E111 - (Layup LBG) I Saw the Red Flag… Why Didn’t I Leave? Trauma Bond Science Explained

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[00:00:00] If you have found yourself ignoring red flags that you know are there, I'm going to explain today why this happens in narcissistic relationships.

Speaker: Welcome to Heartbreak to Wholeness, the podcast helping you heal from the mindfuck of narcissistic relationships and move towards the secure, peaceful woman you want to become. I am your host, Bre Wolta, Relationship Clarity Coach and EFT Certified Practitioner. Let's dive in.

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Welcome to the episode. You know that moment when a red flag walks right up to you and waves and maybe does a little tap dance, and your brain goes, Hmm, could that be a beige flag? Or maybe he's just tired. I know I'm not the only one who's had that experience, and we are gonna talk about that because it can be crazy making to try to understand why you saw the red flags and ignored them.

So we're gonna talk about why you [00:01:00] absolutely did see the red flag, but why your brain worked over time to try to get this red flag to disappear. You're gonna learn some neuroscience behind trauma bonds and how your nervous system. Actually becomes chemically wired to clinging to the very person who's causing you pain.

And we're gonna unpack this, this emotional and physical toll that ignoring your intuition has on your body. The anxiety, the cortisol rollercoasters, the why am I like this spirals, and why none of these things mean that you are broken. So by the end of the episode, you are really going to understand what is happening inside you, and more importantly, you're going to have the tools and the empowerment to begin to rebuild that self-trust that I know you are second guessing and you are wishing you had when you looked back and saw the red flags in the first place.

So that's what we're gonna do today and be sure to stick around to the end because as always, we're going to pull an Oracle card [00:02:00] and it's gonna offer you a message that you can use to noodle on this week.

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So you saw the red flag. You probably even felt the red flag in your gut. You knew something wasn't right. You knew it didn't feel right, it didn't sit right, yet you explained it away. You found a justification. Maybe you just good old fashioned stuck your head in the sand. Why? Why did we do this? This is the million dollar question, is it not?

Before I answer this million dollar question. I want you to know that I can't give absolutes, of course, but I would say 99% of us who have been in narcissistic relationships have had the experience of looking back on the relationship and seeing every single red flag that we knew we saw in the moment, and feel that frustration around what the fuck happened, where was the disconnect?

So you're not alone in, in this frustration if you're feeling that right now. [00:03:00] In the coaching programs that I hold, and I work with women who are specifically trying to heal from this mind fuckery of being in narcissistic relationships and really understand what happened, really understand what happened in the relationship, what happened to them because of the relationship and unpacking all of that.

It's like a tangled ball of yarn is how I look at this experience. And trying to make sense of something that feels nonsensical is challenging, one of the main, almost verbatim lines that I hear from clients are, I saw the red flags and I ignored them.

Like I can pick out each red flag that I ignored. They start, and I did this too, thinking that it's an intelligence problem. Like I'm just stupid. I'm literally just a stupid person in love or love clouds my ability to be intelligent. Or we think it's a pattern problem, it's my fault that I [00:04:00] keep attracting narcissists.

Both of those things lead to so much self judgment, which does not allow us to have compassion and curiosity, which is what we need to help understand and heal and learn from these experiences. So. It's complex relationship dynamics are not a black and white, and I know how much you want a black and white, but it's, it's not, it is so gray.

There's so much gray and so much layered nuance and, and layered reasoning behind why we do things that we do when we're in relationship dynamics. So I'm gonna offer you some answers today knowing that there are a lot of reasons that your specific story holds unique to why you overlooked your red flags.

But my hope is that these sort of bigger concepts are, are helpful for you to start to orient into your experience. So one of the reasons that we overlook the red flags is because [00:05:00] usually red flags start to come after a really intense love bombing stage. The love bombing stage is intended to bring you, to draw you in to the narcissistic person and to bond you. To them. It's to create that connection. You are connecting from a place of wanting to love and have connection.

They are connecting from a place of wanting power and control. So there's different motives behind this connection point. But what's happening during a love bombing stage is they are becoming every single thing that you want and need in a person. They are portraying themselves as the ultimate partner, the ultimate person that you want.

Maybe you're even using words like soulmate and you feel so connected. You're seeing these signs, you're feeling this draw to this person, and so you're very invested in this working. Okay. You are like, this is the perfect person. I've never felt this before. I finally am feeling loved and [00:06:00] chosen and wanted and desired, and like so much of everything that you've been wanting probably for your whole life.

