#45 - On the Effects and Characteristics of Complex Trauma (Part II)

*General trigger warning: episode involves discussion of traumatic events and may be triggering to some listeners*

This is part 3 of a four-episode series on understanding the origins and characteristics of complex trauma as well as paving a holistic path of healing.

In this episode, Aadam and I continue our talk on the effects and characteristics of complex trauma by discussing interpersonal and relationship aspects. We also cover the topic of trauma bonds developed by Dr. Patrick Carnes.

How does complex trauma impact my relationships with family, friends, colleagues and romantic partners? Why do I have issues developing intimacy, trust and respect with people I love and care about? Why do I push people away or hurt them? Why do I end up repeating the same problems but in different contexts? These and other questions are explored in this episode.

Resources used in the episode:
- Video series on complex trauma by Tim Fletcher
- Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect by Jonice Webb
- Trauma Bonds by Patrick J. Carnes

Transcript

Waheed  00:37
Assalamu alaikom wa rahmatullahi ta’ala wa barakatuh, and welcome to a new episode of “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, this podcast series dedicated to Muslims experiencing same-sex attractions who want to live a life true to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and Islam. I'm your host, Waheed Jensen. Thank you for joining us in today's episode, and joining me again today is my dear friend Aadam, on our third episode on understanding and healing from complex trauma. Assalamu alaikom, Aadam! 

Aadam  01:04
Wa alaikum assalam! It's our third episode! 

Waheed  01:08
I know! We're excited, yay! As you guys remember, in the last episode, we talked about the effects of complex trauma and the characteristics that emerge. We talked about shame and problems with coping with stress, and we covered a list of emotional, cognitive as well as behavioral characteristics. Today, we will continue that discussion and wrap up with the interpersonal/relationship aspects, and we will cover the concept of trauma bonds, inshaAllah. 

01:47
There are a couple of characteristics associated with interpersonal relationships when it comes to individuals who grew up in unstable home environments or who struggle with complex trauma. One of the major problems is intimacy issues. Those issues are quite intense, and when we talk about feelings of intimacy - as in love, it does not necessarily have to be romantic relationships or within a marriage context. It can be within deeply emotional platonic connections. We inadvertently create conflict or chaos in order to get this intensity. We want that experience to be intense. As we remember from before, we touched upon the issue of how the survival brain craves that adrenaline/stress hormone kick, and it thrives on intensity. So, if the relationship is not intense, if those feelings are not intense, then it's kind of boring. The problem is, it becomes very unstable. A lot of us alternate between being overly involved and then withdrawing. There's this push-pull dynamic, which is very unstable, as opposed to having a stable dynamic with the other person. It can oscillate between me being overly involved, and then automatically, I would switch to the polar opposite, which is withdrawing completely. A lot of these relationships, unfortunately, because of the complex trauma, are characterized by mistrust, jealousy, being needy and possessive. Sometimes we get preoccupied with real or imagined abandonment that might actually arise, so we become anxious of that. Again, we talked about shame in the previous episode, and we said there's this fear of me not being good enough, and that the person is going to leave, and that's the narrative that's lurking in the back of my mind. So, I need to latch on to them to make sure that they don't leave, or I'm going to withdraw because I don't feel good enough, and they will leave me anyway. Either this dynamic or that dynamic is going to hurt me, and it's going to hurt the other person. 

In previous episodes, we also talked about the need for attachment with the parents. If we go back to our early childhood, we are wired as human beings to attach to our parents from a young age, and then to fear abandonment. So, we need proper attachment and we don't want to be abandoned, that's wired in us. When we think about these two things, these end up being the driving forces for our relationships, and they themselves become toxic. I overly attach, and then I'm so afraid of abandonment, and this dictates our relationship dynamic. As a result, how do we see this in relationships? We so badly want to connect to the other person and to have healthy intimacy, because that is part of our human nature. But we are scared to death, because we have not been used to it, and it opens up a lot of the old wounds of abandonment and trauma. There's a lot of uncertainty associated with it, which means that if I want to be emotionally connected to someone else, I need to let down my guard, I need to tear down some of the walls that I've built around myself. To drop down those masks and to show an element of vulnerability, which is very scary. When we go into relationships, we have a fear that people are going to find out about us, that they will abandon us, and that fear affects our relationships. So again, if we think about these two factors, the desire to attach and the fear of abandonment, if we keep these in mind, they can show us how our relationships are set up from the get-go to not be healthy and to eventually fail. A lot of them fail because of that, and so complex trauma sets us up to not have healthy and properly balanced relationship dynamics, which is very sad and tragic. But it's important to understand these things, so we can navigate through our relationships by working on these problems. We're going to talk about this more as we go along in this episode and the next episode. The next episode is dedicated to talking about all of the healing work that goes into healing complex trauma and relationships, and so on, inshaAllah.

Aadam  06:15
As part of these intimacy issues, people who have complex trauma can have a difficult time nurturing emotions in themselves and other people. Often that stems from love, or just any sort of emotion, that's unexpressed but “understood” in the home environment. To try and make this more tangible, children can often know that they are loved, but they don't necessarily always feel it. This can make people who grew up in this type of environment uncomfortable when emotions are expressed. So, it may be understood that there's love at home, for example, but it's not often expressed. Parents might not say, or caregivers might not say, “I love you”, “I adore you”, “You're so special to me”, or other types of lovely sentiments. It might not have been expressed much. So when it is expressed, or when those types of emotions are expressed – (and thinking about it) there could even be simple things like “Thank you!” that were not said, they were just understood. So, in the home environment, and if you did something nice for someone, you didn't really get a “Thank you”. But you're like, “Well that's fine, it's just my brother or my sister or whoever”. So, when you start hearing “Thank you” and “Please” outside, it can be a bit strange, because you're so used to just getting on with things and not having those sentiments expressed. Basically, without that type of nurturing, children and, by extension, adults, who experienced this, will avoid feeling these types of emotions and those types of expressions, because it just feels too intense and uncomfortable. It's very unusual. As a result, these people will avoid forming emotionally connected relationships for the fear that the other person will come to rely on them and grow to need them, because they don't have any idea how to nurture those emotional communications, if that makes sense. So, I say “I love you”, you've never really heard it before, or you very rarely heard it growing up. You may now feel stumped and be thinking, “I don't know what to do with this”. Or someone is just incredibly nice to you and very complimentary. You can understand that they're trying to compliment you and nurture your sense of esteem, but you just don't know how to reciprocate that. It's so tragic, because everybody wants intimacy. And for people who are experiencing this type of difficulty, the challenge is that they also don't want to get hurt. 

Waheed  09:07
Right. So, instead, we settle with doing things that feel like getting intimacy, which are called “pseudo-intimacy”, which we'll talk about. So, I nurture that side of me, but I don't get hurt. 

Aadam  09:18
Yeah, exactly. So, we want intimacy, but we don't want to get hurt. We will do things that feel like we're getting intimacy, just not to get hurt. We call this pseudo-intimacy. And if we think about it, addiction is essentially emotionally attaching to something, whether that's a substance, whether it's sex, or whatever it might be. The whole idea is that we can attach ourselves to that thing and feel okay and “complete” and “satisfied” for a time. When we're dealing with addiction, we have to understand that this is a false attachment. It is almost a pseudo-intimacy if you'd like, and we have to do address that attachment, because if we don't know how to connect to people in a healthy way, and things that are good for us, we can only dream about being sober for a certain period of time. It doesn't work. So, there's this foundational aspect to overcoming these types of behaviors that needs to be addressed. 

