I wanted to talk about this concept that I've been sharing so many videos Around My Own Story and I've been doing it I it's been challenging but I want to do it to share with you what what it can look like when you're living in this sort of trauma trance you're walking around masking your trauma and you have no idea and one of the ways I really kept the trauma going from my childhood all the way till I was almost 50 was through the trauma Bond I I remained in with my mother and many of
you have watched my videos but if you haven't and you're new welcome um I realized even with a master's degree in Psychology I did not understand that my mother who I do believe has undiagnosed borderline at a minimum I'm just saying at a minimum I'm not going to go through other things I think that she struggled with but did not and did not have an identifiably traumatic childhood I mean who can say what is trauma to somebody but um the point is that I I do believe that those Dynamics being an only child her having
really you know me not really having other family it being this very intense Bond was a big reason why I chose the partner I chose why I stayed in trauma why I'm in many parts stayed a little girl and not able to fully not little girl like I wasn't functioning but stayed a little wounded girl inside until I really accepted that these very heartful patterns of behavior by her very very bad patterns were hurting me so I want to share today and I know I've made other videos but I'm trying to keep this on this
topic through the lens of what a trauma Bond can look like now this can be with anyone it can be with family with friends with with Partners I am really talking about it through the lens of a parent in this video but it could apply to anyone so what I want you to get about a trauma bond is the heart of it no matter who it's with is really about intermittent reinforcement and you're like what is that again that is a schedule of Behavioral reinforcement where it's like gambling sometimes you win sometimes you lose but
when you go let's say to Vegas what keeps you at the table longer is that you you know lose lose win win win lose win lose win lose losers lose when right it's like that hooks our brains in it's a very addictive type of schedule of reinforcement and with parents like this where I always say the hardest ones and I think this is for the most common is when you get good love and bad love they're Sometimes good sometimes really bad and if that's all you've ever known love looks like that inside especially if that
was apparent that becomes the template for your whole life in relationships right love is equally good and equally hurtful love is not safe because you cannot have true safety with a parent who is like this where they're upset with you mad at you love you adore you hate you you just can't I don't care what anyone tells you and I know it's complicated because is love our love and safety must they hold hands it becomes very complicated because it's love I do believe that those who struggle with disorders like borderline they love you um and
I'm talking about untreated undiagnosed unaware because there's a very big difference in those who are aware and working and getting support or at least trying and I I want to keep making that distinction also please remember if you are younger and watching this channel that the way we have looked at borderline and outside of the last few years was very stigmatized and even in my programs it made it seem like it was a very rare thing that you would have a patient with borderline that you should not work with them that they would be dangerous
that she would recognize it you know it was like this caricature like extreme version of a crazy woman to be honest that you see in media I'm talking about crazy in the media like in movies and that it might look like that but it often doesn't it often looks like wonderful loving beautiful humans who struggle with emotional and relational dysregulation but to extreme levels and they also struggle with identity issues and impulsivity a lot of a lot of other things which you can watch many videos hear other places on having borderline but the problem is
that if you're unregulated a lot of the time and love is is threatening to you or conditional to you or you feel easily wounded even by your own children and then you blow with them or you shut down or you neglect them or whatever it is as a child that is unsafe so the heart of a trauma bond is about lack of safety it's about intermittent reinforcement it is about the cycle of abuse and it is about guilt shame and chronic hyper vigilance because you're hyper Vigilant why because you don't know when the good or
bad love is coming but you have to pay attention and know that the Bad Love Will Come so the good love is what keeps you in the trauma Bond right what makes it a trauma bond is that it's good and bad good and bad good and bad so what are the signs that you are in a trauma bond with a parent a partner a friend a lover whatever it is that is really what we're talking about is this cycle of abuse and really quickly let's go through the cycle of abuse the classic cycle of abuse
starts with and it can go in different orders and and move around but that let's say we're in a relationship right and you have a form of whatever's going on with you that makes you unsafe over time eventually or consistently I should say right and inherently it's a better word so let's say you're my parent and um you have a bad day at work and you come in the door and I can feel because I'm hyper Vigilant I can feel the tension you slammed your purse and keys on the counter you said who sped the
dogs right it's like oh God there's tension building and let's say you're now you're that that parent and you're like oh I've been kind of cranky so you try to turn it down but there's a tension it's like I'm like okay there's something happening there's energy here that's negative that starts to rise and let's say over the course of the night that same night the parent comes home that was at like 5 30. at nine o'clock or it's been several days you've been cranky for several days it could be all the same day it could
be in the same month but then then you blow up right you come in the room you say did you do your homework yet and or whatever or why is the dog not been walked and for some reason that's what makes you blow and you start raging and you're angry and mad so there's an incident right there's an incident and how that plays out can vary mentally physically emotionally whatever then the the parent the the parent who did that that night or the next morning writes you a sorry note or or gives you the silent