So the stakes are really high to lose this person. In your, in your brain that's like, he's the one, this is the one. You really like slash love of this person. You think he's your soulmate. So of course when you see the first red flag, you're gonna give him the benefit of the doubt. No. Like you're gonna say, oh God, he had a bad day at work.

Like he yelled at me and I know that he's just trying to manage his frustration at work. We give the benefit of the doubt. And we say things like, well, he's human. Likely. He has shared some story about his trauma from his past and played some part of victim in this story.

And so your heartstrings are being pulled into God. He really just had a rough childhood. Like of course he is lashing out at me. What happens is, is the benefit of the doubt in seeing people as [00:07:00] human come when you have a lot of empathy. But when somebody repeatedly does things that shouldn't be justified because of their past or their trauma, that's when it starts to become dangerous and starts to really affect your you period, and your life, your sense of self, your confidence in all of the things.

I'm not saying that we should write people off right away, but we should be holding people accountable through these, these outlashes or these reactions that they're having or these triggers that they're experiencing, or whatever red flag we're seeing. There should be some accountability held there.

But we don't do that in these relationships again, because the bond that was created is so intense. We feel that this person is, has been sent from the heavens, the universe, whoever you believe in, right on our lap. And the stakes are too high to see what is actually happening. Another thing that happens here is as [00:08:00] we move from the love bombing stage into the devaluing and then into the dis discarding that happens in the narcissistic cycle, we get really confused because we have seen him be the person that we want him to be.

We have literally experienced him being this person. So there's, there's a place we go to that I call potential land, where we stay in this hopeful place of, he's gonna go, he's gonna get back there. Maybe these things are happening, maybe I'm seeing these red flags and I see that they're not okay. But now I really feel like he just needs some therapy.

We just need to do some couples therapy. He just needs to stop drinking and then we're gonna be fine. I'm staying in that hopeful place. I've seen him be this person. I know he's capable. Why is he not getting back there? He's gonna get back there. That's the cycle that we, we go through in our, in our brain. Because if I'm in the hopeful place, then I don't have to actually acknowledge the reality of the [00:09:00] situation, and I might not be ready to acknowledge the reality of the situation. I, I really believe that we stay in potential land out of like self-protection a lot of the times.

Because if we're there, it's a dissociative, protective way that we manage our lives. Because to see what's happening, to see your partner as manipulative or to see the gaslighting or to see the abuse, if abuse is happening, that's a lot to, to drink in.

So of course, you stay in potential land. This is, again, this is something that is so common. You want it to work. You see their potential, you wanna give them the benefit of the doubt.

Um, and so you're trying really hard to, to help him see that he can get back into that place as well, despite these red flags that are happening.

After we've gone through the narcissistic cycle. So the narcissistic cycle is what they are doing to us as the receiver. [00:10:00] The trauma bond is what happens inside of us, the receiver, because of what they're doing. So a narcissistic cycle leads to a trauma bond, and a trauma bond emerges when you start to become dependent on the person who's hurting you to relieve your pain.

Okay, and let me explain a trauma bond here in very high level terms. A trauma bond is this cycle that happens chemically and psychologically in our bodies with somebody who we are bonded to. So when we are experiencing this cycle.

I kind of think of it in like four steps. Step one is we're feeling a lot of stress. We are stressed out because we need to be on eggshells around this person. So there's hyper vigilance, which means there's a lot of cortisol happening in the body of keeping us alert, aware, aware of our surroundings.

Well, then we move into fear because the person is starting to discard us, [00:11:00] right? They're starting to be kind of nasty. They're starting to throw those jabs, um, physically or emotionally or mentally or spiritually, or financially. There's a lot of ways that that abuse looks in a relationship. And when we are in fear, our adrenaline is spiking.

So now we have cortisol pumping, we have adrenaline spiking, and then when they start to pull away. Right. You felt that that rejection from them, maybe it's them not returning your calls, maybe it's the cold shoulder. Maybe it's them ignoring you outright even though you live in the same space. Maybe it's them cutting you down on every level that causes emotional pain, which our body registers as real as physical pain.

