How Trauma Bonds and the “Traitor Within” Keep Us Trapped in Toxic Relationships and How to Break Free
by Jessica Anne Pressler, LCSW
My Journey: Knowledge Isn't Always Enough
In 1988, I proudly graduated with my master's degree in clinical social work, stepping into the world as a trained psychotherapist with the tools to help others build healthier lives. Through the years, I continued my professional development through formal training and extensive reading, deepening my expertise in human behavior and relationships.
On the surface, I appeared to have it all figured out. My friendships were supportive, my workplace relationships were productive, and I excelled at guiding my clients toward emotional healing. Yet a puzzling contradiction plagued my personal life: despite my professional knowledge, I repeatedly found myself entangled in toxic romantic relationships.
How could someone like me—trained to help others break free from dysfunctional relationships and live happier, healthier lives—keep falling into the same painful patterns? This question haunted me until I finally decided to confront it head-on. I took several years away from serious dating to embark on a journey of self-discovery through literature, therapy, and deep introspection.
What I ultimately uncovered transformed my understanding of myself and my relationships: I was caught in the powerful grip of trauma bonds, while a "traitor within" was silently sabotaging my attempts to break free. This revelation would become the key to finally changing my relationship patterns for good and a life time commitment to helping others lead happier and healthier lives.
Understanding Trauma Bonds: The Invisible Chains
A trauma bond is a powerful emotional attachment formed with someone who periodically treats you poorly, even abusively, interspersed with moments of positive reinforcement. Trauma bonds develop through a cycle of abuse followed by intermittent reinforcement—the unpredictable pattern of punishment and reward that creates one of the strongest forms of behavioral conditioning known to psychology. This dynamic creates a biochemical dependency similar to addiction, where the relationship becomes a source of both pain and relief.
The neurochemistry behind trauma bonds is fascinating and troubling. When we experience abuse followed by reconciliation, our brains release stress hormones like cortisol during the negative periods, followed by dopamine and oxytocin—feel-good chemicals—during the makeup phase. This biochemical roller coaster strengthens the attachment despite its harmful nature (van der Kolk, 2014).
Common signs of being in a trauma bond include:
Defending the abusive person despite evidence of harm
Feeling unable to leave despite knowing the relationship is unhealthy
Becoming isolated from friends and family who express concern
Craving connection with the abuser when separated
Accepting increasingly harmful behavior over time
The Traitor Within: Your Internal Saboteur
While trauma bonds explain the external dynamic that keeps us trapped, the "Traitor Within" represents the internal force working against our best interests. This concept describes the part of ourselves that undermines our attempts to make healthy choices—often operating outside our conscious awareness.
The “Traitor Within often develops as a response to early attachment experiences and trauma. It functions as a protective mechanism that, ironically, perpetuates harmful patterns. When our early emotional needs weren't adequately met, we developed adaptive strategies that once helped us survive but now sabotage our adult relationships.
This internal saboteur isn't formed in isolation—it's shaped by powerful messaging and modeling from our earliest environments. The traitor within is often the internalized voice of caregivers, family dynamics, and cultural messages that we absorbed before we could critically evaluate them. These early lessons become deeply embedded in our understanding of relationships, love, and self-worth.
This generational aspect is particularly significant. Many of us inherit relationship templates that have been passed down through generations of family trauma. A child who grows up watching a parent endure mistreatment learns powerful implicit lessons: "This is what relationships look like" or "This is what I deserve." These patterns can perpetuate across generations until someone develops the awareness to interrupt the cycle. As Rachel Yehuda's research on intergenerational trauma suggests, these patterns may even influence us on a biological level through epigenetic changes (Yehuda & Lehrner, 2018).
The “Traitor Within” manifests in several ways:
Negative self-talk: "You don't deserve better than this" or "This is as good as it gets for someone like you"
Misinterpreted danger signals: Perceiving red flags as signs of passion or intensity
Familiar discomfort: Feeling uncomfortable in healthy relationships because they lack the familiar chaos of toxic ones
Self-fulfilling prophecies: Unconsciously provoking situations that confirm your negative beliefs
Recreating family patterns: Unconsciously seeking relationships that mirror childhood dynamics, even painful ones
Normalizing dysfunction: Accepting behavior that others find alarming because it feels familiar
Making excuses for abuse behavior: You were taught to do so by modeling and messaging from caregivers or others you trusted.
Burying abusive behavior and carrying on: You do so not to feel abandoned
And so on...
