How trauma bonding ended up traumatizing me

Photo by Andreas Dress on Unsplash.

When I learned the premise of “self could not cure self” regarding my disease, I was able to really connect to it. After all, I had tried to cure myself for almost three decades.

As a recovering sick person, it’s elementary for me to falter. I always wanted the easy way out of everything in life. “Why does life have to be so hard?” I thought. “Why does this happen to me?”, “I think I’m a good person…”, and several (thousand) thoughts bathed in self-pity inundated the corners of my brain, my spirit, and my heart. For someone like me, my view of life in general was (and still is) warped.

I’m not trying to martyrize myself or anything like that. I’m fully aware that other people that don’t have the kind of disease I have may very well have similar outlooks on life. The main difference between people like that (we call them “normies”) and people like me might be how self-destructive our methods are to cope with such a pessimistic and miserable outlook.

Listen, if there had been any other way for me to recover, I would have found it by now. We are very resourceful and way too brilliant for our own sake. Someone who steals from their family to maintain their vice or attacks their friends when they’re trying to help them must obviously be very sick, right? Yeah, we totally are. I include myself because I work a “we program.” You may be wondering what that means by now.

In a “we program,” the premise is that since by ourselves we couldn’t recover, we had to rely on a higher power of our understanding to instill enough awareness in us so that we could have the honesty to recognize our problem, the open-mindedness to ponder different alternatives, and the willingness to do whatever it takes to heal.

Remember the Titanic? I mean, I obviously don’t remember it, but I know the history as well as anyone thanks to the 1997 movie with my favorite BFFs, Leo and Kate. Yes, I’m no spring chicken.

When a group of people endures the same traumatic event (or something very similar), a particular bond is created. This bond is what actually helps us get better in many ways. It could even bind us. It can become a solid bond. And since this group of people might not have anything in common other than their traumatic experience, they need to capitalize on the only thing they have in common to survive. I saw an example of this happening not too long ago.

From an outsiders perspective

I decided to upgrade my seat on the return trip home from a really painful family intervention a couple of weeks ago. I had already spent way too much money on questionable purchases this year, but this felt necessary at the moment. I felt I deserved it after the weekend I had gone through.

I was flying on Southwest Airlines, so I had to stand up in my boarding area to wait for my turn to board the plane. In front of me, there was a slender guy in what I’m assuming were either his late forties or early fifties with a coral linen shirt. I told him my letter and number combination, he told me his. I then explained my thought process for the boarding upgrade, but he rightly interrupted me to share his story.

His flight had been canceled on Spirit Airlines the night before, so they had given him a flight for the next day. At 6:00 a.m., they called him to let him know his noon flight was canceled as well. He then contacted Southwest Airlines and had to get an expensive ticket for the same flight I was on. I obviously could empathize with him, but it wasn’t my time to speak about it. His pain was fresher than mine.

A minute after this man and I start talking, a young woman appears. He recognizes her, excited. They start talking. I realize she was also on the same boat as him. (I could’ve totally used “plane” instead of “boat,” and it would have been glorious, but here we are.) They shared a common hurdle. They connected in a way I would never comprehend. They were sinking in the Titanic and I was just a spectator on the bay, watching. I felt so out of place, but I was entirely aware that it was warranted.

The phenomenon of trauma

Bessel van der Kolk explains this phenomenon in-depth in his book The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma:

After trauma, the world becomes sharply divided between those who know and those who don’t. People who have not shared the traumatic experience cannot be trusted, because they can’t understand it.

The reason why I felt out of place, but I was able to empathize with their interaction was because I’ve had my own experience sinking in the Titanic, and I’ve had several friends who’ve been in the same sinking ship I have. That common bond we share, rooted in seeming tragedy, saved our lives individually and collectively.

Trauma and recovery

When I started my recovery journey, my higher power was the people that had gone through the same misery I had, that had experienced rock bottom and knew of the gift of desperation that can only be received when the pain is so unbearable you’re willing to do whatever it takes to get better. As the days, months, and years passed, my definition of a higher power evolved to something not human in nature. For me, my higher power is the spirit of the universe; it is my intuition; it’s being given messages through others.

Since the fellowship is the epitome of unconditional love, it was easy for me to form new relationships with fellow recovering people that really understood me in ways no other people could. And if you find other things in common with some of them, the bond can be even stronger.

That’s how I ended up forming a bond with a group of women around my age that I considered my sisters in recovery. I leaned on them when I was hurting, and they did the same. And it was great for a while, but when the people in the group are not taking care of themselves regarding the common bond we all share, the foundation is shaky for those relationships to withstand hardships.

Trauma bonding and codependency

I am now grieving relationships that I treasured and nurtured for years because they couldn’t nurture me in a moment of great need. I had endured different trauma they hadn’t experienced. Therefore, it shifted from an “us” dynamic into a “me vs. them” one.

This situation helped me realize that those were codependent, and therefore toxic relationships. I would give them what I didn’t give myself, and I wouldn’t receive what I needed from them. Because ultimately, no one can provide what they don’t have.

When I was exhausted after each interaction, when some of them violated my boundaries, when I asked for help and got retaliation instead, I knew I needed help elsewhere.

The great silver lining

It’s funny to realize that what could have been a tragedy has, in fact, been the greatest gift of this phase of my life. Rediscovering dormant friendships, strengthening current relationships, and creating new ones made me realize I have a solid village at last.

I will never forget those in the life raft with me with tenderness, but I’m already moving on with my life as a survivor. After all, I’m not in the Titanic (so to speak) anymore.

How trauma bonding ended up traumatizing me was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.