What can we learn about trauma bonds from the noise in the White House to empower us toward healing and freedom?
“Canada will become our cherished 51st state.”
My teeth are set on edge. I feel repulsed, angry. I want to look away, stop thinking, push back.
I’m Canadian (as well as American), so his bullying and threats to ignore our sovereignty naturally infuriates me. It angers all of us.
But there’s something more. It’s not just the threat. It’s the word “cherished” that makes me feel sick.
As a psychologist, I recognize what this one word, oft repeated, is doing. This word, so at odds with the behavior. An openly expressed desire to crush and cause suffering, unless we do what he wants and give him control of our boundaries, let him come in and take what he wants and do with us what he wants for his own lust – combined with the word “cherished.”
See the kindness here? He’s not a bad guy. He’s going to love and cherish you. Just lie still until he’s done having his way with you. Let him take what he wants. No, no, you’re overreacting. It’s not assault, not abuse. See? He’s going to cherish you.
After he takes your freedom.
This is trauma bonding. (Or an attempt to foster it, at least. Canadians aren’t having it.)
Just as when he manufactured a TikTok crisis. Threatened to have it banned, then set himself up as the savior, restoring free speech to Americans! Aggressor / savior.
Trauma bonding happens when the abuser creates an emotional dependency through a toxic mix of abuse and heroism and / or shallow affection.
Like the slave-masters who prided themselves on being “one of the good ones.” See how charitable I am to the people whom I force to live in subhuman conditions and work without pay? How amorous they might be with the women whose husbands and children they sold away!1 There’s a secondary gain for the abuser to reassure himself he is good, even as the abuse persists.
Children are particularly prone to being caught up in trauma bonds, as they are naturally dependent upon their caregivers. To reject the abusive caregiver completely, to pull away and lean only on oneself requires a level of physical and emotional maturity that is not present from a young age. It challenges survival imperatives: to be fed, sheltered, and cared for requires trust in the only caregiver(s) you have.
And the abuse is unlikely to be constant. There may be sweet moments, moments when the need for attachment wells up with hope and happiness and the child snuggles up to the parent who just hurt them.
“I have to spank you because I love you.” Hurt / affection.
“We have to do this. I’m sorry. We have to do this,” the president said of his annexation threats and economic war.2 (No. No, you don’t. You never have to crush, threaten, or invade the sovereign borders of others’ bodies or nations. Stay out. No, you’re not sorry, and we can’t accept those words while you persist in harming us.)
The outcome is shame. If the abuser isn’t bad (s/he cherishes me!) then the target must be. The victim must deserve the pain. And in dependency it makes more sense to blame oneself than to reject the only one capable of providing for your needs. It’s unwise to bite the hand that feeds.
The same is true in domestic violence relationships. The common cycle is enchantment with charisma and love-bombing, a flood of affection, then devaluation through abuse and assault, before expressing remorse and returning to the flood of affection. These affectionate parts can feel really good. They fill a true need for connection and attachment. The abusive parts become minimized as past mistakes and the abuse victim allows themself to be convinced it won’t happen again. Until it does. Because the trauma bond is sealed.
Reflecting on a past relationship, my sister writes: Before the abuse I was living with turned explicitly violent I had begun to be so worn down. The pleasure of having someone delight in me, make me feel seen, know my “faults” and care for me anyways… Gradually sliding into reminders of my faults, and how unlovable I was, and how lucky I was that I had found someone who would love me… The barrage of negative… And then…
Then the oh-so-sweet whispers of my Belovedness. How cherished I was. How special to my partner. How no one could ever take me away or harm me. Promises that, although reinforcing my identity as property, felt like such sweet relief to such a battered sense of self.
Do you see the pattern yet? Control. Criticism, often with lies3 4 to create a false narrative of weakness and justify the abuse. Exploitation, rather than charity or assistance, in response to any weakness. Creation of dependency in a formerly strong and independent other. Attempts to own, to claim. And then a swirl of paternalistic “cherishing” frosting on top of the shit-cake to make it all look appetizing. To entrap. To disguise the nature of what it really is to any who would question or intervene.
It is essential to understand, so to recognize, trauma bond tactics and dynamics. Recognition is empowerment, prerequisite to freedom. Understanding the complexity of the relationship as it teeters between feeling good and feeling awful, compassionately acknowledging the legitimacy of the exploited need for attachment and the related fear of abandonment, and being ruthlessly honest about the character of the person you both love and loathe can provide the clarity to set you free.
And for those not in a trauma bond relationship, recognizing the dynamics of an abuser who would intentionally cause suffering while promising to cherish can protect you from entanglement in their web of control from the start.
- Which is, of course, rape, when such an imbalance of power and lack of freedom exists. And it goes without saying that not all slaveowners even pretended to be charitable, not that that would exonerate any of the horrors of slavery. ↩︎
- https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/trump-s-choice-for-ambassador-says-canada-is-a-sovereign-state/ar-AA1APeVy?ocid=BingNewsVerp&cvid=cdddb595826946aecdd59413e9e53813&ei=7&fbclid=IwY2xjawJARCFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHb_FWpxhZ6BAEBehkaB0LeZzk0gZZ58zfVzsF0kjuPabFa2y_ugpCMyc2g_aem_fOKOOTlzob6NlGsUvFn7Pg ↩︎
- To be clear, the narrative that this conflict is about fentanyl is a red herring. Less than 1% (0.02%) of the fentanyl in the USA comes from Canada, and it is the responsibility of US Customs and Border Patrol to search incoming vehicles, not Canada. https://www.cfr.org/article/how-does-fentanyl-reach-united-states ↩︎
- It is incorrect to claim that a trade deficit is a “subsidy.” A trade deficit simply means that people in one country are buying more goods from another country than people in the second country are buying from the first country. Americans want to buy these products from overseas, either because of quality or price. The USA is not giving money as charity, but is spending money to get things they want. That’s just a free market. https://socialwork.ubc.ca/news/canada-subsidizes-the-u-s-not-the-other-way-around/ ↩︎