealingJourney #toxicrelationships

A bad relationship hurts while you're in it but a trauma bond hurts long after it's over. And here's how to tell the difference because a trauma bond isn't just an unhealthy relationship. It's an unhealthy attachment during the relationship and it forms through these cycles of pain and then relief and then hope and then disappointment and just emotional dependency overall. And it's not necessarily what you feel after the relationship ends. It's the source of what keeps you stuck because a trauma bond is built on intermittent reinforcement. You don't get love and affection from them consistently, you get it kind of sporadically. And the same person who hurts you becomes the only person that can give you comfort. So instead of the mistreatment pushing you away, the trauma bond of it all is that it actually pulls you closer. So here are three ways to know if it's a bad relationship or if it's actually a trauma bond. Number one, you might know that they're wrong for you but you still feel this very big pull towards them. Most people leaving a bad relationship are like, okay, this hurts but I know it's for the best. With a trauma bond, your head and your heart are constantly at odds. You know they lied, you know they hurt you, you know the relationship wasn't healthy but you still want them back. Number two, the worse they treated you, the harder you worked to save the relationship. Most people become less invested when they're repeatedly mistreated but in a trauma bond, the opposite happens. You give them more chances, you try harder, you explain a way they're behavior. You keep believing that if you could just get back to the version of them that you fell in love with, everything would be okay. Number three, this is the biggest one, you spend more time analyzing yourself than analyzing them. Instead of you asking, why did they keep hurting me, you're asking yourself, was I too sensitive? What if I had handled it differently? Did I ask for it too much? And that's one of the biggest signs that what you're dealing with isn't just heartbreak, it's a trauma bond and the focus shifts away from their behavior onto your perceived failures. And that's one of the biggest reasons why trauma bonds are so hard to break because you're not trying to just leave the relationship, you're trying to untangle yourself from the belief that the problem was you.