Online Trauma Bond Therapy in Alberta

A trauma bond can leave you feeling deeply connected to someone, even when the relationship has also caused you significant hurt.

You may recognize yourself in some of these experiences:

• Feeling deeply attached despite repeated hurt or mistreatment
• Walking on eggshells to avoid conflict or withdrawal
• Doubting your own perceptions or wondering whether you are overreacting
• Focusing on the person's good qualities or the relationship's potential
• Feeling responsible for repairing the relationship after conflict
• Experiencing intense relief when the relationship becomes calm or affectionate again
• Repeatedly deciding to leave but finding yourself drawn back
• Feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or emotionally activated when connection is threatened
• Having difficulty identifying or expressing your own needs and boundaries
• Feeling confused about why it is so difficult to let go

You may also find yourself thinking:

“If I could just explain it differently, maybe they would understand.”

“Maybe things really will change this time.”

“Why do I miss them when I know how much this relationship has hurt me?”

These questions do not mean you are weak. They can be part of what makes a trauma bond so difficult to understand. When hurt and connection have become intertwined, knowing that a relationship is hurting you does not always make the attachment disappear.

One of the most confusing parts of a trauma bond is that you may genuinely want the relationship to work.

You want to feel safe, loved, and understood. You want to repair what has been hurt and find your way back to connection. You may still remember the good moments and the parts of the relationship that mattered deeply to you.

At the same time, another part of you may know that the relationship is hurting you.

You may find yourself replaying conversations, trying to understand what happened, explaining away hurtful behavior, focusing on the good moments, or hoping things will finally change. You may know that you cannot keep living this way and still feel deeply attached to the person.

That can leave you caught between what you know and what you feel.

The Push and Pull

Sometimes, this attachment is made even more confusing by a repeated pattern of closeness followed by distance, rejection, conflict, or withdrawal.

You may feel close and connected one moment, then suddenly feel shut out, criticized, ignored, or pushed away. When that happens, you may find yourself wanting to reconnect, repair things, or get back to the closeness you had before.

Then, when the other person becomes warm, affectionate, apologetic, or available again, you may feel a powerful sense of relief. The connection you were afraid of losing is back.

And then the pattern may happen again.

This can create a painful push and pull. Part of you may want to protect yourself and get away, while another part still longs for the connection, reassurance, or version of the relationship you hope is possible.

You may find yourself thinking:

“Maybe this time will be different.”

“Things are good again. Maybe I was overreacting.”

“I know I need distance, but I miss them so much.”

“Why do I feel so much better when they finally come back?”

That back and forth can make it very difficult to know what you want or trust what you are feeling. You may find yourself holding onto the good moments while trying to make sense of the painful ones.

You may also question your own perceptions, minimize what happened, or wonder why you cannot just walk away. When a relationship has involved emotional abuse, gaslighting, coercive control, or narcissistic abuse, that confusion can become even stronger.

There is nothing strange about finding this difficult. When hurt, hope, love, fear, and connection have become intertwined, leaving is not always as simple as knowing that the relationship is unhealthy.

Knowing that a relationship is hurting you does not automatically make it easy to leave. You may still love or care about the person. You may miss the good moments, hope they will change, or grieve the future you imagined together. You may fear being alone, disrupting your family, causing conflict, or facing the uncertainty that comes with change.

You may also be grieving the relationship you hoped you could have, not only the relationship you actually experienced. You may be holding onto what the relationship could have been while also trying to come to terms with what it has been. This can leave you caught between what you know, what you feel, and what you hope.

Breaking a trauma bond is not about forcing yourself to stop caring or pretending the relationship did not matter.

It begins with understanding the pattern and gradually creating enough clarity to see the relationship as a whole. This may involve recognizing cycles of connection and hurt, trusting your own experiences, separating potential from reality, and reconnecting with your own needs and boundaries.

If you are still in contact with the person, breaking the bond may not mean immediately leaving. 

You may need support learning how to maintain boundaries, stay grounded, and protect your emotional well being while you explore what is right for you.

If you have experienced emotional abuse, narcissistic abuse, gaslighting, coercive control, or another relationship where your reality, boundaries, or sense of self have been repeatedly undermined, rebuilding trust in yourself can take time.

You can miss someone and still recognize that the relationship was harmful.

You can care about someone and still care for yourself.

Part of our work is mapping the cycle together so you can begin to understand what is happening rather than feeling controlled by it.

We look at the moments of connection, the shifts into anxiety or distress, the urgency to chase, repair, explain, appease, or reconnect, and what happens when the other person withdraws or becomes distant.

We also pay attention to what happens inside you during these shifts. Your nervous system may move quickly between anxiety, urgency, relief, longing, and emotional exhaustion. Understanding these responses can help you make sense of why the cycle can feel so powerful, rather than wondering why you cannot just stop reacting.

Once we understand your particular pattern, we can begin finding ways to interrupt it. I walk through this process with you, helping you recognize what is happening in real time and explore different ways of responding.

We also make space to look at the relationship itself. If you are hoping for reconciliation or repair, it can be important to explore whether the other person is willing and able to take responsibility, have honest conversations, respect your boundaries, and participate in creating something healthier. Repair cannot happen through one person's effort alone. You can work on your own patterns, communicate differently, and make space for change, but the other person has to be willing to participate too.

This can be a difficult reality to face when you still love someone and hope the relationship can be different. Therapy can give you space to explore that hope while also looking at what is actually happening, so you can begin to distinguish between what you wish the relationship could be and what the other person is consistently showing you.

We also make space for the different parts of you that developed through these experiences.

There may be a part of you that feels an urgent need to fix things.

A part that wants to chase, explain, or make the other person understand.

A part that becomes anxious when connection is threatened.

A part that shuts down or withdraws to protect you.

A part that still hopes things will change.

These parts are not broken. They developed for a reason. Together, we can begin to understand what they have been trying to protect you from and what they may need now.

Through trauma informed and experiential therapy, including EMDR and parts work, we can work with what still feels stuck rather than only talking about it. There is no one size fits all approach. 

We can draw from different approaches depending on what you have experienced, what you are struggling with now, and what feels most helpful for you.

This may include EMDR therapy, IFS informed parts work, attachment focused therapy, or reparenting work. Together, we can work toward understanding the patterns that developed, reconnecting with your needs, and developing a more supportive relationship with yourself.

This is not about telling you what decision to make. It is about helping you understand yourself more clearly, interrupt old patterns, rebuild trust in yourself, strengthen your boundaries, and develop a deeper sense of safety and connection with yourself.

What Healing Can Look Like

Over time, you may begin to:

• Recognize the cycle as it is happening rather than being swept up in it
• Understand the urgency, anxiety, chasing, overexplaining, and withdrawal
• Trust your own perceptions again
• Feel less emotionally pulled into the cycle
• Set boundaries with less guilt
• Feel less responsible for other people's emotions
• Understand your reactions without judging yourself
• Rebuild a stronger relationship with yourself

Healing can become less about trying to figure everything out and more about feeling different in your own life: more settled, more present, and more able to trust yourself again.