Why People Stay in Toxic Relationships | Trauma Bonds Explained

Some people are not in love. They're emotionally attached to survival. And that's why they say they stay. They stay in toxic relationships. They stay in draining friendships. They stay where they feel unseen. They stay where they constantly feel emotionally exhausted. Because familiar pain feels safer than unfamiliar peace. And tonight, we're talking about truth-trauma bonds. I'm your host, Edna White, and this is After Hours with Edna, where we stop romanticizing dysfunctional and start telling the truth about what people really, really emotionally attached to. And let me say this early tonight, just because somebody is familiar does not mean they are healthy. And some people confuse emotional intensity with love. Yeah, you felt that. So here's one thing that I do know. I can tell you my own story. And it all began really with someone just paying attention to me. And I've had those experiences. And I know you have, You know, someone who's paid attention to you and maybe you thought they liked you, you know, and ended up they weren't as likable as you thought. Or maybe there's someone you thought was a friend who was just being friendly for their own ulterior motives and you didn't know it either. And it turned out they weren't likable. We've all had those experiences. But tonight we're going to break down just how that bond happens. So why does bonds feel like love? A lot of people grew up believing love equals sacrifice, loyalty, suffering, being needed, being valued. And because of that, chaos feels emotionally normal. So when healthy love shows up, it feels unfamiliar. Have you ever had someone that you maybe know or maybe it happened to you that when they find someone normal or come upon somebody who can show them normal love, that they always seem to mess up the relationship, to sabotage it themselves? Yeah, kind of familiar. Yeah, I've seen that happen. it feels unfamiliar to them but dysfunction dysfunction feels emotionally familiar and I remember someone that I knew that had met this great guy at least she thought he was and so did the family and he got down on one knee and he proposed to her and then he gave her this beautiful ring and started a long-term relationship. And they started planning for the wedding. The sons loved him. And she started to complain. She started to complain that he was a tad bit too boring. He wrote books and he came home one time. He didn't want to go to clubs and he didn't want to hang out. He just wanted to be with the family. And I knew just hearing those words, chaos was getting ready to be brewed and soon afterwards she went back to an ex who really was just using her anyway but what happened in the while the the fiance was not looking he kind of came back and found them together and this guy was such a gentleman that he just looked at them packed his bags and he left and what would you say about the woman in that situation. She wasn't, the normal wasn't her thing. It was, she didn't know what that was. She didn't know how to take someone who was really good to her. She went back to the familiar that caused her the normal. And that dysfunction feels emotionally familiar. You see, the nervous system always tries to return to what feels familiar. That's why some people overgive, chase, rescue, tolerate, disrespect, fear, disconnect, stay attached to emotionally unavailable people. Because abandonment feels worse than dysfunction. See, dysfunction is normal. What do you think about that? Dysfunction is normal you know we sometimes we're born in it and it's normal it seems to be normal and it kind of costs us something at the end though but it's better than being abandoned i'd rather take the familiar abuse you know the chasing the rescuing the tolerating bad disrespectful behavior i'd rather deal with that that's what your nervous system says than deal with being abandoned left alone to my own demise i'd rather have that abandonment feels worse than dysfunction and that's what people don't understand about trauma bonds it's not just attachment it's emotional conditioning because once you get used to it and you're in it for months years and years turn into more years you're conditioned that that's okay you're conditioned that being talked to any kind of way that's all right but it's better than being abandoned so the abandonment goes back to safety and safety goes back to when you were a child when you were we didn't we didn't feel safe in your family when you get involved with friends romantic partnerships spouses you know co-workers you go towards them to not to be abandoned anymore to not be, not to feel unsafe. So you want to feel safe with these people. And abandonment doesn't feel good. So you don't want that. You don't want abandonment. You don't want to feel abandoned. You want to feel safe. So you'd rather feel safe with all the craziness, all the chaos that goes on, the mistreatment of you, this dysfunction, the toxicity. you'd rather have that than not be safe with someone because being with someone represents safety to your nervous system to your body to the way that you adapt being with someone you don't want to be alone and that's emotional conditioning so let's talk about the emotional addiction and survival patterns and you know that's what i do right that's what i talk about all the time is that what we are living right now is exactly what we lived before. You know what trauma bonds do. They train people to confuse emotional intensity with emotional intensity all the time, right? That's what it does. It trains you, gets you ready. Trauma bonds get you ready. I can tell you, even in my friendship that I've had for so many years, a long time having a friendship, over 30 years, we were bonded by trauma. The trauma that I experienced and the trauma that she was familiar with, that she knew of, that was in her family, was similar to mine. So not just because we knew each other, but that became our bond, Right? It