Waheed  10:32
Absolutely. And if you actually think about this, like any work, any recovery work that aims to help you overcome your addiction, if we don't fix the attachment problem, the original attachment problem, then there's going to always be a chance to go back to that numbing behavior that we've been used to. That's very important to take into account. And as you were saying, pseudo-intimacy, which is anything that we do that feels like intimacy but it's not true intimacy, is fake intimacy. That's why it’s “pseudo-intimacy”, we engage in that so that we don't get hurt, but we think that we're getting our intimate needs met, but we're not. Let's go through some examples. Those of us who love sports and are part of sports teams or part of a work environment, we feel like we're all buddies, we're all colleagues, we're all part of the same team, or part of the same group, and we have the same goals, etc. “We're close”, someone might tell you, “We're close”. But that's not true, deep intimacy, because we don't really know deep stuff about each other. We do not let our guards down. It's like, well, this is a nice relationship, but we can't really call it intimacy. Another example is people who hide behind jokes and laughter, they feel like they connect with other people by making them laugh. Once we let other people laugh, we all let our guards down. But then again, that's not true intimacy, because I'm not getting to know the other person. They're not getting to know me. Yes, they relaxed because I'm making them laugh, or they make me laugh, but that doesn't make it intimacy. 

Aadam  12:11
Yeah, you basically become like the joker, the entertainer, and through that, you develop, or you feed that desire for intimacy. But it's not true intimacy, you still feel unsatiated by that. 

Waheed  12:25
Absolutely. And, again, there's nothing wrong with making people laugh or having a sense of humor. But if you consider that your only intimate connection with people, then that's not really intimacy. 

Another example is people who consider themselves to be good talkers. They talk a lot, and they engage with people, if they go out with friends or if they are part of a working group. When they talk about something, everyone is engaged, everyone listens. And they feel that “Oh, my God, I'm connecting with those people!” There's a sense of connection, that's wonderful, but we can’t really call that intimacy, because, again, we are not getting to know people on a deeper level, or they're not getting to know us on a deep level. 

Another example of that is “intimacy” but about (confined to) one topic. We might find this especially common in the recovery or healing community, where people just talk about one topic, they over fixate on it, but they don't know any other topic. They don't know about other things that are going on in their lives. So, let's say they talk about spirituality, and they're amazing when they talk about that. Or they talk about sobriety, and they're amazing when they talk about that. Or they know all of the psychological models when it comes to SSA or the support groups, etc. But what about other things in life? They blank out. Having that particular knowledge is good on its own, but then again, that's not true intimacy, because we're not addressing things on a deep level. We're not getting to know each other on a deep level, we're not being vulnerable with each other. Yes, I'm engaging with you and I'm talking to you and I'm having a connection. But that's not a deep, intimate, genuine connection. 

Another example of pseudo-intimacy, which we see all around us, is the social media world. We think that we're connecting with people and we are connecting with so many people around the world, people that we know and people that we don't know. But is that real sharing? Is that true and healthy intimacy? That's not really the case. And here we're talking about the superficial world of social media. Some of us actually make very deep friendships even though we're not living in the same city or the same country. And we can be vulnerable and genuine long distance and that's fine. But we're talking about like the texting constantly in the social media world that gives us this facade or this impression that this is true intimacy, but it's not really that. 

Aadam  14:53
I would agree with that. I think that's definitely a big one in our time. I think another one to point out is within our families. When we think about it and I've had conversations with people who have said, “My family environment was great, we did everything together, we used to go out together, have fun together, etc.” They would not be wrong for believing there was a level of intimacy there, or some type of connection, love as well. There was a feeling of closeness, but in those environments, there wasn't a real trust or honesty or vulnerability with each other. We knew each other, but we didn't really. We knew each other as far as the surface level things of life. The doing aspects, but we don't really know one another's internal reality. What did you think or feel about this? What are your hopes and aspirations and desires? What are you struggling with right now? These types of things. I would say that one of the cruxes of true intimacy is being able to share those vulnerable aspects of ourselves with each other. Without that, it just doesn't feel the same as what true intimacy is. 

I think we all know this on a deep level. And when you were talking about when we're intimate with people on one topic, I've had many relationships that are like that, particularly in the work environment. You connect with people over a shared task, objective, profession, whatever, and you could be great at talking about that, all the time. But when it comes time to talk about something else, things can fall down. Or you can just feel that while you're great to talk to at work, I just don't feel like getting to know you outside of work. 

Another one is gossip, and this is one I have observed a lot, and I continue to observe that. People will get together and connect over gossip and talking about other people's lives. They have amazing conversations, if you could even use that word, in talking about other people. But there's this lack of reflection upon self or sharing of self. 

Waheed  17:17
Because they don't talk about themselves, they talk about other people, and they bond over stories about other people. But when it comes to being vulnerable among each other about themselves, no. 

Aadam  17:29
Absolutely, and unfortunately, in these types of environments, typically, what I've observed is a lot of backbiting, slander, that type of thing, which is not good at all. We all know that it's sinful. And it's sad that people would bond over those things. Subhan Allah. I've even observed people, when it does come time to talk about themselves, there's an allergic reaction and complete refusal to even go near or into those topics. Often that’s because there's a lot that's going on in that person's life, that they're just not comfortable with themselves. So, it's really sad, because living life like that and having those conversations will keep you lacking those intimate connections. 

Sex can also be used to feel like you are intimate with people. Having one-night stands, casual sex, promiscuity, porn even. It might feel like you're being intimate with someone, but it can lack that. I've spoken with people who have been in these situations, and they've said things like, “The only reason I did that was because I wanted to feel close to someone. I wanted to feel something.” And using sex in that way - for us as Muslims, we be believe that it is haram outside of marriage - but using it in that way as means to feel intimacy is just really sad, subhan Allah, that people would resort to that. May Allah help us all with developing true intimate connections with people that keep us away from these types of situations. 

And lastly, emotional incest. So, this is when parents share things with children that children are not capable of handling or should not know about. So, one parent may talk about the other parent badly, for example, in front of or to the child. Parents might share details of their own internal struggles that the child may not be able to comprehend or handle. For example, mental health issues, children don't have that capacity to deal with this type of information at a young age. Perhaps those situations arise because parents don't have anyone else to talk to. Perhaps they themselves are lonely. So, the parent might feel some alleviation of their own struggle, but the child is overwhelmed. If this is persistent, it can really harm a child's development. They can be forced to grow up and mature beyond their time. 

Waheed  20:38
Right. And the parent feels like, “I'm intimate with my child, we're connecting”. Meanwhile the child is going crazy because of what's happening. 

Aadam  20:45
Yeah, exactly. And I've seen this in my own home, unfortunately. Subhan Allah. 

Waheed  20:53
It's a very common thing, unfortunately. 

Aadam  20:55
Then there's this other group of people who can be called “intimacy addicts”. There is someone in my family who I would probably categorize as this. If you ask them, “How are you?” this person just goes off and starts to spill all their deepest, darkest secrets and problems and just emotionally dumps on people to the point that it's inappropriate and overwhelming for the other person. There's no consideration for how much do I know this person? Can I trust this person? Have we built a relationship for me to talk about these things? The only concern they have is that they want someone to listen to them, and they only want to talk about themselves. Typically, they'll dominate the conversation. They may talk loudly, and they may talk over you if you try to interject or try and share your own thoughts. And if you do speak, they may not pay attention. 

Waheed  22:00
Because if it's coming from you, then they will phase out or zone out. But they have to be doing all the emotional dumping. 

Aadam  22:07
Yeah. And you have to be there for them. And you have to help them feel better about their situation. Subhan Allah. 