treatment but by the next day they apologize or the partner I'm so sorry I blew up on you I love you I don't know what's wrong with me or they don't apologize but they just act like things are fine and you're so desperate for it to be fine that you all act like nothing happened right so there's like a Reconciliation that's called the reconcile in some way so and then it becomes sort of like calm again for a little while now we're kind of in the good love now I'm kind of feeling like okay I
forgave you I try to justify it minimize it but what happens next week this weekend the tension starts to rise again so tension incident reconciliation calm because so that's happening so that's inherent in the trauma Bond so like for example with my mom you know as I've talked about we would move her with us so I mean literally my first year of marriage we moved from California back to Austin where I'd moved from Texas and had not been there for since I was 23 so this is like somewhere around like 30. she has a bloke
with her boyfriend she has nowhere to go she had followed me to California I brought her with me to California at 23. she comes to us in our first year of marriage and every time she would live with us she would come in she would start helping me and we'd spend time together because my partner was never around it would be really good and then the tension would start to build she would start feeling unappreciated that was a huge trigger for her she would blow and say terrible and hurtful things I would you know feel
bad whatever it would calm down and it would happen again and it would happen happen and then it would have got really bad she would suddenly find a place to move this happened like four or five times in our marriage over the course of 11 years 12 years she would live with us for you know because we would move a lot so she would come with us to the next move I'm not talking I'm talking about like the Southern California Northern California the point was things would be good should help with the kids she'd be
there help with moves I'd pay for everything and you know try to give her support for that because I was benefiting with the help I thought that there was a huge price to pay but every single time it would end up being it would blow and it would be extremely hurtful and the names she would call me the things she would say the accusations and so that cycle went on and on and on that was a trauma Bond but when it was good it was great right and so so that's the thing I want you
to keep in mind so what do you do you justify you minimize the bad behavior you feel helpless to change the behavior like well I can't just like get rid of my mom that's my mom or my dad or my grandmother whatever it is it's like you feel like you have no power to to change the pattern and no matter how you talk to them and try to work it out if you do they might own their behavior they might deny they might minimize but it never changes you feel like it's your job to help
them fix them solve their problems pay for them support them whatever it is you make excuses and you defensively protect yourself even against really facing the reality of who they are because think about how hurtful that is if it's your own parent if you start to really accept that this person is my parent hurts me more than anyone else then you'll have to most of us do something about that and so you might not be ready for that answer or truth so to others you're like oh well she said trauma or they he had trauma
or they had trauma or oh they're really struggling too oh they're you know going through menopause which all those things are true and they deserve some allowance but they cannot be a free pass to hurtful Behavior again and again and again basically you find ways to feel like you can't share your truth with others because it's embarrassing so you leave out certain parts of the story you don't you know you find yourself not only being defensive but protecting the truth of what's happening or maybe you just forget about it and deny it and minimize it
to yourself others in the world can reinforce like well I know she said that but that's your mom right it's like the world especially when it's your partner your kids your whatever your your parents no matter what's happening I mean I mean kids or adult children but whatever it is the world says well that's family you know under no circumstance are you allowed to set a boundary with an abusive family member their family and so you're getting all these messages like well the world is saying like that's my mom so like I can't make her
leave or or stop talking to her so the world reinforces the trauma Bond there's a power imbalance in some way like oh I need my parents love or I need their money whatever it is there can be these different parts that keep you in it it can be their inheritance that you think you're going to get I've seen people stay for those reasons it can be because they help with your kids and yet there's a huge price to pay for that because eventually they will often do the same things to the grandchildren whatever it is
there's a need a power Dynamic there oftentimes or a need imbalance you basically are at the core often a fauner a people pleaser or a compulsive caretaker and that is how you were set up to deal with people so that's kind of like in your DNA and so that dynamic in you keeps you in it and keeps you in the trauma Bond and accepting it you are often extreme like I said at the core hyper Vigilant and the eggshell Dynamic walking on eggshells is something that you've always had to do with this parent or parents
or your family and so you're just so good at doing that that it's just like well yeah I walk on eggshells like you don't even see it as walking on eggshells because it's so part of the trauma Bond you ignore the bad behavior you hyper focus on the good days oh we had a great trip or they were great here or at this dinner they didn't yell at anybody it was so great we you know or they help you they're there for you you're always thinking that you know if I could just get them to
understand or go to therapy or whatever it will change and if it's a true trauma Bond and they are truly in some form of of difficulty in life where they don't have the capacity to have the Insight or interest in changing you'll just be on the hamster wheel right you just you just keep thinking that if I show them this or I do this loving thing or I'm model good behavior whatever it doesn't work then I can say we even like I've mentioned tried therapy with her and she scripted the therapist and walked out of
