“A trauma bond is really an emotional attachment that exists in a relationship where there is a mix of abuse and devaluation with positive reinforcement and kindness… it’s a relationship that’s hot and cold… you feel like you need to leave but you just can’t and you feel guilty for leaving.”

“You’re addicted to the spikes in all of your chemical and hormone levels… you’re addicted to the cycle, not to the person.”

“When you are falling into a trauma bond you are falling in love—that’s what you think—so it feels good to get into one.”

“Every word out of his mouth is calculated, filtering through phrases and patterns to distort your reality and strengthen the trauma bond, conditioning you to accept his version of events.”

“Confusing genuine love and the trauma bond is incredibly easy to do. Lines get blurred beyond comprehension, particularly when you’re in a foggy state of mind due to being treated so despicably.”

“You may have already left your abuser, but are still struggling with the trauma bond. The invisible cord that ties you to them isn’t so easily cut, and simply leaving the relationship isn’t always enough to snip that malignant thread that’s tethered to you.”

“Oftentimes when I’m talking to other victims of narcissistic abuse and the subsequent trauma bond, I hear about the survivor experiencing mixed feelings for their partner, who behaves so abusively. I can absolutely resonate with this—it’s like a mental game of tug of war.”

“You also don’t enter the relationship and suddenly become ‘trauma bonded’. Like anything with the narcissist, it’s carefully planned and executed, and there is a process to you becoming toxically bonded and emotionally dependent on your abuser.”

“Trauma bonding is usually exceptionally fierce in situations where there are repetitive cycles of abuse. This often results in the victim having a desire to rescue their abuser, to free them from the thing inside them that causes them to behave so toxically.”

“The power of the trauma bond is unlike any other connection you’ll feel towards another person in your entire life. It’s an all-consuming, utterly engulfing pit of emotional purgatory.”

“It’s important for you to commit to yourself to live in the truth. Addictive relationships where a trauma bond has developed are just fantasies. You’re in love with what you wish the other person was—you’re not in love with who your partner is.”

“Trauma bonds are stronger than typical human bonds—think of a trauma bond as the giant Goliath of a bond. Where a person ends a relationship that was bonded without the added complexity of trauma, the pain of the breakup is much less intense.”

“Shame and reenactment simply intensify the mind-altering experience of trauma. They become allies of one another. They form a devastating combination when they are part of a trauma bond in which there has been betrayal.”

“In the case of trauma bonds, the relationship itself is mood altering and compelling. This is not about the sadness you would feel over the loss of someone for whom you care. This is about a supercharged relationship that is so compelling it can kill you.”

“Abandonment by betrayal is worse than neglect—if severe enough, it becomes trauma; you never feel safe, always on alert.”

“You will never mend the wound without dealing with the betrayal bond—time won’t heal it.”

“What moves betrayal into trauma is fear and terror—your body shifts to an alarm state.”

“Trauma bonds can be disrupted when healthy bonds are available.”

“When abuse is perpetrated by intimates, it is additionally confounding in terms of attachment, betrayal, and trust. Victims may be unable to leave or to fight back due to strong, albeit insecure and disorganized, attachment and misplaced loyalty to abusers.”

“Once gaslighted and devalued, victims often become traumatically bonded to their abusers.”

“The highs and lows of a narcissistic relationship are not the natural ups and downs of love.”

“Narcissists first idealize—then use your disclosures as ammunition to regain psychological control.”

“Narcissists gaslight you so you begin to gaslight yourself—rewriting reality to suit their agenda.”

“They cultivate your need for validation, then devalue you and withdraw to keep control.”

“If they hoover after a cruel discard, give them nothing—silence and indifference starve the narcissist.”

“No Contact isn’t just self-care—it’s a revolution and a declaration of your worth.”

“The narcissist is like a bucket with a hole in the bottom: No matter how much you put in, you can never fill it up.”

“Relationships with narcissists are held in place by the hope of a someday better, with little evidence to support it will ever arrive.”

“People in narcissistic relationships often feel they’re living in chaos—then get blamed for the narcissist’s mood swings.”

“Narcissists are masterful at twisting the situation so you exhaust yourself giving them what they want.”

“I am tired of calling survivors ‘codependent’ or ‘addicted’—the narcissistic relationship is a riptide that pulls you back in.”

“Narcissistic and toxic relationships leave you feeling depleted, ashamed, anxious, and exhausted.”

