Traumatic bonding and dependency

The Neurobiology of Toxic Attachment

The reason it is so difficult to get out of these relationships is not "excessive love" or lack of character, but a clinical phenomenon known as traumatic bonding or Trauma Bonding. Psychological violence alters the brain chemistry of the victim.

Due to the constant stress cycle, the brain operates in survival mode, with elevated cortisol levels and an overactive amygdala.

The dependence that is generated is comparable to a substance addiction; the victim does not seek pleasure, but relief from the pain that the offender himself causes.

Paradoxically, the person who is the source of the terror also becomes the only source of comfort, creating a pathological fusion where the victim needs the aggressor to regulate his or her own overwhelmed emotional state.

The power of intermittent reinforcement

The most potent mechanism that sustains this bond is "intermittent reinforcement." Abuse is rarely constant around the clock; it alternates with small moments of "normalcy," calm, or even sudden affection (crumbs of attention).

This unpredictability is devastating: as with slot machines in pathological gambling, the occasional unexpected reward generates much stronger addictive behavior than a constant reward.

The victim's brain becomes hooked on the hope that those "good times" will return, tolerating increasingly longer and more severe periods of abuse while waiting for that "dose" of validation that the abuser administers at will to maintain control.

Learned helplessness and willpower suppression

As a consequence of this attrition, the victim develops what psychologist Martin Seligman called "learned helplessness".

After unsuccessfully trying to defend, explain or please over and over again, the person learns that no matter what he or she does, he or she cannot avoid suffering or predict the aggressor's behavior. This results in a state of passivity and total paralysis.

The victim stops looking for solutions or escape routes because she is convinced that they are useless, falling into a state of depression and automatic submission.

Emotional dependence then becomes an extreme survival strategy: the victim merges with the desires of the aggressor, anticipating his needs in order to try to avoid punishment, completely annulling himself as an individual.

Summary

The difficulty in fleeing lies in the traumatic bond, a biochemical addiction triggered by stress. The victim paradoxically seeks comfort in the one who causes him terror in order to regulate his own distress.

The main mechanism is intermittent reinforcement, comparable to gambling addiction. The unpredictable alternation between mistreatment and "crumbs of affection" engages the brain in the hope of change.

Finally, continuous attrition causes "learned helplessness". The victim assumes that he/she cannot avoid suffering no matter what he/she does, falling into total paralysis and submission in an attempt to survive.