became our bond. And it trained me over the years, trained her over the years, to confuse emotional intensity that that emotion that connection is very intense instead of having that intimacy meaning friendship meaning closeness safety meaning just genuine love and concern care respect for one another we didn't have that and eventually the friendship fell apart it couldn't withstand healing it couldn't withstand boundaries it could not withstand something new other than the trauma that we had together. So if there's no chaos going on, no inconsistencies, no emotional roller coaster going on in my life or hers, it starts to become boring. Not because the peace is wrong, but because survival mode became emotional normal for us. Even when we left the church and we left two different churches, I was in one church, she was in another and we left different times and then we found that we left we bonded over that and so we spent years discussing untraining ourselves about that and unlearning those things getting ourselves out of that situation griping about it you know mulling it over thinking it through years of all of that and we had each other to go back and forth that was another trauma bond that we didn't even realize. It's nothing malicious, no fault, no blame, but we didn't even realize it was a trauma bond. And it wasn't because the peace was wrong. It wasn't. It was because the survival mode, we needed to have that emotional normal, that emotional back and forth, the craziness back and forth, because it was that emotional normal. And then some people literally feel anxious in healthy relationships have you been around someone that you're calm about something and they're wondering why you're so calm or somebody you know that you may be going chaotic and then they're just being calm about it that's deep right and i think some people are not addicted to the person they're addicted to the emotional chaos and the emotional cycle i remember watching um i think it was a it was a episode of uh something with the couples there was couples and it was celebrity couples and it was i remember this because it was the new jersey group it was the new jersey girls from the new jersey um show the reality show and it was the young girl and her boyfriend um who who they will co co um guests on the show together and ended up getting together and having a child but their lives were chaotic um he was cheating on her all the time even during while she had the baby after she had the baby he just kept cheating and cheating and cheating and cheating and then he was verbally abusive and i think maybe a little bit of connotations of um um you know being physically abusive was involved and the commentator I think the producer asked the young woman a question. And she asked, why do you want to stay with him if all of this is happening? And she said, because I'm used to it. With somebody else, I don't know what I'm getting. But with him, at least I know what I'm getting. You see how toxic that sounded? And then when asked the same question to the young fellow, he said, I like the chaos. I think I like it. I like the going back and forth. And he actually said that he gets kind of high on it. So you can see how people, they're not addicted to the person. They're addicted to that emotional cycle, the emotional high that they get. You know, the emotion of almost getting caught or getting caught. The high of the adrenaline rush of just getting into those situations. you know um maybe it's intermittent affection it could be oh today it's good and tomorrow it's not good and they expect that they're conditioning themselves to expect it to be that way the emotional highs and the lows you know bright crumbs you know inconsistencies you know that oh they'll get a little bit of love here then it'll be like a little bit and then they'll follow the betrayal to the same emotional inconsistencies. Then there's the dependency, the emotional dependency. I am emotionally, I am dependent on this person to get me high on the cycle of whatever they're going to talk about. I'm dependent on them to, if they, even if it's negative, I want that. I'm depending on that. I know, like the girl said, I can depend on, And that's exactly what you said. How do you depend on if he's going to do what he's going to do? I know him better than I know himself. Have you ever heard that? Yeah, I know. I've heard it a lot of times. And I almost want to say, well, if you know what he's going to do, why are you crying about it? But it's a conditioning that we get ourselves into these cycles, these crazy cycles with people. Like these consistent bad cycles. our nervous system then it's addicted it forms this pattern and when it's not when it's not out of sync guess what we do when we're not doing this guess what we do we create something to make it go like this we are the ones we jump start our nervous system to start doing that whether it be fear of abandonment or anything just start we could just start a fight an argument because we need to have that adrenaline rush. We need to have our nervous system jump started. Listen, people stay attached to what their nervous system recognizes. Simple. Let's say it again. People stay attached to what their nervous system recognizes, even when it hurts. Yeah, been there, done that. Now let's talk about friendships and healing and outgrowing people, because we do and sometimes we feel bad about it right trauma bonds don't always happen only happen i'm sorry romantically they don't they they have been friendships and i told you that like i had a friend um well we had a we bonded through trauma and then we rebonded over another trauma but we had similar um experience with some friendships are built entirely on emotional imbalance. One person gives everything and one person carries the emotional labor. One person constantly rescues. One person is always available. I've done that, not in that particular friendship, but in another friendship. I was always the one that gave