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Smooth Criminal/Love the way you Lie: Traumatic Bonding
Why would anyone stay in an intimate relationship where one partner- the powerful one- is constantly or periodically trivializing, degrading, harassing, threating, intimidating, or even physically or emotionally abusing the disempowered mate?
According to psychologists this phenomenon is termed “traumatic bonding”.
Traumatically bonded relationships are characterized by what is known as “intermittent reinforcement”-in plain words, alternating intervals of reward (lovingness and warmth) and punishment (psychological or physical abuse).
Fairy Tales
I’ve always loved a good fairy tale and perhaps you may be able to relate to the princess in the following story. Maybe her story sounds just like yours.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, a beautiful daughter was born to the King of all kings, and the Lord of all lords.
Her father loved her and attended to her needs as if she were his only child.
His greatest hope was that she would grow to understand how very much he loved her.
The king was a good king and used his wealth to provide for all the people in the kingdom.
He hoped that one day, his beautiful daughter would help him to demonstrate his love for his people.
This powerful king however had an evil enemy who hated the king and all that was his.
He despised the obvious blessing that was evident upon the King’s life.
The one they referred to as the Evil one was bursting with envy and wanted very much to hurt the King, but knowing the King was invincible, the Evil one tried to hurt the King’s daughter instead.
Disguised as a prince the Evil one came to the daughter to court her and win her trust away from the King.
The Evil one used cunning flattery to draw her from the protection of the King’s castle by promising to give her all the things her father asked her to wait upon.
She innocently followed the Evil Prince, and once he had her in his clutches, he robbed her of her most precious gift- her dignity.
The Evil Prince dressed her in rags, smeared her face with ashes, and stood her before his evil followers, who mocked her and called her names.
Feeling immense shame before the contemptuous crowd, the beautiful princess retreated to the dungeon, where the Evil Prince had told her she belonged.
She forgot the words of her father, and only remembered the humiliation of standing in public view and feeling naked and ashamed.
She vowed she would disguise her true identity so the crowd would never mock her again.
From that day on, she covered her beautiful face whenever she ventured out of her secluded hiding place.
The Evil Prince had convinced her that she was ugly, unworthy, unloved and unwanted.
He had separated her from her father and gloated in his apparent victory to hurt the King by making the princess ashamed of who she was.
Her secret humiliation kept her imprisoned by the evil enemy who had tricked her with his lies.
This story is similar to the famous Stockholm syndrome where in such instances, during the course of their captivity, some female flight personnel feel in love with the terrorists who had taken them hostage.
Stockholm syndrome
Stockholm syndrome describes a condition where a captive victim befriends their captor.
Psychiatrists use the term Stockholm syndrome to describe a set of psychological characteristics first observed in people taken hostage during a 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm.
In August 1973 four employees of Sveriges Kreditbank were held hostage in the bank's vault for six days.
During the standoff, a seemingly incongruous bond developed between captive and captor.
The individuals are generally not harmed by their captors and may even be treated with kindness.
A person who develops Stockholm syndrome often experiences symptoms of posttraumatic stress: nightmares, insomnia, flashbacks, a tendency to startle easily, confusion, and difficulty trusting others.
Anyone can be susceptible to Stockholm syndrome.
Battered partners or spouses are a prime example of Stockholm syndrome.
Oftentimes, they are reluctant to press charges or initiate a restraining order, and some have attempted to stop police from arresting their abusers even after a violent assault.
Other Abusive Relationships
Other such terrifying/loving relationships that one might think of are those that can spring up between master and slave or between the maltreated child and his or her tyrannizing parent.
Children who have been abused by hostile or severely neglected caretakers still love their parents passionately and often resist being made to leave their homes.
Again, it should be noted that the majority of victims have no conscious knowledge that anything “abusive” is actually happening.
More often than not, he or she is blaming themselves and their own failings for the fact that the relationship feels so flawed and unsatisfactory.
Some signs of psychological abuse are:
· Destructive criticism/Verbal abuse
· Abusing Authority
· Disrespect
· Abusing Trust
· Emotional Withholding
· Breaking Promises
· Minimizing, Denying, and Blaming
· Pressure Tactics
· Intimidation
· Destruction
· Threats
The most clear-cut distinction between emotional violence and abuse of a physical nature is that an attack on someone’s body is a tangible event- one that’s likely to leave evidence, in the form of bruises and scars.
Psychological mistreatment, on the other hand, usually involves an indirect kind of process.
Disgusted looks, muttered insults, mocking jokes about a person’s inadequacy, intelligence, appearance, integrity, or moral value.
Basically, everything I mentioned in my fairytale above.
With psychological mistreatment there are no injuries that can be seen or photographed.
We humans are, after all, social creatures, who grow up in the protective environments provided by our caretaking families.
Thus, when bad things happen at the hands of the very people who are supposed to love and nurture us, our basic conception of ourselves and of the world we inhabit is inevitably impacted in enormous ways.
Everyone deserves a safe place to heal.
The Cayman Islands Crisis Centre
The Cayman Islands Crisis Centre has been providing a safe shelter and hope for a life free from violence to women and their children since 2003.
They believe that domestic violence is a crime, whether the victim is a man, a woman or a child.
Remember there is no excuse for Domestic Abuse!