That's that withdrawal that you feel where it is just too fucking intense. It's too painful. I can't handle all of these things that I'm feeling. I my, and on top of these hormones being out of control with the cortisol and the adrenaline, you [00:12:00] are just very uncomfortable. And if you don't have the right tools to manage that discomfort, what happens?

We seek. The relief we seek, we seek getting out of this pain because of course I don't wanna be in this pain. And we know through going through this cycle several times that he will come back and relieve this pain when he comes back. We dump dopamine, we get a dump of dopamine, we get a dump of oxytocin.

Dopamine is the chemical. It's the body's reward system chemical that keeps us drawing towards experiences that feel good. So it keeps us seeking literally that person to help us feel good. And the oxytocin helps. It's the, it's the love bonding chemical. It's what's released when you feel warm and cozy and held with somebody.

It's literally intended to help you create a bond. So moving through these cycles with these chemicals in our bodies is neurochemically bonding you to this [00:13:00] person so you have an intense dependency on him to provide the relief from.

The Anxiety and the pain that he caused in the relationship. So our wires really get crossed there of like, this person's hurting me, but he's the only one who can take my pain away. Ignoring these red flags can actually be a way that you are self protecting because losing the person who can make you feel better actually feels too scary.

Yeah, it feels way too hard to think about being able to manage everything that's happening inside your body without the solution. Right. He has become the solution. Much like in addiction, there's people who reach for the alcohol as their solution to take their pain away, or the drug as their solution, or the gambling or whatever.

We're using the outside source to make us feel regulated and comforted and worthy and loved and okay. Inside. Our bodies are fucking amazing, um, and frustrating at the [00:14:00] same time because our need for connection will always override our logic.

So it's not that you didn't know likely, as you've gone through the cycle several times, like clients of mine know that they're with a narcissist. They know that they're in a trauma bond, and they yet are still going through these cycles. They're still coming to me to help break the cycle.

So it's not that you didn't know, it's that you didn't have the right tools to help you be able to break that chemical dependency on the person, the beauty there is that it's not your fault and it's possible to do with the right support.

If we stay in the cycle of being in hope and ignoring the red flags, and then seeing this person play out, and then seeing them put the mask back on about who they are trying to be to suck us back in, we just go through so much frustration and anger, usually self-directed because we see the psycho play out and then we get pissed that we fell for it again, or that we allowed it again,

or that we ignored the red flag [00:15:00] again, so that's hard to be with just on a day to day, that level of frustration and anger, but deeper than that. What happens is that we really start to believe that we can't trust ourselves. It's like we're, we are proving to ourselves over and over again that, ugh, you can't be trusted. You can't be trusted, you can't be trusted,

and we start to feel like we've lost this connection to our intuition. We start to feel like something is just wrong with us. Like our, we're just not in control of ourselves or our decisions or our mind, our body anymore.

So we stop trusting that we have the strength to not go back. And if you have left the trauma bond and have not gone back to the person because you've had some support around that, then there's this distrust of being able to date again and how can I trust myself to not see the red flags and not fall for it again?

So there's that internal like, like shifting of self trust that chipping away at our ability to be [00:16:00] our own self guiding force. And when we're in these relationships where we're ignoring these flags, we're spending often years in relationships that are designed to chip away our sense of self and our confidence.

If you are being manipulated and being gaslit, it is just like chipping is the best way. It's just chipping you away little piece by piece, and until you don't even recognize yourself anymore.

And then the physical toll of being in the adrenaline and the cortisol spikes as you move through that hope and heartbreak cycle is really hard on our bodies. It's really hard physically in our bodies, we're not meant to have cortisol and adrenaline pumping 24 7.

We're meant to engage it to get away from danger, and then our bodies are meant to come back into a parasympathetic rest and digest state. When you're in the sympathetic, your body is preparing for something, it's preparing for action, it's preparing to keep you safe, so you're just living in that high, high, high [00:17:00] state.

Bringing your nervous system baseline up to think that high state is normal and your body is just working so hard. Oftentimes when I work with clients, they like, through our our process, they're like, Bria, I'm so exhausted. And it's because their nervous system is starting to come down. They're starting to feel what it's like to actually allow their body to rest,

and that can be a really challenging transition to come down from when you're used to just managing through the chaos.

So those are, those are some of the why's to sort of help, again, orient yourself into what does it mean that I'm doing this?