everything. Went to go see them, went to take them out, was there, constant, and carry the emotional weight that My friend could tell me stuff, carry emotional weight. But if I go to tell her something, she can literally turn off. I could hear her turn me off and say, oh, I gotta go. I constantly rescued in that situation. I would go, if she couldn't make it to something, I'd say, she'd tell me, can you go take care of this for me? Or she'd put my name out there as her rescue. One person always available. And eventually, I realized that I was just taking on everything. I was doing everything. And one of the things that I really, I guess, really have had was, I guess, the story of the book Becoming Back was every conversation left me emotionally drained. I was constantly pulling information or getting too much information, you know, and it just drained me. listen that's not connection that's depletion you get depleted then healing changes relationships once you figure that out you say hey this has got to stop healing changes that relationship it changes it boundaries change it you speaking up for yourself changes it because people stop surviving emotionally and stop tolerating certain dynamics. I know I did. I stopped tolerating that I was going to be the only one the friendship that gave. I didn't receive anything. I was constantly giving, giving, giving, going, going, going, and got nothing. Got nothing. I didn't get a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, support, camaraderie, none of that. I didn't get anything. Everything I had to chase. So people in those type of relationships will stop and stop emotionally surviving because it can't last that long. So it's like a bad alternator. It can only run a car, but so long. And after that, it shuts the entire thing down. You see, some people only like the version of you that had no boundaries. So it's okay. Or so it's not okay, excuse me. So it's not okay for you to tell them no without explaining. It's okay for you not. It's not okay for you not to go to their house and they knock on yours. It's not okay. It's not okay that you run and do for them. It's not okay. They're not like the version of you that had no boundaries. I know I said a lot today and tonight I want honesty in these comments. Have you ever outgrown a friendship? Put that in the comments and i think i'm going to put it in the comments so you can answer it have you ever outgrown a friendship put that in the comments i'm going to put it in the answer you can answer it have you ever outgrown your friend and it's you know it's no harm no foul if you did because that's how friendships are you know that's everyone has to grow you know um when grass and dandelions are growing in one patch you can't distinguish which one is which until what the bloom grows on the dandelion then you know which one's a dandelion and which one's a weed that has to be pushed pulled out and which one's grass that has to stay have you ever stayed in a relationship longer than you should have because of you were afraid of being alone you felt scared you want to put that in the comments too because i think that's a great question for you to be honest with today I'm going to ask you again have you ever stayed in a relationship longer than you should have because alone felt scary and put it in the comments box for me because I think that's a great question especially when you're like going through all that you're going through you know and you're trying to figure out how life is and you know especially for young people as they start to to venture out, to gain friendships, regain relationships with people. It can be confusing. It can be harrowing at some times. Have you ever confused being needed with being valued? I have. I have. My husband, second husband, as it were, I actually confused that being needed because I felt that I had to rescue everybody. So I had a role that when I was younger that I was supposed to take care of my siblings if things ever happened. So I was the family pseudo-mom and I was the hero. So when being parentified early, you grow up with that. So it wasn't until years later that I figured out that it wasn't me being independent or strong. It was me being parentified and not in the role that I was supposed to play as a young child. And I would always rescue everybody. Everybody who was around me was rescued. It was like I was a pet rescue center. And everybody I rescued, everybody I took care of, I did that all my life. Until one day in February, it wasn't even February, it was like November of 2012, in 2013, I said, enough. I can't rescue anybody anymore. I've given all that I could, and it's time for everybody to stand on their own two feet. I decided I was going to sell my house, because my oldest son was 23 at the time. And I said, I'm not taking care of my sisters or my nephews or my oldest son or any of them. Everybody's got to go out and do their own thing and live their own lives because I wasn't. And I sold my house that coming year and I started my venture on living by myself, you know, and it was wasn't like it was difficult, but it was something I had to do. It was a boundary that I had to set. it was something that I had to do because I was losing myself. I was always worrying, had no fun. My social life was kaput and I was drained. You know, I felt like, you know, I was of no value, but I was equating that to these people needed me in this house. They needed me. So I had to be of value and that made my value. And when I realized it didn't make my value, all it did was make me miserable. I set a boundary and I made a step to preserve my life. And then you have the points where people will, or someone you love will emotionally drain you. have you ever had that have you ever had someone that you loved emotionally draining just every time you were around them it was emotionally draining yes i know you have i you know um unfortunately it was you know a family member still is a family member and it's