Waheed  22:16
It goes to show how much in need of true intimacy they are, and they're very hungry for attention and affection. So that's something that's very deep going on, subhan Allah. 

Aadam  22:25
Yeah, absolutely. Often these people have zero idea that that's what's happening. They have been doing it their whole lives, and I'm speaking from experience, I see this in my own life, and it's to the extent that if you were to try and interrupt the pattern, there would be a fallout. The person would end up in the trauma modes - they'd be fighting, they might fight with you, they might run away, they might freeze up, subhan Allah. 

Waheed  22:59
The same pattern. 

Aadam  23:02
Absolutely. All of this pseudo-intimacy gives a feeling that our needs are being met, we feel satisfied, since we get a sense that our attachment and abandonment needs are met. But this is a façade, it's not real true intimacy. You might get a slight satiation of your need for or desire for true intimacy, but it doesn't last, it's fleeting. It's there for as long as you're engaged in that thing, and I think even in some cases, even that doesn't exist anymore, and so all you're left with is the act. You get less and less satisfied, it doesn't cut it anymore, and that's because we fundamentally crave true intimacy. All that we're doing when we do pseudo-intimacy is essentially just feeding ourselves fake food that doesn't nurture. We're afraid of true intimacy, because we are afraid of getting hurt, because true intimacy would involve vulnerability and revealing who you truly are. 

Waheed  24:08
Absolutely. The way that we can differentiate true intimacy from pseudo-intimacy, just to realize, what am I doing right now, is it true or fake intimacy? If I'm connecting to other people, the action is good. But what is my motive? If I have a good motive, which is: I want to be emotionally connected to others. I want to establish an authentic connection, genuine connection, be vulnerable. If I have good action, good motive, that's true intimacy. But if the action itself is good as in: I'm connecting with people, but the motive is unhealthy, I'm running away, but I'm calling that pseudo-intimacy. That's not really intimacy. The brain doesn't know the difference. The brain says, “I'm connecting with people”, but genuinely, deep down, we know that at the level of the heart. We need to sort the difference between true intimacy and pseudo-intimacy so that we can heal from it, and we can establish proper healthy relationships that can aid us on the path of healing and recovery. 

So, that is as far as attachment is concerned. As we said, there's attachment and there's fear of abandonment. So all of this that we've talked about right now is the attachment part. What about fear of abandonment? The fear of abandonment controls a lot of our actions. From an early age, as children, we might have been thinking, “The two people that have brought me into this world have abandoned me, then I'm sure that everyone else in this life is going to abandon me.” If we had experienced emotional neglect, abandonment, abuse, that is the internal narrative, it becomes a core belief. It then becomes translated into every relationship that I walk into, because I feel that the other person is going to walk out on me, they're going to abandon me, just like everyone else has abandoned me in my life. Sometimes you might even push people away and force them to abandon us, through our behavior, just to prove to ourselves that our abandonment issues are true. And I've seen this more times than I can actually count, where things are going very beautifully, and the other person cares about me, but I push him or her away, and I continue to do that until they are forced to actually leave, because they need to protect themselves. And I'm like, “Well, you see, you're going to abandon me anyway!” But I was the one who was doing the harm/abandoning! 

Aadam  26:21
Right, yeah. 

Waheed  26:23
And as a result, I won't let anyone get to know me. I put masks on, I build walls, and I create the very thing that I'm actually trying to avoid. People try to learn about me, and people try to encourage me to be honest and real. They genuinely care, but I refuse. I don't want to open up. I'm afraid of getting hurt. And the more they try to open up and to help me in the process, the more I run away and push them away, even though, deep down, I am craving that intimacy, but I'm afraid of being vulnerable. Eventually, what happens is they give up and they distance themselves and I'd be like, “See? You left me. I might as well stop trying!” But I'm the one who did this to myself in the first place. 

Aadam  27:12
Right. We also set unrealistic expectations or standards within ourselves to prevent abandonment. I have experience of this. 

Waheed  27:28
I think that all of these things that we're going through, that we're talking about here, ring true to a lot of us. Particularly these unrealistic expectations. 

Aadam  27:37
So this first one is the person that you're perhaps in relationship with, they must only love you, and if they show any type of attention or love for other people in their life, it means that they don't love you enough, or they will abandon you. This ridiculously high standard. It's unrealistic, and it can create conflict within relationships where other people feel smothered and controlled and then ultimately walk away, and it reinforces the abandonment narrative that perhaps we might have going on in our heads. We may also feel like the person we're in a relationship with will never abandon us if they're perfect. So if they have a flaw, or they disappoint me, then that proves that they're just like everybody else, and that they'll abandon me. We set this incredibly high standard for people that they're bound to fail to meet, because nobody's perfect, and we look for perfection, but we expect to find flaws, or even maybe fabricate them, create flaws just to prove ourselves right. It's this vicious cycle of destroying relationships, subhan Allah. 

We may also have a need for constant validation. We want to be told that we are loved, and we want to be complimented for how we look or what we have or what we do. We just constantly want to be made to feel good. And if the validation stops, or if it doesn't meet a certain amount, then we begin panicking. “Oh my gosh, they're going to leave! They've stopped, they didn't do it today, they did not tell me that I look good. Or today, they did not say ‘I love you’ enough.” All this type of irrational thinking. Then needing constant attention, so every spare minute of another person's day has to be spent with oneself. To constantly want to be with them, spend every free moment with them, and if they're with others, it is a threat or feels like a threat, and we conclude, “Oh, they're going to leave!” And then, if we ask for favors, and if we don't get what we want, then “They will abandon me.” They may be setting a boundary, perhaps they just don't want to do something, but we would receive that as abandonment or rejection.

This idea of boundaries - being in these situations, we feel that we have a right to have access to that person at any time. I need to be able to call them anytime and they must answer the phone, that type of thinking. Or if they don't answer messages in a timely fashion, then that must mean they don't love me, and they're going to leave. There's this panic-driven way of thinking about another individual that you're in a relationship with, and playing the narrative that you'll constantly be abandoned if they just don't meet these really high expectations that we've set. 

Waheed  30:32
Absolutely. And it follows from this fear of abandonment, there’s also a fear of criticism, even if it's constructive criticism or feedback. If they point out a flaw in me, then my brain tells me that the person who was saying that to me is looking for a way out, you don't see me as perfect. You’re finding faults in me and you're going to back out. Whereas that's not what they're doing. They're actually trying to help us by giving us constructive criticism, because we're all fallible, we're human, we're not perfect. But my mind interprets this as “They're going to abandon me.” So that's one other way. 

Another way is, if we have a confrontation, there is a little bit of anger, which is normal to arise in any relationship. “Oh, my God, they're angry at me. You're becoming fed up with this relationship and you're leaving!” Whereas, no, it just happens in every relationship, we have differences of opinion, sometimes, we just have problems, we have altercations, and people get angry, it's fine, we deal with it. But for us, it's like the alarm system is going off at that moment. Some people feel that “I'm so unworthy of this love, that I'm going to eventually fail them or disappoint them someday, so I might as well just sabotage this relationship and leave anyway, because they're going to be disappointed in me sometime in the future. I just know this. I might as well just walk out.” This is one example. 

Another example is, and this is very common, it hits home for me and for a lot of us, which is the idea that, if we share something that is personal, if we are vulnerable at a particular moment, and that is amazing, then we go back home, or we end that conversation, our mind starts playing scenarios all the time and we're overthinking things. And the worst-case scenarios are playing inside our heads. “What are they thinking? They must think less of me. They must be disappointed. They're not going to be happy with me. They're going to leave me, etc.” Right? So, some people end up leaving that relationship just based on that mental chatter alone. Even though nothing has happened, even though the other person is actually very proud of them for sharing these things with them. But that's what our mind tells us, because, going back to that shame narrative and “I'm not good enough, I'm not valuable enough, no one loves me.” So that thing plays in our heads. 