the room and it was you know they're the bad therapist which I've been told as well when you have those type of parents and that the child adult child starts to change and heal it's not usually well received and I've got broad shoulders for that so I'm okay with that one and then they basically will do things like whether it's love bombing Hoover you whatever it is they find ways to kind of keep you in it and so you know in in many cases they'll even apologize to keep you in it but the core of
the trauma bond is that what all of that does is it keeps you stuck in reenacting the story for many of us of our childhoods and what I've said is that I understood how detrimental that staying no matter how good it could be then we're hot no matter how much I would need her and at times when the kids were really little she could be helpful that there would always be a price to pay and as I've shared in also many videos one of the last straws I wish it was the last straw it was
one of the the first time we had a real separation was when I was nine months pregnant with my third son and Christmas more my mom walked out I'm literally nine months pregnant about to have my third baby and we did not open her gift first and she had recently moved out we'd had a whole live with us all these months she had moved out so we were still in that kind of not great phase and she just walked out Christmas morning you know as we were like little you know a toddler and an infant
like opening you know presents and like I was a wreck you know and so the point is that that went on and on and on and then when I had my son without her being there she was mad about that and the night before I had him she said I had written her a letter after this incident right before he was born trying to work things out with her once again trying to make change and the night before my scheduled C-section which got bumped up early I went to get the mail you know all nine
months of me uh pregnant with me and she had returned the letter unopened in an envelope that said I will not read this like I can't remember now what it was but she had written on it and included my unopened letter inside and if you know me the part of the problem was back then I don't even remember what I wrote but it would have been very accommodating very you know overly loving overly trying to like get her to see how much we loved her and if she could just understand that this was hurtful it
wouldn't have been a harsh boundary setting letter like it I may have said like you can't keep doing this but it would not have been something I would write today it devastated me so the point is if I had understood even back then and my that same son is 19 now that one that was born and I went on years and years and years afterwards just because that was what love looked like so if you have been born into a trauma Bond and raised by a trauma bonding parent to me you're that much more likely
to stay with the trauma bond in that parent and or also being a trauma Bond or choose a partner that reenacts those Dynamics and I know it makes no sense we think but that's the last thing I want and it might look completely different on the outside but deep inside feel the same way and so if I had known that and understood how damaging it was to my psychological functioning and my well-being it would have affected my parenting my sense of self my self-compassion my marriage what I did or didn't do if I'd understood not
just like what was happening with she and I but the damage it did to me how much impacted my capacity to show up as the person I wanted to be and good in strong healthy ways it would have been life-changing because in my mind love was always dangerous and always came with a price and was never going to be safe and if that is your template for the world it makes it really difficult to choose and stay in healthy relationships so anyway that's it please feel free to share if you want to your feelings down
below your thoughts and understand that if you're in this situation now you're not alone if you are in it now like if I had seen this video ideally this is why I make these videos back when I had that whole thing I would have researched more read about my childhood understood the impact of intermittent reinforcement and Trauma bonds that I would have really worked with a therapist on how to start to set changes with her at that point I don't think they would have lasted but I don't really know so the first thing is to
identify make you know make awareness with yourself about it and start to do the work and support seek those who can help you therapist friends whatever read books on you know toxic families and setting boundaries in our child work all of that is incredibly important and that really is the reason why I've made and I I know I don't really advertise them and I really should be which is the course the courses I've made on remothering on the free course and on the course that is really is about everything it took for me to understand
that I have been raised by parents who struggled with borderline and narcissism disorders and how much it affected my sense of self and my life and relationships I would have honestly done everything everything it could have taken to understand that because it would have truly maybe shaved off 10 more years of suffering in my life if I'd understood that but you know we get there when we get there but the whole point of this is that all of that is so deeply impactful that if you were raised especially by parents who really to me are
the core of eggshell which would be those who have some form of the qualities that can exist in untreated and undiagnosed NPD borderline bipolar and even autism right at this point I think that I'm starting to think about how much could a dysregulated person who was high masking especially who struggled with you know social cues or those types of things how much that could also affect parenting and so regardless of what the label is I think the label gives us a chance to say it's not my fault but I don't want to use the label
in a pathologizing way but I think there's power in saying oh my gosh when I realized my mom had borderline for example and my father I believe as well who had a lot of trauma I was like oh my God I'm not the bad child it's not me because that is what we often carry it's like it's our fault and there's something wrong with us so anyway once again a longer video than I anticipated but I am trying I just don't know how to do it shorter versions I hope it was helpful please stay safe
and well and uh I will see you soon okay bye [Music] [Music]