“The best narcissist repellent may be simple indifference.”

“Trauma bonds have a pattern of abuse that reinforce intense releases and dopamine, oxytocin, and adrenaline. The body is completely hijacked.”

“Trauma bonds are relationships where two people are emotionally bonded through the trauma. The mind is always attempting to recreate the future. The predictable feels like safety to the mind.”

“Trauma bonds are an emotional addiction, and they keep us stuck in patterns that hurt us.”

“Your abusive partner doesn’t have a problem with his anger; he has a problem with your anger.”

“The problem isn’t that he loses control; it’s that he takes control of you.”

“With emotional abuse, the insults and accusations slowly eat away at the victim’s self-esteem until they doubt their sanity.”

“Emotional abuse is like brainwashing—systematically wearing away self-confidence, trust in perception, and sense of self.”

“Covert-aggression is at the heart of most interpersonal manipulation—get you to doubt yourself, and you’ll cave in.”

“Gaslighting is an insidious form of emotional abuse and manipulation that is difficult to recognize and even harder to break free from.”

“You are constantly second-guessing yourself.”

“You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is—even to yourself.”

“Telling an abuser how much they hurt you often makes the abuse worse—they now know which buttons to push.”

“Open, honest, solutions-oriented communication with a narcissist doesn’t stop bullying—it gives them a playbook.”

“There is no healthy relationship possible with someone who lacks empathy and repeatedly harms others.”

“They exploit fear, obligation, guilt, and sympathy—the most effective levers of compliance.”

“A narcissistic mother sees her daughter as an extension of herself, not a separate person with her own identity.”

“When children can’t rely on parents to meet needs, they can’t develop safety, trust, or confidence.”

“Psychopaths blend in as ‘normal’—their chameleon traits hide predation; Cleckley called it the Mask of Sanity.”

“Gaslighting sends highly accomplished women into treatment—the ultimate mind screw of psychological warfare.”

“Half of recovery is trying to figure out ‘what was THAT?’ after a dangerous psychopath purrs into your life.”

“Recognize self-blame for what it is: fear you’ll lose love if you ask for what you want.”

“Empaths give their hearts too easily to narcissists and absorb their partner’s stress and emotions.”

“Narcissists are so dangerous because they lack empathy and have limited capacity for unconditional love.”

“I do not see you as a person but as an appliance I switch on and off—after a silent treatment, you do not exist to me.”

“To make you my puppet, I make you dependent and remove every support so you have nobody to turn to.”

“Hoovering may be done by emailing, texting, calling, or even snail mail—a narcissist might send a long message or just ‘hey’.”

“Narcissists can turn on the charm—but don’t fall in love with one; they will suck your energy dry.”

“Idealize. Devalue. Discard. That is the interpersonal arc of disordered relating.”

“Those were not your emotions—they were carefully manufactured to make you question your good nature.”

“Emotional abusers target strong, idealistic partners—then break self-esteem with belittling and manufactured jealousy.”

“After toxic relationships, alone time restores who you are—away from drama and negative influence.”

“Victims checkmate themselves by rationalizing the abuser’s completely irrational behavior.”

“Abusers are cowards—incapable of healthy relationships with strong, self-respecting individuals.”

“The little slice of ‘good’ you cling to in a toxic person is usually just the absence of abuse, not actual goodness.”

“When a toxic person can no longer control you, they will try to control how others see you.”

“Strength is removing your kids from a toxic environment; not learning to live with it for the sake of the kids.”

“It’s so nice when toxic people stop talking to you. It’s like the trash took itself out.”

“You didn’t lose the love of your life—you’ve lost the parasite that was sucking the life out of you.”

“The trauma bond is so powerful because it mimics the most intense love you’ve ever felt, but it’s actually the most intense manipulation you’ve ever experienced.”

“In trauma bonding, the abuser becomes both the source of pain and the only one who can relieve it—a deadly cycle of dependency.”

“The narcissist creates a trauma bond by alternating between being your worst nightmare and your sweetest dream—keeping you constantly off-balance.”

“Breaking a trauma bond feels like withdrawal from the most addictive drug because that’s exactly what it is—a chemical addiction to the abuse cycle.”

“The most dangerous thing about trauma bonds is that they feel like love, making it nearly impossible to recognize the abuse for what it truly is.”

“Trauma bonding is loyalty to a person who is destructive—a paradoxical attachment formed through cycles of abuse and intermittent reinforcement.”