Another example of the abandonment issues is playing games with other person. A common scenario is being passive aggressive, pushing the other person. “I'm mad at you, I don't want to talk to you” out of nowhere. We push them, push them, push them, they reach out, they want to reconnect, they want to know what the heck is going on, we push them, push them, push them. Then they give us space, we reach out to them, and if they want their space, because they're actually hurt by our behavior, we start asking “Why? Why are they not talking to me?” Well, honey, you started it! Instead of realizing that we have been pushing them away. Or another example would be pushing particular buttons on that person or hurting them, knowing that that is really hurtful for them, just so that they will eventually walk away or we push them away. 

Another very common example is self-pity and putting ourselves down and just drowning in shame. “I don't know why you love me, I don't know why you put up with me, I am so unworthy of you. You're just the most perfect person in the world. You're just saying you love me. But tell me again, tell me more!” And then questioning everything that they say, and their actions as well. And then to constantly make negative conclusions about their motives. “They're just being nice. They're using me. There has to be an ulterior motive.” Sometimes it gets to borderline paranoia. “I bet they're nice to me, because that's just something that they do in front of my face, but as soon as they're with other people, they start talking about me, and there's something that is happening behind my back. They say nice things about me, but they don't believe it. I don't believe it. I can see right through them.” Whereas the other person might actually be genuine, and he cares about us or she cares about us. 

So all of these examples and tons of other examples you can actually think about, we set all of these systems to make us doubt real love, and we end up destroying relationships, whether we know it or not. And this is very tragic, and it is very damaging. So, all of this, you know that attachment and abandonment issues, they fall under intimacy issues. And these are part and parcel of the interpersonal and relationship aspects as part of complex trauma. 

Aadam  35:24
So another characteristic of the interpersonal relationships is trust issues. As we've already established throughout much of what we've talked about, people who have complex trauma have a hard time trusting people, largely because nobody has consistently met their needs. As a result, they conclude that the only person that they can trust is themselves. This is a counter-dependence approach to life. And they also believe that trusting others leads to getting hurt. So, we will cut ourselves off from all forms of help. As an example, if a father tells his child to go up on to a high platform and jump, and the father says, “I'll catch you”, and he doesn't catch the child, but then says again, “Go up again and I'll catch you”, and each time the child does this, they're not caught, it instills that, essentially, they can’t trust that person to be there to catch them when they fall. So, when someone else comes along and says the same thing, we won't respond to it, because we’re so used to that betrayal and disappointment. This will manifest in other relationships as well. 

So if we think about some common examples, people may ask questions about relationships they were in. For example, they might say, “I was in a relationship, and there was some type of issue (for example, addiction), and I was cheated on. We're still in the relationship, do you think that we can work out our relationship and get back on track and have a healthy relationship?” The challenge here is that, breaking trust, it takes a long time to rebuild it, if both individuals are committed and are working on that process. I think sometimes people can underestimate how long it takes to rebuild this. And really, there isn't a timeframe that you can pinpoint. Quite often it can take years to rebuild trust once it's been broken in a relationship. Other examples might be: I'm just starting a relationship and recovering from an addiction. My partner, they're so jealous, they're always checking up on me, they're accusing me of seeing other people, they're playing mind games, they're smothering me, etc. This all comes from this lack of trust when we haven't dealt with our own issues around that, then it will inevitably start showing up within our relationships in this way. 

Another example: I've relapsed quite a few times. My family and partner don't trust me and don't believe that I'm serious about recovery, or that I'm changing, and it's causing a lot of stress in the relationship. Some people in this situation might ask, “Why don't they trust me?” And as we said before, trust takes time to build, and, particularly in this type of situation, people want to see change. Change is great to hear about, and I'm sure that people in this situation would love to trust the other. But if they've been let down consistently, then we want to see that change, we want to experience that change, and it needs to be consistent. These are some of the ways that trust can feature within our relationships. 

Waheed  39:00
Right. Absolutely. I love the examples that you actually gave, and that metaphor of dad telling me to get up on the roof and jump and he will catch me, and he doesn't, and he fails me multiple times. Then I conclude that I can't trust anyone, because they will just cause me pain. If someone trustworthy comes along to catch me, I'm going to refuse, because I'm so disappointed in people. I don't trust them anymore. So, trust issues have very devastating consequences from complex trauma. As children, many of us could not count on our caregivers or family members to consistently meet those needs. Either the needs were not met to begin with, or sometimes they were met only when the parents or caregivers felt like it. So those needs were not consistently met. As a result, we reached a point where we concluded that we couldn't really trust anyone but ourselves, because people are going to disappoint us eventually. We had to rely on ourselves to meet our needs. So it gets ingrained in me that if I want to trust other people, it's going to open up myself to being hurt. It worked for a while, but now it doesn't. As a result, I am not able to trust other people, which means I am not able to have a healthy, meaningful and intimate relationship with other people, because that involves an element of trust.  These trust issues start stirring up a lot of troubles and conflicts, and those issues prevent the relationship from actually growing beyond a certain point. We're so consumed sometimes by jealousy, possessiveness, and at the same time, we don't want anyone to get close to us as we don't want to get hurt and disappointed ourselves. We don't want to let our guards down, because we know at some point that we are going to be hurt by people if they look inside. 

Those relationships are characterized by being shallow, they don't have that chance of becoming deep and genuine. And so those relationships are going to stop eventually. The only way to actually develop a meaningful relationship is to actually start to trust and to lower our guards down. And that is the problematic aspect that we have here. Some of us find that we can't really trust ourselves after having trusted only ourselves, some of us don't even trust ourselves. We're not as smart as we thought we were. We're not as trustworthy as we thought we were, we were not as disciplined as we thought we were, we may have a dark side that we can't control, which is human. We might be a danger to ourselves, particularly with trauma, when my mind is on survival mode, when I'm dissociating, sometimes I might engage in self-harm. We might engage in self-sabotage, we let ourselves down by making wrong decisions. And all of this culminates in me not trusting myself anymore, which fuels the vicious cycle of trust issues. So, the dilemma here is: I want to trust, but I am afraid of trust. I've jumped off that roof so many times, after my father, my mother, my brother, my sister, my friend, etc., they promised to catch me, but they didn't. This happened so many times, so I actually camped on that roof. Then a very trustworthy friend came along, who seems trustworthy and loving and promises to catch me, and I really want to jump, I want to jump, trust me, I want to jump but I can't. Because it means I'm going to be vulnerable, which means I'm going to be hurt. It's scary to death. This is a message to anyone out there: If you don't risk trusting the right people, you will never have an intimate relationship. This is very common among the SSA community, among the recovery community, we have a lot of trust issues going on. We settle for shallow relationships, and then we bail, or these relationships crumble on their own. 

Aadam  43:01
Yeah. It's important to mention that, in order to have a healthy relationship, both people involved have to be trustworthy. It's easy to put lots of energy into trying to make the other person trustworthy, like having checklists, putting in effort or reminding them of things. But that's misdirected. We need to make sure that we ourselves are trustworthy, we need to take care of our own backyard, so to speak, before we start cleaning other people's. 

Waheed  43:34
Sometimes we actually are not the trustworthy person, and we want them to be trustworthy, when they are, but we are not. So, we need to look at the mirror and realize that sometimes it’s us, not them. 

