needing to understand this and if it is an aspect of trauma bonding

[Guest guest]

Hi,

I would like to better understand trauma bonding. I only know about it quite

superficially. If anyone can a) direct me to useful information or tell me

about their experience of it, I would be very grateful.

I do get Stockholm Syndrome. Also, I am not so interested in trauma bonding

from the point of view of child to parent.

My interest is that as children, my sister and I lived through the same awful

experiences, but at different developmental stages and of course we simply have

different temperaments. Starting from a very young age, I tried to talk to her

about what was going on around us (especially when my mother was bed ridden with

depression, misusing drugs and alcohol and hospitalized from suicide attempts).

I was trying to make sense of it and to find an ally in her, so we would at

least have each other. She always refused. I'm sure some of it was that she

simply wasn't old enough to do so. But it continued on and on, right up until

this very day.

One of the many facets of it, is that I would rail against my nadas craziness

(before I had a real conceptual grasp of it or names for it), but her

inadequacies, her over-sensitivities, her distortions, her unparenting, her

neediness, her manipulations, etc., made me really mad. At each and every stage

of my attempts to simply become an adult (like going away to college, traveling,

getting married, etc.), my nada would try to stop me, I would be hurt and

outraged, and I would try to get my sister on side to process it and be mad with

me, but she refused.

Later, I rebelled thoroughly, left home and started to reflect and work toward

understanding what was going on. I began to understand the insanity as BPD and

told my sister about it. She didn't want to hear about it.

(She has said to me more recently, that at that time she could not both deal

with my mother in her life and think about BPD at the same time which seems

strange to me, but okay we're different.)

I have had many, many people in my life who have been supportive of me and my

perspective and who -- while they may not have had a direct experience of a BPD

parent -- try to lend their imaginations to what my reality has been like. I am

deeply grateful for all of it.

Yet, somehow it isn't enough and I don't understand why. There is a part of me

that obsessively yearns to share my experience with my sister and for her to

share hers with me. There is also a part of me that is furious with her for

leaving the seeing of it and the dealing with it all up to me. Moreover,

because she was involved with and more concerned about maintaining the approval

of our nada, she often sided against me and judged me along with her. This too

infuriates me to this day.

I am wondering if the intensity of my feelings about this can be explained by

phenomena related to trauma bonding.

Does anyone have any insight into this? Have any of you out there had this kind

of experience with someone with whom you experienced trauma, in particular a

sibling?

Feedback and/or information would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

HC

[Guest guest]

My experience with my dad is similar to what you have described with your

sister.

My dad was very enmeshed with and enabling toward my nada. He did not encourage

me to share with him my hurt and bewilderment over the emotional and sometimes

physical abuse I endured; his stance was always " Your mother is high-strung.

She loves you, but that's just the way she is. Just don't upset her; just try

to not upset her, please. "

So, he distanced himself from dealing with the reality by minimizing or outright

denying the very real and severe emotional abuse I was enduring. I *craved* for

him to stand up to her and give her rules or take my side and protect me, but he

only did this about three times in my entire life that I can recall, and none of

those times were when I was really little, utterly helpless and abjectly

dependent on my parents, and needed his intervention and protection the most.

I ended up in a betrayal bond, enmeshed like super-glue with my nada. I think

it took actual physical separation for that unnatural bond to begin to unravel

and return me to a more normal state of being, and it took decades.

All I can offer you is that " Stockholm Syndrome " aka betrayal bonding is a

survival mechanism on the part of the victim. Its mostly subconscious, and it

happens when the victim feels extremely helpless and vulnerable, as in fear of

imminent physical assault, torture, death, or abandonment or rejection level of

vulnerable.

Just so we're on the same page, " betrayal bonding " specifically refers to when a

parent, care-giver or other " all-powerful " authority figure uses their power to

totally dominate, exploit, and even torment someone in their care (that is the

betrayal: the misuse of authority) causing the victim to bond like super-glue

with their tormentor/captor/parent in order to increase their chance of

survival, or increase their chance of receiving nurturing, positive behaviors.

" Trauma bonding " is simply bonding induced by stress or threatening

circumstances, and can refer to co-victims bonding with each other under

dangerous/traumatic conditions, like when a group of soldiers fighting

side-by-side in combat bond as close as brothers to each other, or when hostages

bond together to give each other emotional support during their captivity, or

people trapped together in a building after an earthquake waiting for rescue,

etc.

When a mentally ill parent splits her children and designates one as the

" all-good " child, and condemns the other as the " all-bad " child, she is

alienating her children from each other, preventing them from bonding with each

other. Its cruel and narcissistic to make your children rivals with each other,

making them compete with each other for the parent's favor, instead of

encouraging siblings to be friends and protectors of each other.

