Characteristics of Trauma bonding with narcissist
At first the narcissist showers the victim with the unconditional affection, excessive attention and flattery(praising someone in insincere way) at the beginning of the relationship which creates a powerful emotional connection and dependency. Then, the narcissist present themselves as desirable and willing to be into you to form a strong dependency and to make victim feel special and incredibly valued.
After forming a kind of dependency, abusers start switching between being kind and cruel, leaving the victim to the hope that the they/abuser will return back to the affectionate behavior again.
So many times we can hear people who are aware of someone who is with that unhealthy narcissistic person and they say just to get away with that person, no contacts, no phone call, everything over. But, it’s just not quite that simple with everyone because everyone seems to have different experiences.
Specially when you are involved with a malignant narcissist, it’s almost like you have a cancer that is just growing in the inside of your personality and it affects every parts of your lifestyle and it could be that as you become aware of this cancer, you are already so attached to that person that it’s hard to extricate yourself from that (especially when that narcissist that you are attached to maybe a parent).
There are many possible circumstances like children involved in a situation like this. It can also be the friendship that narcissistic person completely takes over and starts running your life.
Another thing that can be common in trauma bonding is when the negatives show up but in this bond often those negatives are either minimized or explained away and over time there’s this false optimism that might begin to emerge.
And then the things like guilt, shame and threats become very prominent. It can be like threatening to expose with the secret shared before and you become scared with that situation about what that narcissist might do to destroy your other relationships.
Another common characteristics is that the victim can be systematically pulled into an ongoing pattern of codependency that keep them tied to that abuser in the fear of having another failed relationship, or it can be the fear of what other people are going to think of him/victim.
Read more about Trauma Bonding, its signs and breaking a Trauma Bond.