Aadam  43:47
Subhan Allah. Many of us swing from having no trust in others to having complete trust in a single day. It is like this pendulum that just goes backwards and forth. The thing with trust is that it has to be developed gradually. It's wise to build a relationship slowly so that you can see if the person truly can be trusted. Take things little by little, and then we build upon them to understand and gather evidence, essentially, to see if the person is trustworthy. That's how you make a judgment, an informed judgment. So, the thing is that, if they do prove to be untrustworthy, then we should leave. We should not hang around. We shouldn't wait for things to change. If we're not happy with how it is, we should leave. It's not our concern to change them or other people. And if people are not concerned about evolving and growing on their own, then we are not there to impose that. We can't force people to do things that they don't want to do. We want to go into an intimate relationship in one day instead of it being gradual, and then we ignore red flags - let's say that the person isn't trustworthy, and then we end up in hurtful relationships, subhan Allah. So, it's very important to pay attention to the signs, and look at what people are doing, as well as what they're saying. Because the proof is, more often than not, in the pudding. Which I know is a cliché saying that.. 

Waheed  45:24
But it’s true, absolutely. 

Aadam  45:25
And Allah has given us these faculties to be able to observe people and make judgments. We should trust in that and trust in what Allah has given us. Becoming trustworthy is a result of character, so honesty, love, humility, responsibility - do the people that you are in a relationship with display these things? Character is a result of the deep held beliefs. I want to truly love people around me, I want to be responsible. I'm committed to being honest. Operating at a high level of integrity and being humble and serving people and taking care of people. This is the essence of character. 

Waheed  46:09
Absolutely. Beautifully said.

46:19
The third characteristic, after talking about intimacy issues and trust issues, is the big topic of respect issues. If we look at complex trauma, there's a great lack of respect going on. The child didn't feel valued, there was a lot of neglect going on, maybe a lot of abuse. Maybe there was sarcasm constantly at home or at school. People were rolling their eyes, maybe ignoring us, talking over us, snickering, bickering, taking shots at us, calling us names, maybe constantly criticizing us over and over and over again. Maybe treating us as or making us feel like a burden. That we're losers, that we're not good enough, not beautiful enough, etc. All of these things happening over a long period of time, particularly during critical developmental years of childhood, will have a profound effect on us. And we cannot neglect that. Not being respected as human beings is probably something that wounds us the most. We feel that we must be on guard the whole time. That we're walking on eggshells, again, we're not feeling safe. And when we actually try to retaliate and say “Hey! That actually hurts!” What was the usual response? Either they would start laughing or say “Oh, we're joking, get over it!” or whatever to dismiss our experience. But we knew deep down and felt that that pain was real, and that it should not be ignored. That's why, as adults, not being treated with respect is probably the biggest hot button or triggering factor. Nothing hurts us more, or nothing gets us to become angry faster than lack of respect, or disrespect. 

Sometimes we can become hypersensitive to people's behaviors, that we read disrespect in everything that they do or say, even though that's not their intention. So, when we feel that people are taking shots at us or calling us names, criticizing us or whatever they're doing, we are going to be ticked off severely, and that's going to cause our relationships to suffer. It's very important to realize that when we come from environments of complex trauma, where there was a lot of disrespect going on, we may want others to treat us with respect, but we don't do a good job of treating others with respect. We might actually be jerks. Just as you (Aadam) were talking about trust, sometimes we want others to be the most trustworthy people, but we are not that. And the same goes here, because we've been in so much pain sometimes, we can inadvertently be disrespectful to other people. We need to take a look at ourselves as well. 

There's another pattern that we also see: We meet a new person, we treat them with respect. However, we have at the back of our mind the notion that, the moment that you hurt me, the moment that you disappoint me and let me down or treat me with disrespect, I will no longer treat you with respect. It's like, I'm waiting for you to make a mistake so that I can retaliate and fight back or start being passive aggressive or whatever. In my mind, if you do something bad, you are not worthy of my respect anymore. I will come down to your level, and it's going to be on! We will have a disrespect war. It's not that respect is what is important, but rather the disrespect. I'm so focused on people disrespecting me rather than respecting me. So, if I'm looking for disrespect, I'm going to find it, and I'm going to read it into everything people say or do. In a committed relationship, where this is the dynamic, it becomes very hard to recover from that, because one or both partners are going to be looking for signs and symptoms of disrespect, and they're going to read it into everything. We can imagine how toxic that relationship will become. 

Aadam  50:19
Yeah, and if we just take the topic of respect, we can understand it as it relates to three things. There's the general respect that we have for all people just because they're human beings. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has given us that honor and respect intrinsically. There's value in who we are and we're human beings and not human doings. The value comes from who we are as an individual, not from necessarily what we do. 

The other aspect is respect that's given due to a person's position of authority. We respect their “badge” or position, whatever it might be. So, the respect isn’t there because we know who they are and we value their characteristics, it's more about, you are in a position of authority, for example, and you're our boss or you're the Prime Minister or you're the king or queen, or whoever you are. 

Waheed  51:19
I may not like you, but I have to respect you. 

Aadam  51:22
Yeah. Exactly. Quite often. And then there's the respect that a person has earned because of their character. It's important to note that it's hard to give respect in the first two scenarios, if the person is not a person of character. We might have to respect people but not actually like who they are. People with complex trauma have trouble respecting themselves given the fact that they weren't given respect as children. We can often think that, if my parents or caregivers didn't treat me with respect, then there's something inside of me that was not worthy of that respect. So, we end up not demanding respect, as we see ourselves as being unworthy to start off with in the beginning. We don't respect ourselves. We allow other people to treat us with disrespect. It may be even with abuse or allowing people to get away with not meeting the needs that we have within relationships. And we just take it, because we are afraid of standing up for ourselves. And if we do stand up for ourselves, then there's guilt associated with it. The guilt for setting what is a healthy boundary. 

Waheed  52:40
Yeah, absolutely. This is a very common theme. Being afraid of setting boundaries, because we don't want to hurt people; meanwhile, they're hurting us. This can happen with family members, colleagues, intimate relationships that we have, our superiors, all over. It's all across the board, subhan Allah. 

Aadam  52:56
Yeah. Subhan Allah. That lack of respect that we have received from others results in us internalizing that sense of unworthiness, and it allows people to continue taking advantage of us, and we just accept it. We believe, rather, we feel that we're good people and we never say “no” to anybody. We want everybody to like us, so there's this people-pleasing aspect. A boundary feels like, it would basically feel like, if I set a boundary, I risk disconnection. 

Waheed  53:30
And people are not going to like me. 

Aadam  53:32
Yeah, they won't like me. If I can continue getting people to like me, I'll put up with the lack of respect that I receive. So, I don't respect myself. And the only way I can feel good about myself is when I get people to like me. So, I don't set boundaries with people, they end up taking advantage and walking all over me. This inevitably leads to resentment, and we either explode or run away and isolate. We feel guilty for both situations, and then it's just rinse and repeat and going through that same cycle again of lack of respect, not setting boundaries, being taken advantage of, resentment. And then you're back at square one, again. 