I hope that some day, somehow, your sister will be able to get free of her

enmeshment/bonding with nada, and that the two of you can share a sisterly

friendship and mutual support with each other. I loved my dad very much but I

never got to have that genuine kind of sharing of the truth, sharing my reality

with him. I hope that your life path will be different and better.

-Annie

>

> Hi,

>

> I would like to better understand trauma bonding. I only know about it quite

superficially. If anyone can a) direct me to useful information or tell me

about their experience of it, I would be very grateful.

>

> I do get Stockholm Syndrome. Also, I am not so interested in trauma bonding

from the point of view of child to parent.

>

> My interest is that as children, my sister and I lived through the same awful

experiences, but at different developmental stages and of course we simply have

different temperaments. Starting from a very young age, I tried to talk to her

about what was going on around us (especially when my mother was bed ridden with

depression, misusing drugs and alcohol and hospitalized from suicide attempts).

>

> I was trying to make sense of it and to find an ally in her, so we would at

least have each other. She always refused. I'm sure some of it was that she

simply wasn't old enough to do so. But it continued on and on, right up until

this very day.

>

> One of the many facets of it, is that I would rail against my nadas craziness

(before I had a real conceptual grasp of it or names for it), but her

inadequacies, her over-sensitivities, her distortions, her unparenting, her

neediness, her manipulations, etc., made me really mad. At each and every stage

of my attempts to simply become an adult (like going away to college, traveling,

getting married, etc.), my nada would try to stop me, I would be hurt and

outraged, and I would try to get my sister on side to process it and be mad with

me, but she refused.

>

> Later, I rebelled thoroughly, left home and started to reflect and work toward

understanding what was going on. I began to understand the insanity as BPD and

told my sister about it. She didn't want to hear about it.

>

> (She has said to me more recently, that at that time she could not both deal

with my mother in her life and think about BPD at the same time which seems

strange to me, but okay we're different.)

>

> I have had many, many people in my life who have been supportive of me and my

perspective and who -- while they may not have had a direct experience of a BPD

parent -- try to lend their imaginations to what my reality has been like. I am

deeply grateful for all of it.

>

> Yet, somehow it isn't enough and I don't understand why. There is a part of

me that obsessively yearns to share my experience with my sister and for her to

share hers with me. There is also a part of me that is furious with her for

leaving the seeing of it and the dealing with it all up to me. Moreover,

because she was involved with and more concerned about maintaining the approval

of our nada, she often sided against me and judged me along with her. This too

infuriates me to this day.

>

> I am wondering if the intensity of my feelings about this can be explained by

phenomena related to trauma bonding.

>

> Does anyone have any insight into this? Have any of you out there had this

kind of experience with someone with whom you experienced trauma, in particular

a sibling?

>

> Feedback and/or information would be much appreciated.

>

> Thank you,

> HC

>

[Guest guest]

Hi HC:

I am not sure that I can say the intensity of your feelings is related to trauma

bonding but I do understand what you are talking about.

I am the middle child (only girl) with two brothers. The roles we played with

our nada shifted according to her perceptions of us and she shifted with who she

chose to be the the golden child depending on her need. Overall I received the

bulk of her " craziness " and abuse as I am the female child.

My younger sibling sounds very similar to your sister. He does have some

memories of her abusive outbursts and attacks but somehow thinks I deserved it

as " oh you were always fighting with her! "

My take on the trauma bond is certain siblings in a family with a BPD parent

will stay very close to the BPR nada/fada for safety. Their lack of desire to

remember it is probably grounded in their own trauma. I know that my older

sibling claims to remember nothing but he also escaped the home at an early age.

The younger sibling and I were left in the toxic soup and he found that to

survivie it was better to push me out front when it looked like nada was

becoming the Witch. As a child and now an adult he still engages behaviours

that make sure he is out of the firing line i.e. tattling to nada on me, making

sure he told stories that made me look like the " trouble maker " etc.

For my part I believe that this brother had very strong NPD traits and I have

chosen to be NC with him. He is as manipulative and abusive as my nada can be

so it makes not wanting to talk with him easier.

I am struggling to let go of hoping that anybody in my FOO will ever see nada in

the same light as me. They are all safe in their denial and have always been

happy to have me be the scapegoat. I will never get any recognition or love

from them.

At Xmas, my nada was on the phone to me in one of her Waif moments bemoaning the

fact that her 3 kids are all divided and " all she has

ever done is be a good mother " blah blah blah. I listened to this pack of

bullshit and then said " but Mum, you created this " and put the phone down!!!

I guess in a long winded way - I am trying to say that my expereince has been

that every child that grows up in a BPD home will experience it differently and

many sibs develop their own way to survive the maelstrom - I will no longer try

to talk with my brothers about my nada - it is an exercise in futility.

