Trauma bonding is a strong emotional connection formed in abusive relationships often involving fear loyalty and dependence.
It’s common in romantic family work and friendship settings especially with long-term abuse or manipulation.
Understanding the seven stages of trauma bonding can help victims break free. These stages are:
- Idealization: Initially seeing the abuser as perfect.
- Devaluation: Realizing the abuser’s harmful traits.
- Hope: Wishing the abuser returns to kind behavior.
- Fear: Feeling helpless due to the abuser’s unpredictability.
- Enmeshment: Becoming emotionally dependent on the abuser.
- Despair: Feeling hopeless from ongoing abuse.
- Detachment: Seeking to escape the unhealthy bond.
Victims might feel loyal to their abuser despite suffering often due to intermittent reinforcement—alternating between kindness and abuse.
Isolation fear financial control and other manipulative tactics can make leaving difficult. Recognizing these patterns is crucial for healing and overcoming trauma bonds.
Here are some of the top trauma bonding quotes that I have collected for you.
Trauma Bonding Quotes
Trauma bonding is like a puzzle – it’s easy to put together, but hard to take apart. ~ Unknown
Trauma bonding is like a roller coaster – sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, but you always keep going. ~ Unknown.
The little girl’s dependency on her father made [his] abuse more insidious. ~ Joan Frances Casey.
Trauma bonding is a relationship between two people where one person feels incredibly linked to the other because of a shared history of trauma and abuse. ~ Alex Korb, a neuroscientist and researcher.
Trauma bonding is like glue – it can stick you together, but it can also be hard to break apart. ~ Unknown.
Being in a trauma bond often feels like a rollercoaster of emotions, with highs and lows that make it difficult to breathe. ~ Katie Hurley, a therapist and author.
When abuse is perpetrated by intimates, it is additionally confounding in terms of attachment, betrayal, and trust. ~ Christine A. Courtois.
Although the victim may disclose the abuse, the trauma bond means that the victim may also wish to receive comfort from the very person who abused them. ~ Unknown.
See Also: Childhood Trauma Quotes
Quotes About Trauma Bonding
Adult survivors may nurse their abusers in illness, defend them in adversity, and even, in extreme cases, continue to submit to their sexual demands. ~ Judith Lewis Herman
But we have each other. And we’ll keep choosing each other, and keep getting better, together. ~ H.E. Edgmon
It is rare for even adult children to abandon their mother, regardless of how many times their mother has abandoned them. ~ Christine Ann Lawson
What we change inwardly will change outer reality. ~ Plutarch.
Children with borderline mothers adjust to the chaos of their lives by learning to expect the unexpected. They associate love with fear and kindness with danger. ~ Christine Ann Lawson.
Trauma bonding is like a game of chess – it can be a powerful move, or it can be a mistake. ~ Unknown
I wanted my mother to love me. Despite all the torture and brutality. ~ Wendy Hoffman
Increasing emotional intimacy with a person who is forcing physical intimacy makes sense in our minds. It resolves cognitive dissonance. ~ Rosenna Bakari
Trauma bonding is like a maze – it’s easy to get lost, but hard to find your way out. ~ Unknown
Many survivors have such profound deficiencies in self-protection that they can barely imagine themselves in a position of agency or choice. ~ Judith Lewis Herman.
You Might Like: Pain Quotes
Trauma Bonding Quotes for Instagram
When all you know is fight or flight, red flags and butterflies all feel the same. ~ Cindy Cherie.
I think my biggest fear is dying. Although sometimes my biggest fear is not dying. But yeah, I think health stuff for me is more what I’m afraid of. ~ Kathleen Hanna
It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us; in joy we face the storm and defy it. ~ Amelia Barr.
Sometimes the adjustment that the mind makes is for the victim to bring her or his behavior in line with the violator, since the violator cannot be controlled by the victim. Our greatest source of survival is to adapt to our environment. ~ Rosenna Bakari
They may have also experienced trauma bonding over the course of their victimization, that is, a bond of specialness with or dependence on the abuser. ~ Christine A. Courtois
Trauma bonding is like a rollercoaster – sometimes you want off, but you can’t seem to get off. ~ Unknown
The capacity for dissociation enables the young child to exercise their innate life-sustaining need for attachment in spite of the fact that principal attachment figures are also principal abusers. ~ Warwick Middleton
Their experiences led them to create assumptions about others and related beliefs about themselves such as this is my lot in life and this is what I deserve. ~ Christine A. Courtois.
Healing from trauma can also mean strength and joy. The goal of healing is not a papering-over of changes in an effort to preserve or present things as normal. It is to acknowledge and wear your new life – warts, wisdom, and all – with courage. ~ Catherine Woodiwiss.
A lot of people who have experienced trauma at the hands of people they’ve trusted take responsibility, and that is what’s toxic. ~ Hannah Gadsby.
Narcissist Trauma Bonding Quotes
Delusional pain hurts just as much as the pain from actual trauma. So what if it’s all in your head? ~ Tracy Morgan
It is not uncommon to find adult survivors who continue to minister to the needs of those who once abused them and who continue to permit major intrusions without boundaries or limits. ~ Judith Lewis Herman
Intimacy requires a slow, cumulative build of safety between people who agree to a relationship, an ongoing connection of care and concern. The performance of pain is essentially a form of bonding over trauma, and people can get addicted to their endorphins. ~ Lierre Keith
Some also learned that personal safety and happiness are of lower priority than survival and that it may be safer to give in than to actively fight off additional abuse and victimization. ~ Christine A. Courtois.
Trauma bonding is like a double-edged sword – it can bring you closer together, but it can also tear you apart. ~ Unknown.
When there is inconsistency in belief and action (such as being violated by someone who is supposed to love you) our mind has to make an adjustment so that thought and action are aligned. ~ Rosenna Bakari
Betrayal is a more subtle, twisted feeling than terror. It burns and eats, but terror stabs right through. ~ Wendy Hoffman
To live in the body of a survivor is to never be able to leave the scene of the crime. I cannot ignore the fact that I live here. ~ Blythe Baird.
Instead of saying ‘I’m damaged, I’m broken, I have trust issues. I say I’m healing, I’m rediscovering myself, I’m starting over. ~ Horacio Jones.
Trauma is hell on earth. Trauma resolved is a gift from the gods. ~ Peter A. Levine
I wondered, as I wondered so often when I was that age, who I was, and what exactly was looking at the face in the mirror. If the face I was looking at wasn’t me, and I knew it wasn’t, because I would still be me whatever happened to my face, then what was me? And what was watching? – Neil Gaiman.
Trauma bonding is like a puzzle – the pieces may fit together, but it’s hard to make sense of it all. ~ Unknown
PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) occurs following a trauma that was so awful that in retrospect you don’t understand how you survived. What that causes is an extreme feeling of vulnerability that you get past but that doesn’t go away. ~ Paul Goulston.
Trauma bonding is like a tightrope – it can be a balancing act, but it can also be hard to keep your footing. ~ Unknown
Secure attachment has been linked to a child’s ability to successfully recover and prove resilient in the presence of a traumatic event. ~ Asa Don Brown
Trauma bonding is like a roller coaster – it can be thrilling, but it can also be terrifying. ~ Unknown.
I hope this collection of quotes on trauma bond will heal you and come out stronger.