Waheed  54:18
Absolutely. 100%. Even when we think about relationships that are abusive in nature, we see that self-esteem and self-respect is eroding with time or has already eroded in that particular relationship. If we see a relationship where there's abuse going on, whether emotional, physical, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, and the person chooses to stay in that relationship and takes on the abuse without standing up for themselves, we can think of complex trauma and the fact that this person has experienced lack of respect as a child, “I don't deserve respect, I deserve what's happening to me right now. At least this person is tolerating me in this relationship”, whereas they're actually being abused the whole time. So, we need to understand and realize and internalize the fact that we need to respect ourselves, and to realize we don't have to take abuse or lack of respect or any kind of crap from anyone, because we are inherently worthy and Allah made us worthy. Nothing is going to change that. We deserve better than this. For us to stay in a relationship that is abusive, a dead-end, and that shows no signs of respect whatsoever, it means we don't respect ourselves to begin with. It comes with loads of repercussions, including the fact that my self-esteem is going to suffer as a result. And actually, this is a point of manipulation by the abusers themselves, because they tell us, “Oh, you deserve this, you're lucky to have me, no one else would want you, do you want them to know what you do or how you feel? Look at you”, and so on and so forth. “You should be thankful that I'm putting up with you.” The problem is we believe these things, and we believe that we are inferior compared to everyone else. 

It's not just a matter of abusive relationships. Rather, if we think about relationships that are stemming from complex traumas and everything that we've been talking about in this episode, we don't know how to have a relationship where both are equal. Neither is superior nor inferior. But reality is that one is going to be superior, the other is always going to be inferior, whether we're talking about a parent-child dynamic: the child is inferior by virtue of being incompetent in life or dependent, but then that continues, and that's a problem. Or like having a partner and the other partner is an addict: One is superior and healthy, the other is sick and inferior, because they're tied to that addiction, and that addiction is taking its toll on them. The problem is, if we're used to that dynamic, if that person who's dealing with addiction goes into recovery and becomes sober, and they're healthy, and they're technically equal to the other person in terms of that, the relationship dynamic changes. We're not sick anymore, we're not needy anymore, and then we start feeling uncomfortable. Or we feel uncomfortable, because we want to be superior to the person who is sick and needy who needs us. I need to have that sense of being needed and wanted. They want you healthy, but they need you sick. That's basically one of the dynamics, and there are lots of dynamics, we're giving these examples just to show that, if it's not a relationship of equals, then that relationship is going to suffer. 

Aadam  57:28
And we can continue along that line. In that situation, you may be knocked down purposefully. So, you may hear things like, “Oh, so you think you're better than us now?” And you're constantly being worn down by the person that you're in relationship with. They knock you back down, and they continue taking shots at you until eventually you're worn down and you relapse. So whether that's a parent or a partner. Then once you're knocked down, because you're in a state that the other person wants you in, it becomes a situation where they want you back. The relationship is back on. “Poor you, let me help you, I'm here for you.” It’s a very toxic dynamic. Always wanting to keep people in a place that helps another person feel good, and that's not good. If you continue to grow, but the other person doesn't, the relationship will gradually drift further and further apart. It's important to realize that both sides have the same underlying unhealthy issues. For the relationship to work, both parties must be growing. If they're not willing to work on their own stuff, their relationship will just not work out. 

When you're working on yourself, the distance will continue to grow with the other person, so much that you either leave or you stay and you reduce yourself to their level. Unfortunately, some people relapse or get sick again just to maintain the relationship. That may be a hard pill to swallow, to realize that the other person has issues too and they have to work on them. But you should also look after yourself. Subhan Allah. The most common underminer of healthy relationships is not treating the other person with respect. Once respect for the other person has gone, a relationship is in trouble. Disrespect starts with little gestures, words, behaviors that build up over time until respect is gone in the relationship. When disrespect becomes the norm and it’s within a relationship, people will find fault with everything that the other person does. They'll become negative and critical of everything that they do. They'll bicker and fight over the pettiest of things. The growth in intimacy just stops, and instead of thinking about the person's best interests, and acting on those, they may begin to start doing things to actually hurt the other person, that show them disrespect and treat them with disrespect. That is very, very difficult to repair, because the damage caused by disrespect can leave a really deep, deep mark. 

Waheed  1:00:29
Absolutely. It destroys relationships eventually. Subhan Allah. Basically those things that we've been talking about, respect and trust, these are fundamental, and they are foundations of a healthy relationship. Complex trauma with all of these dynamics that we've talked about, it erodes, and it eats up, those two things: trust and respect. Once trust and respect are gone, the relationship will no longer have true intimacy, and it will gradually start to fall apart. So, it's very important to take that into account. 

1:01:08
Other than intimacy issues, trust issues and respect issues that we've talked about, there is another aspect, which is that there is trouble handling conflicts in relationships. As we've spoken about in the previous episode, we don't know how to cope with stress when we come from environments of complex trauma. A lot of the time, we don't know how to deal with conflict, uncertainty and challenges. So, we don't know how to deal with conflicts in relationships in this context. As a result, we tend to have more conflicts in our relationships than healthy people do. We talked about that nanosecond response where we go from zero to 100 because of the shooting stress response, the survival brain, the alarm system, whenever we are under stress or conflict. There is a nanosecond escalation of emotion. I can be calm, I can be completely fine and calm. But then stress or conflict arises, and I can be a volcano in a second. Conflict means that someone is going to lose the argument. That's how I interpret it, because, in my mind, if I'm in a state of conflict, it's going to be stressful, one of us is going to lose, probably me. I'm going to end up with a lot of shame, and it's going to eat me up. So, again, danger in my mind, my mind reads, “Danger, danger! I need to survive, I need to protect myself. 

So, how do we respond? Fight-flight-freeze. So, this is what happens. So, if we're talking about fight, there's anger, it's an extreme reaction, an extreme response, I want to hurt them before they hurt me. I'm going to intimidate them. And some people, as a result, because they have continuously become addicted to their anger, it gives them energy, it gives them that rush, they're addicted to the stress hormones, the stress release, so that forms part of the mechanism. Another response is flight, which is to avoid. Some of us avoid conflict at all costs. We don't want conflict whatsoever. We want peace at any price. Please, I want peace, I want the peace of mind. I will give in, I will take the blame, I will try to make you happy, I'm going to avoid the issue that causes the conflict at all costs. But that's not healthy. Because, in any dynamic, we need to solve these issues; otherwise, they're just going to keep on happening over and over again. 

Or, we may not try to resolve the conflict and just ignore it. Not even consider it. Because if you try, it might result in more conflict. So, you might as well just ignore it and shove it under the carpet. And we know what happens as a result of that, it's going to explode eventually. A lot of us, unfortunately, choose that, we want to kiss and make up, as they say, never talk about it again. It's very important to notice that if someone is avoiding conflict, whether they are avoiding the conflict or putting up with the conflict or just being passive about it, is the fear of abandonment. I don't want you to leave me, because I know that if we are going to go through this conflict, there is a chance for you to leave me and end up destroying this relationship. So, I will keep up with it. Or I'm just going to ignore it altogether and keep on moving forward. But this doesn’t work. 

Another way of avoidance, or flight, is to cut the person out of your life and to run away. I'm just going to destroy this relationship, I might as well just destroy it. This is an extreme reaction where we don't give the other person another chance of conflict or hurt, and we abandon them before they abandon us. So, it ends up hurting us and hurting them. That person usually goes from being a friend to being an enemy just like that. We close our hearts to them, we lose respect for them, and we just destroy the whole relationship. So, trouble in handling relationship conflicts is one of the characteristics here. And the last characteristic is having double standards. 

Aadam  1:04:56
Yeah, so I guess we've all experienced this. People who have complex trauma would have experienced double standards at home. And if you think back to some of the parental archetypes that we talked about, it's clear to see that those may well have actually existed. For example, dad could be angry, but no one else was allowed to do that, and you would be told off if you were, “You can't be angry, you have to suck it up.” Another example is, you have to treat me with respect, but we won't give you any. I think, in my experience, this is quite common in Muslim households. Parents feel like they can treat their kids any way that they want but not offer the same respect or boundaries for their children. You have to tell me everything that you did today, but I don't want to have to tell you anything. I could check your phone, but you can’t check mine, and it goes on and on and on. These double standards that we have in these home environments with our parents and siblings can then go into other relationships, and then we adopt the same standards with others. So, if other people impose that upon us in some way, “I can do this, you can’t do that. I can go here, but you can’t go there”, that type of thing, it's easier for us to accept it and then end up in a relationship that is unfulfilling. 

