Trauma Bonded To A Narcissist? You May Display These 5 Behaviors
Rationalization and minimization of mistreatment.
By Shahida Arabi
Over-explaining yourself constantly.
Victims who are trauma bonded to narcissistic individuals have often been chronically gaslit into believing their emotions and perception of reality are inaccurate. As a result, they’ve been trained to question themselves and overexplain their perspective, often when it’s not necessary. Whether it’s overexplaining yourself to the narcissist in an attempt to convince them the legitimacy of your feelings or finding yourself overexplaining yourself to your loved ones and friends because you’ve developed a habit of having to defend yourself, this behavior is deeply rooted in the trauma bond you’ve developed to the narcissist. It keeps you in the vicious cycle of defending your basic rights and boundaries rather than embodying them and taking proactive action.
Fawning.
Fawning is a trauma response where you respond by appeasing a predator or complying with their demands to avoid danger and mitigate threat. A hostage may try to fawn and be kind to their captor so they can try to stay alive, or a victim of domestic violence may walk on eggshells around their abuser lest they…
