CCChat-Magazine_Issue-26-Trauma-Bonding

M : What I do hear a lot, when it
comes to trauma bonding, is that it is
co-dependency and women who are
trauma bonded are addicted to their
abuser and need them the way a drug
user would need a fix and that
understanding of it drives me crazy as
that is not my understanding at all.
The Women who Love Too Much.
R: Psychologists & therapists'
documentation is used by the courts to
establish fitness as a parent, this is
where we see decontextualized
diagnostic language deeply impacting
judicial proceedings. The focus on the
pathology or the response to violence
is prioritized and used to question a
survivor’s fitness as a parent. Whereas
the violence, the behaviors and choices
of the perpetrator are made invisible
by that documentation focus and the
practices of even ‘trauma informed’
experts. The perpetrator causes,
exacerbates or impedes the victim
from healing or seeking help. Then
they use the trauma they caused (and
will cause their children) to justify
their power and control and
professionals are going along with it. It
is malpractice in my mind as they are
practicing outside their scope of
expertise, there are no mandates
mental health professionals need to be
domestic abuse informed or trained to
document appropriately.
R: How horrible that people are
weaponsing concern and care for a
loved one as being trauma bonded or
Stockholm Syndrome, and again, I
want to pull people’s attention away
from the victim here and I want them
to start asking the question; what kind
of parent, what kind of partner chooses
to harm their loved ones and entrap
them in ways that are threatening and
violent and coercive and cause fear and
shame and a sense of inability to
navigate the world because of that
violence? I really want people to shift
their focus from the victim, because
the victim is living in an ecology, an
ecosystem of systemic non-support
and failure of professionals.
Family and friends are missing the
perpetration and don’t understand it.
Pastors and religious leaders are
supporting it through paradigms of
male dominance and male control and
the institution of marriage as the
primary good of the family, rather than
acknowledging healthy, safe,
nurturing, loving homes without
violence is what is good for children
and society. We’re being told over and
over again that we need to stay in these
relationships, that we need to continue
to try and work it out, that we have
personal responsibility for the
perpetration we are experiencing and
then when we don’t leave, people are
using co-dependency as a term which
absolutely makes me incredibly angry
Making The Invisible Visible