As Pete Walker explains in "Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving," "The inner critic is the part of you that took on the job of self-rejection and self-hatred because it believed doing so would protect you from others' rejection and hatred" (Walker, 2013). This internal critic becomes the “Traitor Within,” keeping us tethered to unhealthy patterns that feel paradoxically safe.
Breaking free requires not only recognizing our individual trauma responses but also understanding the larger familial and generational context in which they developed. By bringing awareness to these inherited patterns, we can begin the challenging but liberating work of creating new relationship templates for ourselves and future generations.
The Dangerous Partnership: How Trauma Bonds and the Traitor Within Work Together
The most insidious aspect of this dynamic is how these two forces—external and internal—reinforce each other. This partnership creates a self-perpetuating cycle that can persist despite intellectual understanding of healthy relationships.
Here's how this partnership typically unfolds:
Initial attraction: The “Traitor Within” may draw you to people who feel familiar—often those who replicate childhood dynamics.
Escalating investment: As the relationship progresses, trauma bonding creates powerful attachment despite emerging red flags.
Rationalization: The “Traitor Within” provides justifications for staying ("He's just stressed" or "She'll change" or “it’s my fault” or “let me keep the peace.”).
Identity erosion: Over time, your sense of self becomes increasingly defined by the relationship.
Failed attempts to leave: When you try to break free, withdrawal symptoms from the trauma bond combine with the traitor's catastrophic thoughts ("You'll be alone forever").
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk explains this phenomenon: "Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives" (van der Kolk, 2014). When our internal wiring equates safety with familiar chaos rather than genuine security, we remain trapped.
S's Story: The Cycle in Action
S, a successful attorney, found herself repeatedly drawn to emotionally unavailable partners. Her most recent relationship with M illustrated the trauma bond/Traitor Within dynamic perfectly.
M would disappear for days without explanation, then return with passionate apologies and lavish attention. During his absences, S experienced intense anxiety and self-doubt. When he returned, the relief was overwhelming, cementing her attachment despite the obvious dysfunction.
S's Traitor Within provided constant commentary: "This intensity is what real love feels like. Stable relationships are boring. Maybe if you were more understanding, he wouldn't need space."
Even when friends expressed concern, S defended M while privately acknowledging the relationship was causing her pain. It took a health crisis—severe anxiety attacks that landed her in the emergency room—to finally break the cycle.
With therapy, S recognized both the trauma bond and her internal saboteur. She learned to question the traitor's voice and gradually built tolerance for healthy attachment without the dramatic highs and lows.
"The hardest part," S shared, "was accepting that the strongest feelings weren't necessarily indicators of the healthiest love. I had to relearn what love actually feels like."
Breaking Free: The Path Forward
Breaking free from this cycle requires addressing both the trauma bond and the Traitor Within. It's rarely a linear process, but these steps have proven effective:
Create awareness: Name both dynamics at play. As Carl Jung noted, "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate."
Establish safety: This may require physical separation from the toxic relationship to clear your mind and break the biochemical addiction.
Challenge the traitor: Learn to recognize and question the traitor's voice rather than accepting its pronouncements as truth.
Build a support network: Surround yourself with people who model and expect healthy relationships.
Practice self-compassion: Understand that these patterns developed as survival mechanisms, not character flaws.
Redefine normal: Gradually expose yourself to healthy relationships, tolerating the initial discomfort until new patterns feel natural.
Consider professional help: Therapies like EMDR, Internal Family Systems, and trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy can be particularly effective.
The Hope Beyond the Struggle
Understanding trauma bonds and the “Traitor Within” doesn't immediately free you from their influence, but it does shine a light on previously invisible chains. With this awareness comes the possibility of choice and change.
As someone who spent years helping others while struggling privately with these same forces, I can attest that breaking free is possible. The journey requires courage, compassion, and often support—but the freedom on the other side is worth every difficult step.
The most powerful insight I gained was that my professional knowledge wasn't failing me; rather, I was dealing with forces that operate beyond intellectual understanding. Breaking free required addressing both the biochemical addiction of the trauma bond and the deep-seated beliefs of my Traitor Within.
Today, I approach relationships—both my own and my clients'—with a deeper appreciation for these powerful dynamics. Knowledge alone isn't enough, but knowledge combined with compassionate awareness can finally break the cycle.
References
van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books.
Walker, P. (2013). Complex PTSD: From surviving to thriving. Azure Coyote Books.
Fisher, H. (2016). Anatomy of love: A natural history of mating, marriage, and why we stray. W.W. Norton & Company.
Yehuda, R., & Lehrner, A. (2018). Intergenerational transmission of trauma effects: putative role of epigenetic mechanisms. World Psychiatry, 17(3), 243-257.
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