i love them but i to be around them on a daily basis is very draining and it's tiring it's almost like i have to go to sleep afterwards being around them and you can't let someone drain you like that you can't do it that's an emotional trauma bond you know um whether it be your mother your son your daughter your cousin your father sister or brother whether it be any of them just because they're those i those things those labels does not mean that they can suck the life out of you does not mean that or they don't have the right to suck your life out of you yes you came through them but that doesn't mean that you owe your life to them you drain you get drained by your parent you get you know your parents can drain you if they're toxic if they're not healed if they don't heal themselves they can drain you and there's nothing wrong with you saying i cannot do this i won't do this there's nothing wrong with that you have to use your voice to say that because them draining you because even if let's just say that culturally they you know you owe them something you know and i see this and I know you probably see this on some television shows, reality shows, culture will also smother you, right? So in some cultures, you have a devout responsibility to be involved with your parents. And you do it with your parents, saying no matter how old you get, you have to be subject to them, right? but being subject to them are you are you devaluing yourself are you learning to be social are you growing as a person are you do you have like the life you want what is going on go sit down now go sit down and so are you are you being devalued are you really being devalued in that culture because regardless of what culture or you know what nationality or what race you are you have to have value you know and if it demeans you because sometimes even that um doesn't let you grow they want to make sure that you're growing at all times you want to make sure so i'm going going to put in that this box and i know in a in the comment section have you ever um i was gonna say what's the word that i just wrote i just wrote have you let me see what i write here what do i write okay oh did i put in there have you ever felt emotionally drained by someone you love and i put that in the comment section and i want you to be honest there's like four questions in that in the comment section i want you to be honest about it like you know share with me what if you want um and be honest or just come not even you don't have to even comment you could just think about those questions and then here's another question that i just shared with you did you did that relationship change after healing after you healed and realized hey he became aware that this wasn't it wasn't an even exchange this relationship was you know um one-sided you know i was giving and you gave nothing you know um did you ever have a relationship like that you know did you ever feel one did you ever be involved with a relationship like that and that's that's key man that's key is you know having a relationship um that is one-sided is it's not even a relationship it's it's a relay that's it it's a relay instead of a relationship when you're doing everything giving everything it's a relay it's a relay race with just you in it not nobody else so put in the box in the comment section does your relationship change after you became aware that it was a one-sided relationship and did it change anything because I know for me, it changed. It changed how my relationship was in all of them, in the marital relationship, in the friendship relationships, when I set the boundaries. And I literally had a conversation and said, listen, what you said or did wasn't acceptable to me. And it kind of hurt my feelings. But I blame myself because as I look back, I allowed you to talk to me like that in the past but I've grown and I noticed that this relationship I'm giving and you're not and you need to respect me because you're not any better than I am you know our children your children may be maybe higher educated than mine however they still have the same struggles and They still are doing their adulting. So you're not any better than me. And when I discussed that, when I shared that, that was like, oh, excuse me. I don't know why this is dying. When I shared that, it was shocking to them. You know, what are you talking about? No way. So why am I saying all of that? i'm saying that because it's important to know that you don't need to be just giving and giving you don't need to do that all the time you don't need to you know you don't need to be handing that over all the time you know um becoming lost in the sauce i'm just trying to figure out all my computers like being lost in the sauce you don't need to do not at all not at all You deserve a relationship that is reciprocal. You deserve not to be in a toxic relationship, whether it be familial, relationship, friendship, romantic, even as a co-worker. You don't deserve that. You don't deserve to be in a relationship like that. You deserve to be in one that's longstanding and helps you, makes you feel safe, makes you feel good. healing changes your tolerance and some people become uncomfortable when you stop abandoning yourself to keep them comfortable that conversation right there is going to free somebody tonight that conversation okay another point to make is you know you think about people in the chaos wonder why do they fear peace so much you see that's that sign back there i had that since i moved here i bought that and um how helpful that has been through the years for me is i can look in the into the camera and see it and find solace in myself but my house is a place of peace and i'm in this house this house right well you know what's sad as i realize and i'm thinking about people in these toxic relationships some people fear peace not because they want dysfunction it's not because of that but because peace feels emotionally unfamiliar and just like i said you know the behavior