Trauma Bonding : The Pull to the Perpetrator
** please note: this article discusses perpetration, trauma, and cult programming. If you are a survivor, do not read if these subjects are triggering unless with your therapist or a safe person.
I will be writing on an extremely difficult subject, that of trauma bonding, also known as bonding to the perpetrator. This is difficult to do for several reasons. As a child, I was in a state of "captivity to my abuser" as delineated in trauma journals. I was raised in an isolative cult, and bonded heavily to my primary programmers, both my parents, and the trainers that worked with me. Then, as an adult, I continued the vicious cycle when I became a trainer, then a head trainer, and bonded others to me.
Trauma bonding is the issue that is left out of the equation when people ask "Why do cult members recontact their perps? Why do they keep going back for more abuse?" Without understanding chronic trauma, and the effects of trauma bonding, it is impossible to understand the dynamic involved. I will be sharing in this article both from personal memory of methods used, as well as sourcing to the literature on the subject. My greatest hope is that by understanding this often misunderstood subject, that others may be helped to pull out of its insidious pull.
If a person is unable to escape chronic, traumatic abuse, they will eventually begin to bond with their perpetrator(s). This has been well documented in the literature. It will occur because of the dehumanization of the victim, who may reach a state of feeling that they are "robotized" or nonfeeling, combined with a disruption in the capacity for intimacy caused by the trauma.
" Trauma impels people both to withdraw from close relationships and to seeks them desperately. The profound disruption in basic trust, the common feelings of shame, guilt, and inferiority, and the need to avoid reminders of the trauma that might be found in social life, all foster withdrawal from close relationships. But the terror of the traumatic event intensifies the need for protective attachments. The traumatized person therefore frequently alternates between isolation and anxious clinging to others... "(1)
Many victims of severe and unrelenting trauma, whether domestic violence, incest, or ritual abuse, will find that they feel anxious when alone, and fear abandonment and isolation. The over-dependent characteristics are NOT a personality fault, but a result of the chronic abuse. This is often rooted in the fact that as a child, the trauma survivor was not only a CAPTIVE to their abuse, but they depended upon their perpetrator for food, shelter, or other necessities. In addition, with ritual abuse, a small child will often be abandoned for periods of time, to increase their dependency upon the very people who are abusing them. Any two or three year old will be almost insanely grateful to be rescued from a small box that they have been confined within for hours, or from the dark confines of a musty basement where they have been left for a day or two. Even the most abusive perpetrator will then become the child's rescuer, which is the foundation of trauma bonding. In trauma bonding, the person's abuser will be perceived as the one who delivers and rescues from the abuse, as well as the tormentor. This creates a psychological ambivalence that creates dissociation in a young child. The very helplessness and terror that are instilled by the abuse, cause the child (or later, the adult) to reach out to the only available hand for relief: the perpetrator. And the perpetrator WILL rescue and stop the abuse, or take the child out of the confines of their pain, but for a price: their unrelenting loyalty and obedience. This is the traumatic underpinning of all cult programming that I have seen: a combination of abuse and kindness; terror and rescue; degradation and praise.
Latest Articles