So, if we think about all of the characteristics that we've talked about, the cognitive, emotional, behavioral and interpersonal/relationship characteristics and effects of complex trauma, it makes sense why this would increase the risk for lots of mental health issues in people that experience this, for them to have self-esteem issues, suicidal ideations, and even suicide in the worst cases, subhan Allah. So, I think, having gone through this episode and the last two, these are quite heavy topics, we can see that complex trauma takes a serious toll on how we navigate through life.  

Waheed  1:07:20
The last topic that we will cover in complex trauma before we move on to the next episode, where we talk in detail about healing from complex trauma, we're going to be talking right now about the concept of trauma bonds. In the 1980s, the famous trauma, addiction and recovery specialist, Dr. Patrick Carnes developed the concept of trauma bonds, and he identified eight different ways in which a person can bond to their trauma, and how such trauma bonds are brought alive in our lives. We actually bond to our traumas. We're going to go through them one by one, and see what resonates with you. And this basically wraps up our discussion for today, inshaAllah. 

Aadam  1:08:04
So, let's start with the first one. The first one is trauma reaction, also known more commonly as PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. This refers to a physiological and or psychological alarm bell reactions from unresolved trauma experience. So, typically, we see flashbacks here, or intrusive thoughts, insomnia, troubling dreams, physical symptoms, and a state of hyper-vigilance and many others. If we think back to the survival brain that we talked about, and how it may have buried some of those experiences within the compartments of our brains, sometimes many years after, those compartments can start to leak. We start to experience those symptoms, the PTSD symptoms, as a result of those experiences. So, we may not necessarily remember those experiences, but the body keeps count of them, and they show up in our interactions in the world, so things like anxiety, for example, in situations, panic attacks, that type of thing. 

Waheed  1:09:12
And then depression and mood disorders, etc. So, the whole myriad of mental health issues. So that's trauma reaction. 

The second type of trauma bond is called trauma arousal, or trauma pleasure, and this is very interesting. Experiencing trauma or abuse has actually led some of the victims of these experiences to start to seek pleasure in the presence of extreme danger, violence or extreme risk or even shameful experiences. There is an adrenaline rush that is associated with these experiences, and we might end up becoming addicted to that adrenaline rush. So we see for example, people who seek danger, or jobs that are very stressful and very demanding, because it's exhilarating. Others engage in high-risk, thrill-seeking behavior, such as extreme sports, skydiving, racecar driving. Not that there's anything wrong with that, per se, but the fact that they're seeking it to seek that high or that fix to run away from their problems, or some of them seek more risk and more risk and more risk, because the last excitement was not enough. They establish tolerance to the risk, and then whatever they seek next is going to be riskier than the previous one. Some of those people who have such a trauma bond, they have difficulty in being alone or being calm or being in a low stress environment. If you tell them about meditation and mindfulness, they freak out. Because they don't want to be there. They always want to be on that adrenaline high. Some people resort to drugs like cocaine or amphetamines to speed up things or to heighten those high-risk activities. 

Others, for example, they can become addicted to gambling, and they even go “all in”. Sometimes they gamble with their entire life savings or their entire fortunes, and this is an extreme example, but just to give you an example of what's going on. When we talk about, particularly sexual recovery, we see sometimes trauma response in extreme sexual behaviors, like people who go into sadism/masochism, or BDSM, sex offending, prostitution, having anonymous sex with people, or high risk sexual experiences, like for example, having unprotected sexual intercourse with a person who is HIV positive, or having sex in public, or engaging in webcam sex where you are known, your identity is known, and so on. These are extreme sexual behaviors. You're putting yourself at risk. 

Some people are addicted to arousing situations. For some, high-risk sex has become like a drug which stimulates that adrenaline rush. So for some of them, the idea is that this has become addictive. These high-risk sexual experiences have become like a drug which supplies them with that adrenaline rush that they need. That adrenaline on its own has become the antidote to the pain, to the trauma that they're experiencing. In other examples, and we'll talk about this later, inshaAllah, as we go on into the episodes on sexual abuse towards the end of the season, for some of us who have experienced sexual abuse as kids, if the early sexual experiences were violent and pleasurable at the same time, what happens is that our mind starts to associate pleasure with pain or fear, particularly sexual pleasure and orgasms. All of these things become intertwined and associated with each other. As adults, how does that manifest itself? We feel most sexual when it is dangerous or risky, or if it involves an element of fear or humiliation. As a result, what happens is that each episode is at a greater risk than the previous one, until we may eventually get caught. 

Aadam  1:13:10
The third trauma bond is called trauma blocking. This is an effort to numb, block out and overwhelm residual feelings due to the trauma. Examples of this are compulsive overeating, obsessive sports, excessive sleeping, alcoholism and depressant drugs. It is a recurring theme where people are using some aspect of life in an unhealthy, addictive way to numb, comfort, relax, and do anything to escape the uncomfortable feelings. Addiction becomes a solution to the trauma. The neural pathway involved here is called “satiation”. So, behaviors or substances that induce a calming, relaxing and numbing effect create electrochemical reactions in the brain that serve as an analgesic fix. And the neurochemical bottom line is anxiety reduction. So, some survivors are caught up in vicious cycles of arousal and blocking, and their behaviors serve to block out the painful memories of childhood sexual abuse. So unfortunately, they're caught between relentless memories and an unwavering addiction, subhan Allah.  

Waheed  1:14:24
Absolutely. And addiction can also involve people in the recovery community, it's not just drugs or substances or alcohol. It's also like sex, masturbation, pornography, all of that. And that becomes a numbing behavior, because we're trying to block the trauma. We need something to calm us down. And it becomes a vicious cycle, obviously. 

Aadam  1:14:42
Yeah, anything that will make us feel better. And that normally is healthy in the right context. And obviously there are things are not healthy at all, like drugs, alcohol, etc. 

Waheed  1:14:53
Yeah, for sure. Or pornography and obsessive sex and stuff. Definitely. Then the fourth trauma bond is called trauma splitting. And this is very important to talk about, where trauma can actually be severe for us to start having dissociative symptoms. So, what do we mean by that? 

The mind blanks out. The mind separates from the body. This sometimes can actually start during the traumatic event itself, where the mind blocks the experience completely. The mind separates from reality, because reality is too painful to bear, when the event is very traumatizing. Or it might actually happen later on, where the mind ignores reality by splitting off, it just splits off these experiences, and it doesn't integrate them into our daily lives. One form of dissociation is amnesia, we forget. People would say that they have gaps in their memories. Memorable events that they were supposed to remember that people around them remember, “We're completely clueless, as if we were never there!” But we were, but the mind didn't even register it. We don't remember significant facts about the trauma that we've been through, because our mind split off. It didn't integrate that. Sometimes, we may find ourselves in specific places or doing specific things, and we have no idea whatsoever how we got there. We were so dissociated and out of touch with the present moment, with reality. 

Some survivors of trauma experience dissociative episodes, feeling like the body is in one place and the mind is in another place, as a reaction to a particular flashback that reminds us of the trauma. Or we may tend to avoid particular stories or parts of movies or any reminder of particular traumatic experiences. We may be forgetful constantly. We may be confused, we may have difficulty concentrating often. Those are all examples of dissociation. 