you're being in you know chaos your nervous system can't handle it it's the same thing with peace your peace is inner so when there is calmness people call it loneliness instead of solitude they become anxious and they need to do something all the time you know um because peace feels emotionally unfamiliar and unfamiliar feel feels unstable i know that i have a few clients that um one of them is almost in like 10 to 15 boards um and i say you can't run like that forever because you're gonna end up burning yourself out and of course you know then it's like no i've been doing this for years and years and i saw my dad doing it and i said listen to what you said you saw your dad do it where's your dad oh passed away from a heart attack that's me so people return to emotional unavailable people manipulative people inconsistent people draining dynamics people because the nervous system says i know this pain and healing requires peace so once that's teaching your body that peace is safe too um i think some people mistake chaos for chemistry when they're talking about relationships and that misunderstanding cost them years emotional i know it did for me and it wasn't it wasn't chemistry it was definitely chaos but i but i didn't use my intuition in and my discernment. And it was definitely chaos. And it cost me years of being emotionally mishandled. So how do you begin healing, creating boundaries, emotional honesty? How do you start doing that? What does it look like after trauma actually, after these trauma bonds? What does it look like? And I can tell you, it looks like not pretending you're over it. I used to be looking for the ideal, what does it look like you know um how does it feel thing and it wasn't until I started admitting things didn't look like it was supposed to be I never pretended and still don't pretend that I'm over it because you'll never get over it because it's in you it's part of your makeup you learn to navigate with it you learn to defuse it you learn to um calm it but it's part of you not acting is tough not jumping into another relationship is hard but real healing it's the best thing you could ever do for yourself and the person the next person you get involved with the next job that you go to when you work with co-workers the next friendships that you get into and it does amazing work for you on the inside the boundaries that you create for yourself it doesn't now and now doesn't help you help you abandon yourself anymore um the emotional honesty with yourself frees you from trying to pretend wearing masks every day not being who you authentically originally are it gives your nervous system healing it gives you back your self-worth your self-worth is so valuable let me tell you we forget about the self-worth we forget about the um the self-denial you know we forget about that when we deny ourselves we deny who we really are So we put on this pretentious play, pretentious play for years. And then when we really become alone, we wonder who the hell we are. What the freak do we want? That's when we roll the tape back to now discovering who we are. Now setting those boundaries that people can't come in. You don't weave them into the fabric of your lives until you know exactly who they are. You now start to build up your self-worth by being honest with yourself. And then your nervous system starts to heal. It starts to learn peace and emotional regulation. That's key, emotional regulation. Because when you regulate your emotions, you master life. And then as you master emotional regulation, you start letting go of all those survival attachments that you gained along the way and thought they were independence, thought they were confidence, thought they were leadership, but they were all just coping mechanisms. I think healing starts when people stop proving their worth through suffering. You know, in the Bible, there was a story about a martyr. And I don't think that the Christ consciousness or the consciousness of the universe requires that we become martyrs or that we suffer. I think everything that we speak, all the ways that we act, we compound the suffering on ourselves. So healing starts when you stop proving your worth to suffering. And honestly, some people are exhausted because they spent years earning love that should never require emotional pain. I know I have. So you know what I hope what you get today or people get tonight, that trauma bonds are not weakness. They are learned emotional survival patterns. that's all they are and until you deal with the fear underneath the attachment you will keep repeating the same relationship cycle just with different faces just in different places different relationship different friendship different person same emotional pattern and eventually people become emotionally exhausted trying to earn love that should never require suffering that's why i created your next move the strategy session because that's where i identify the patterns that interrupt your life so that you can have the life and the personal life and the business that you desire this is for the person who knows that they keep repeating behavior patterns but cannot figure out why they keep ending up in the same cycle This is for the person that honestly knows and just needs a little help to get their tools out and start the work. Because information is not the issue anymore. Pattern interruption is. Now listen, you heard the conversation. Now let's talk about what to do with it and do with it what we must. if this episode made you think about somebody emotionally stuck or even for yourself in a draining relationship or a friendship share this with them and don't forget to answer the questions in the comments tonight because i will be reading them and i want to thank you for being with me tonight and this has been an amazing session with you and i'm so glad that i was able to talk to you tonight about this and i hope to see you again this is edna white and i'm saying good night and have a great evening