Koko

>

> Hi,

>

> I would like to better understand trauma bonding. I only know about it quite

superficially. If anyone can a) direct me to useful information or tell me

about their experience of it, I would be very grateful.

>

> I do get Stockholm Syndrome. Also, I am not so interested in trauma bonding

from the point of view of child to parent.

>

> My interest is that as children, my sister and I lived through the same awful

experiences, but at different developmental stages and of course we simply have

different temperaments. Starting from a very young age, I tried to talk to her

about what was going on around us (especially when my mother was bed ridden with

depression, misusing drugs and alcohol and hospitalized from suicide attempts).

>

> I was trying to make sense of it and to find an ally in her, so we would at

least have each other. She always refused. I'm sure some of it was that she

simply wasn't old enough to do so. But it continued on and on, right up until

this very day.

>

> One of the many facets of it, is that I would rail against my nadas craziness

(before I had a real conceptual grasp of it or names for it), but her

inadequacies, her over-sensitivities, her distortions, her unparenting, her

neediness, her manipulations, etc., made me really mad. At each and every stage

of my attempts to simply become an adult (like going away to college, traveling,

getting married, etc.), my nada would try to stop me, I would be hurt and

outraged, and I would try to get my sister on side to process it and be mad with

me, but she refused.

>

> Later, I rebelled thoroughly, left home and started to reflect and work toward

understanding what was going on. I began to understand the insanity as BPD and

told my sister about it. She didn't want to hear about it.

>

> (She has said to me more recently, that at that time she could not both deal

with my mother in her life and think about BPD at the same time which seems

strange to me, but okay we're different.)

>

> I have had many, many people in my life who have been supportive of me and my

perspective and who -- while they may not have had a direct experience of a BPD

parent -- try to lend their imaginations to what my reality has been like. I am

deeply grateful for all of it.

>

> Yet, somehow it isn't enough and I don't understand why. There is a part of

me that obsessively yearns to share my experience with my sister and for her to

share hers with me. There is also a part of me that is furious with her for

leaving the seeing of it and the dealing with it all up to me. Moreover,

because she was involved with and more concerned about maintaining the approval

of our nada, she often sided against me and judged me along with her. This too

infuriates me to this day.

>

> I am wondering if the intensity of my feelings about this can be explained by

phenomena related to trauma bonding.

>

> Does anyone have any insight into this? Have any of you out there had this

kind of experience with someone with whom you experienced trauma, in particular

a sibling?

>

> Feedback and/or information would be much appreciated.

>

> Thank you,

> HC

>

[Guest guest]

Wow. I found this really interesting article:

http://www.markmeans.com/clientimages/36010/sexaddictionfiles/csattraumabondscou\

rse.pdf.

It is interesting for understanding trauma and it's implications in general, but

specifically for me, it is interesting because under #9 " Trauma Bonds,

Presenting Symptoms of Trauma Bonds " , I display many of the bullet points in the

middle of that list.

HC

>

> Hi,

>

> I would like to better understand trauma bonding. I only know about it quite

superficially. If anyone can a) direct me to useful information or tell me

about their experience of it, I would be very grateful.

>

> I do get Stockholm Syndrome. Also, I am not so interested in trauma bonding

from the point of view of child to parent.

>

> My interest is that as children, my sister and I lived through the same awful

experiences, but at different developmental stages and of course we simply have

different temperaments. Starting from a very young age, I tried to talk to her

about what was going on around us (especially when my mother was bed ridden with

depression, misusing drugs and alcohol and hospitalized from suicide attempts).

>

> I was trying to make sense of it and to find an ally in her, so we would at

least have each other. She always refused. I'm sure some of it was that she

simply wasn't old enough to do so. But it continued on and on, right up until

this very day.

>

> One of the many facets of it, is that I would rail against my nadas craziness

(before I had a real conceptual grasp of it or names for it), but her

inadequacies, her over-sensitivities, her distortions, her unparenting, her

neediness, her manipulations, etc., made me really mad. At each and every stage

of my attempts to simply become an adult (like going away to college, traveling,

getting married, etc.), my nada would try to stop me, I would be hurt and

outraged, and I would try to get my sister on side to process it and be mad with

me, but she refused.

>

> Later, I rebelled thoroughly, left home and started to reflect and work toward

understanding what was going on. I began to understand the insanity as BPD and

told my sister about it. She didn't want to hear about it.

>

> (She has said to me more recently, that at that time she could not both deal

with my mother in her life and think about BPD at the same time which seems

strange to me, but okay we're different.)