The idea behind dissociation is to escape from reality to a fantasy world that is not painful. That is it, because the brain, again, is trying to protect itself. To protect us from any harm. Examples of that include excessive daydreaming. We may compartmentalize parts of ourselves and separate them from each other to reduce tension. There are certain fantasy addictive responses such as romance addiction, people become too addicted to romance, because it's a fantasy world. Or artistic addiction or preoccupation, or even mystical and spiritual and religious preoccupation. Excessive religious or spiritual preoccupation is an example of dissociation, if it's done excessively, because it's a trauma response to escape reality into a fantasy. Some people live a double life - they can't escape the real life, so I'm going to live another life where I'm not me. Again, extreme procrastination is an example of dissociation, because there's an emotional element to it. When this coping style becomes a pattern, which interferes with living life, it is called a dissociative disorder. On the extreme end of that, we find what is known as multiple personality disorder, which is now known as dissociative identity disorder. Some people get hooked on psychedelic drugs and marijuana, for example. And these induce for example, hallucinations, and they create an alternate reality. The end result is just to escape reality into a fantasy world. This is trauma splitting, or dissociation. 

Aadam  1:18:43
The fifth trauma bond is called trauma abstinence. This is a trauma response where survivors deprive themselves from pleasure and things they need, because of how they felt during abuse. So, the source of this is self-blame and shame from the trauma. We often see compulsive deprivation occurring especially around moments of success, high stress, shame and anxiety. Examples include anorexia nervosa, sexual aversion disorder sometimes known as sexual anorexia, compulsive saving, agoraphobia, and other phobic responses, poverty obsessions, success avoidance, self-neglect, underachieving, and workaholism. With this trauma response, we see survivors deny themselves basic needs at times, like grocery shopping, buying shoes, books, medical care, rent and so on. And they avoid sexual pleasure or feel guilt with sexual experiences. They can also hoard money and not spend money on legitimate needs and perform in underachieving jobs or spoil success opportunities that come their way. And at the core of trauma abstinence is a desire to be in complete control of life, such that there's no room for uncertainty. And this makes sense given that the trauma survival brain is taking over here and trying to keep the person safe.

Waheed  1:20:09
Right, exactly. But it (the behavior) ends up destroying us in the process. 

Aadam  1:20:14
Yeah, absolutely. 

Waheed  1:20:15
Yep. The sixth trauma response is called trauma repetition. And this is also very important to note, because we end up repeating behaviors or seeking particular situations or people who are going to recreate the trauma experiences for us. That sounds very counterintuitive, but it's very common. The idea is that, subconsciously, I'm going to redirect my efforts to try and resolve the “unresolvable”. I want to have the upper hand on that thing that has happened to me. I need closure. So we see this, for example, with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), repetition compulsions, as well as reenacting particular traumatic scenarios. And it was actually Freud himself who coined the term “repetition compulsion”, when he said that we return to the trauma, and we recreate it in hopes that we can master it this time, and we can have a different outcome, the way that we want. By doing so, we feel that we have regained control over the situation. But sadly, that never satiates us, because we're stuck in repeating the past stories and experiences and events, or even we project them on our current realities. We are stuck in the past trying to fix a past that is long gone. This can also manifest with specific people being very preoccupied with a specific age group. For example, with children or teenagers. And we're not necessarily talking here about people who are preoccupied with them sexually, but rather because they are stuck at that age group, for example, so they revert to doing things that are common to that particular age group, like particular activities or interests, or even engaging in their lingo, and so on. 

Some people repeat the same patterns in their relationships, like jumping from one codependent relationship to another. This is a repetition of the previous traumas. They may repeat their same problems in their jobs - from one job to another, they repeat the same things. Or they find themselves in similar patterns in their personal or familial problems. This is all an example of trauma repetition. And particularly, when we talk about sexual abuse, again, we're going to revisit that later in this season, inshaAllah, but one example of trauma repetition in sexual abuse is, let's say, for example, a man who experienced sexual abuse as a child by an older person, and it ended up being very traumatic, there was pain and pleasure at the same time. So it got ingrained in this man that the only way that I would be aroused is to go on Grindr and engage in the same act that had happened, by having someone else force me to do the same actions that were performed during the sexual abuse incident. We might be surprised hearing that, but it happens quite a lot. We recreate the trauma by setting it up. When we talk about anonymous sex or casual sex, particularly among men, this can become trauma repetition on its own. But since it relieves the pain only temporarily, the pain returns in waves after the sexual encounter is over. And we are stuck repeating the patterns again and again, hoping for healing and a different resolution. But that never happens. 

Aadam  1:23:37
The seventh trauma bond is trauma shame. And this is when we feel unworthy, unlovable, and a lot of shame and self-hate as a result of the traumatic experience that we go through. In this case, we see shame cycles, going through the same thought patterns over and over that shame us. Self-mutilation even, so cutting or burning, or other things that hurt oneself, and self-destructive behavior. Even expressing self-hatred through suicidal ideations. Having a shame-based personality, where we constantly don't feel good enough, depression, and even codependency personality disorder. Some survivors may, in reaction to trauma, set very high and unachievable standards to prove their sense of self-worth and to gain acceptance of others. We talked about this earlier, having high unrealistic standards for ourselves. When they fail, because the standards are too high, it just adds to the existing shame. So, it becomes another reason to go through that shame cycle and repeat that pattern. 

Waheed  1:24:52
Absolutely. And the last trauma bond out of the eight is itself called trauma bonds. And here it refers to dysfunctional attachment and bonding that occurs in the presence of danger, shame, or exploitation. So let's give an example. When a person becomes very connected to their abuser, becoming very loyal to them, very supportive of them, and throughout their lives, they return to dangerous people who abuse or shame them. People who exploit them, people who make them feel less than. Others include abuse cycles, such as those that we find in domestic violence, for example. Misplaced loyalties that we see in cults or in cases of incest or hostage situations, or even codependent relationships. So, what is common to all of these relationships is that there is an element of loyalty, or attachment, but it's insane loyalty or too much attachment. There's exploitation, there's fear, there's danger. And they also all have an element of kindness, an element of nobility and righteousness to them. But it's just blurred underneath all of that pain and shame and fear and danger. These are all people who stayed involved or wished to stay involved with people who are dangerous to them, and that's a trauma bond. There's emotional pain and severe consequences, and even the prospect of death in this relationship, the relationship is literally going to kill me, this is not going to stop me from caring or being committed to the other person. And this is what clinicians call “traumatic bonding”. There is a dysfunctional attachment that occurs in the presence of danger, shame, or exploitation. There's also seduction, deception or betrayal, and there is always some form of danger or risk that is involved. 

1:26:52
Knowing everything that we have spoken about in the last three episodes, now the question is, how do we heal and overcome complex trauma? So we've talked about the origins of complex trauma, and the effects and the characteristics, from cognitive, behavioral, emotional as well as interpersonal and relationship perspectives. Next episode, we're going to wrap up this four-episode series and talk about how to heal from a bio-psycho-social-spiritual perspective. So that we will talk about in the next episode, inshaAllah. 

Aadam  1:27:25
InshaAllah. 

Waheed  1:27:25
So, with this, we have come to the end of today's episode, I hope that you guys have enjoyed it and learned from it, inshaAllah. Aadam and I look forward to talking to you in the next episode as we wrap up our discussion on understanding and healing from complex trauma. Until then, stay safe and healthy, and we'll talk to you then. This has been Aadam and Waheed Jensen in “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, assalamu alaikom wa rahmatullahi ta’ala wa barakatuh.