And now that we know the why, it's like, okay, cool. What do I do about this? Rebuilding that sense of self-trust has to be like foundational in your healing because you have to have that self-trust to be able to believe those spidey senses, those little intuitive nudges. [00:18:00] When, when, when they show themselves right to, to see that something is off early in a dynamic. So what we wanna work towards is being able to trust yourself, to recognize these signs so that you are no longer needing a reason to walk away.

It's when you start dating or start interacting with a new person. It's like if I start to feel discomfort or familiarity, that's it. That's my sign. I don't need to wait for seven experiences of them doing the same thing for me to know what I feel in my body.

By doing this work. You're gonna feel more grounded. You're gonna feel less guilty, say, giving a no to somebody again, just like, no, this doesn't feel good for me. I don't need to give you a whole disposition of why this doesn't feel good for me. It just doesn't. And you trust that, and then you trust yourself to remove yourself from a situation that doesn't feel good.

And when you can do those things, you can actually show up to date from a place of warmth and excitement even [00:19:00] because you, you know that you're not gonna override your instincts. You know that, you know the signs, you know that, you know how your body feels and something familiar. And so you're just, you're more trusting of yourself, which allows you to be more open to other people in a, in a protective, trusting way.

Again, it is so, so, so common to, to have this self-belief that you can't trust yourself because you've made mistakes in the past or because you have stuck your head in the sand in the past. And what I wanna wanna offer you here is. Real self-trust to me is not, it's not built through avoiding mistakes.

It's built in each of these small moments. Again, when you feel that intuition, like, Ugh, this doesn't feel right, I'm gonna believe it. That builds a little bit of trust. Each time that you have your own back, when you see something that feels off or doesn't feel good, it's all of those, those small moments compounded [00:20:00] that makes you believe that you can trust yourself.

Which makes it doable because it trust, just like with another person, is built in small moments over time. So if you can look at building the trust with yourself in that same way of these are these small moments that we're doing over time it feels more manageable.

It feels more manageable to course correct.

So doing the deeper work around rebuilding your self trust is vital. Processing the trauma from your last relationship is vital so that you can. Again, sift through there to get back to your sense of self, to start rebuilding that trust and having the knowledge around what to look for early in a relationship is also vital.

So if you are in that place in life right now where you are thinking about dating at some point, but that fear feels huge because of what you overlooked in the last relationship. I want you to go the show notes and download my Love bombing guide. It's free for you and is [00:21:00] exactly intended for

Learning the signs of love bombing, so the red flags to watch out for, and. It'll give you the green flags of what you should, look for in the beginning of a relationship, because I know a lot of you listening maybe have not been, uh, coached through what a healthy relationship looks like, so you don't know what to expect.

It's gonna give you both of those things. If you're feeling confused and anxious, thinking about starting dating again.

It is my free gift to you to be able to use this guide so that you can enjoy your life, enjoy your dates, go on these dates with your eyes open your intuition online. That self-trust really, really built. You can do this. I know you can. Okay, before we pull an Oracle card, I wanna do a couple takeaways for you to just bring it all home of what we just talked about. So you know better now why you saw the red flags, but explain to them why you understand now the [00:22:00] high level neuroscience behind a trauma bond and why your body clings to the person that is causing you pain and you know better now the physical and the emotional toll that happens to your body when you are overriding your intuition over and over again in a trauma bonded, narcissistic relationship.

Okay, card time. I'm just going to think about what is the message that you need to hear today and what has come out of the deck is lay it down. Let me find this message in the book and I'll read to you what it says. Lay it down. You have been carrying your shit for too long. It's time to lay it down.

What started as a simple, generous act of carrying someone else's load has snowballed into the boulder that weighs you down. Maybe you are so used to it that you think you love it or it connects you to your identity, or that it was always yours to hold. Allow yourself to remember that the burden you bear [00:23:00] is no longer serving you.

Lay it down, let it roll away. You might even miss it initially, or look around for it. Feel the relief as you step forward in lightness and freedom, knowing that you only need to carry what you are willing to hold. It's very true, very true. These cards are always the truth bomb at the end of the episode.

I hope this episode resonated for you. Please go to the show notes, download that love bombing guide. It's gonna give you so much good information. And if you need more, if you need to actually process through your experience and find the unique places that you can come back into self-trust, you can schedule an intro session with the link in the show notes as well. And until I see you in the next episode, please, please, please remember that you are not alone..