>

> I have had many, many people in my life who have been supportive of me and my

perspective and who -- while they may not have had a direct experience of a BPD

parent -- try to lend their imaginations to what my reality has been like. I am

deeply grateful for all of it.

>

> Yet, somehow it isn't enough and I don't understand why. There is a part of

me that obsessively yearns to share my experience with my sister and for her to

share hers with me. There is also a part of me that is furious with her for

leaving the seeing of it and the dealing with it all up to me. Moreover,

because she was involved with and more concerned about maintaining the approval

of our nada, she often sided against me and judged me along with her. This too

infuriates me to this day.

>

> I am wondering if the intensity of my feelings about this can be explained by

phenomena related to trauma bonding.

>

> Does anyone have any insight into this? Have any of you out there had this

kind of experience with someone with whom you experienced trauma, in particular

a sibling?

>

> Feedback and/or information would be much appreciated.

>

> Thank you,

> HC

>

[Guest guest]

Hi HC,

Siblings in a family with BPD parents have a lot to go through. It skews the

normal sibling relationships and developmental steps siblings in non-BP parent

homes go through. How each sibling reacts and copes depends on their basic

personality -- the innate traits they were born with. In your case, your sister

sounds like a type of person who avoids conflict and finds the pathway of least

resistance. Your personality sounds like more of a meet issues head on. Either

way, you both were coping in the only way you innately felt was the way to

survive. Recognize that she was doing the best she could, as you were, but in

different ways.

I have two sisters. The youngest was the all-good and is most likely BPD

herself (I have little to no contact with her). I am the oldest and very close

with my middle sister, with whom understood, most of the time, that we had a

nada. However, because of FOG and other manipulations, she did wax and wane at

some points when I happened to be the all-bad kid. Even when KOs trauma bond,

BPD parents can be aware and manipulate the relationships to their particular

advantage. So even if you had a closer bond with your sister over your nada

situation, it would have been fodder for further BPD nonsense in your family.

In my humble opinion, you should work to forgive your sister, realizing she was

as injured as you, but chose to run for cover in a different direction. Work on

yourself and your own healing. If she wishes to work on herself, link arms and

make the journey together. We can't change the past, but we can develop a happy

and healthy future.

Best wishes,

Away from the Fire

>

> Hi,

>

> I would like to better understand trauma bonding. I only know about it quite

superficially. If anyone can a) direct me to useful information or tell me

about their experience of it, I would be very grateful.

>

> I do get Stockholm Syndrome. Also, I am not so interested in trauma bonding

from the point of view of child to parent.

>

> My interest is that as children, my sister and I lived through the same awful

experiences, but at different developmental stages and of course we simply have

different temperaments. Starting from a very young age, I tried to talk to her

about what was going on around us (especially when my mother was bed ridden with

depression, misusing drugs and alcohol and hospitalized from suicide attempts).

>

> I was trying to make sense of it and to find an ally in her, so we would at

least have each other. She always refused. I'm sure some of it was that she

simply wasn't old enough to do so. But it continued on and on, right up until

this very day.

>

> One of the many facets of it, is that I would rail against my nadas craziness

(before I had a real conceptual grasp of it or names for it), but her

inadequacies, her over-sensitivities, her distortions, her unparenting, her

neediness, her manipulations, etc., made me really mad. At each and every stage

of my attempts to simply become an adult (like going away to college, traveling,

getting married, etc.), my nada would try to stop me, I would be hurt and

outraged, and I would try to get my sister on side to process it and be mad with

me, but she refused.

>

> Later, I rebelled thoroughly, left home and started to reflect and work toward

understanding what was going on. I began to understand the insanity as BPD and

told my sister about it. She didn't want to hear about it.

>

> (She has said to me more recently, that at that time she could not both deal

with my mother in her life and think about BPD at the same time which seems

strange to me, but okay we're different.)

>

> I have had many, many people in my life who have been supportive of me and my

perspective and who -- while they may not have had a direct experience of a BPD

parent -- try to lend their imaginations to what my reality has been like. I am

deeply grateful for all of it.

>

> Yet, somehow it isn't enough and I don't understand why. There is a part of

me that obsessively yearns to share my experience with my sister and for her to

share hers with me. There is also a part of me that is furious with her for

leaving the seeing of it and the dealing with it all up to me. Moreover,

because she was involved with and more concerned about maintaining the approval

of our nada, she often sided against me and judged me along with her. This too

infuriates me to this day.

>

> I am wondering if the intensity of my feelings about this can be explained by

phenomena related to trauma bonding.

>

> Does anyone have any insight into this? Have any of you out there had this

kind of experience with someone with whom you experienced trauma, in particular

a sibling?

>

> Feedback and/or information would be much appreciated.

>

> Thank you,

> HC

>