CCChat April 2025.pdf - Flipbook - Page 29
Feeling insecure is actually a normal
feeling for them so they don’t even
recognise the tenuous nature – love
and pull back, love and pull back and
then when they DO become violent
and when they DO scream or become
abusive, when they do that and they
apologise straight after – I’m so sorry,
I can’t believe I did that, I’m so sorry
but you did this to me. I never wanted
to hurt you. I love you. I never do this
to anyone, I never get angry but why
did you do that? Why did you hurt me
this way? YOU did this. And because
they hate themselves already they go
this is a lovely guy, I’m so lucky to have
someone like this and I’ve gone and
ruined the one good thing and then no
no no it’s my fault.
You’re so beautiful and so much better
than my crazy ex because you
apologise when you’ve done the wrong
thing and so often they will be
grovelling and apologising because
that gets rewarded and one of the
biggest signs when I know there is
trauma bonding is when I hear the
sentence, I sound like I’m painting a
really bad picture of this person, but
they’re really not. They actually got to
know them and they’re not like that.
Because even as they’re saying these
horrible things, they know it sounds
horrible but they think that they’ve got
a special understanding of the abuser
that I don’t have and if I understood
them and if I understood how THEY
have brought out the bad side, then I
won’t be angry at their abuser because
even within our consulting room, they
will be trying to protect the abuser.
They will STILL tell me the good
things about that person and how they
aren’t as horrible and things that they
think are great about them will just be
normal human behaviour like showing
a bit of kindness.
So how do you break away from
that? How do you come out of that way
of thinking? I’m assuming it’s not
easy.
No, it’s really not easy and you have
to be so careful because, as someone
who does understand it, and my
compassion lies with the patient, my
instinct is to say run, get away and
then they feel guilty that they haven’t
explained well enough how shit they
are as a person and then they feel
guilty for painting the wrong picture.
They’re still self-talking the whole time,
believing that this person isn’t all bad.
