Why You Can't Let Go of Someone Who Hurt You, Trauma Bonds and Complex Trauma Explained

A Letter to Tim

Today we are sitting with a letter that carries a weight many of us know too well. A reader we will call Robbie wrote to us about a relationship that broke her, a grief that shattered her, and a question that haunts so many survivors of complex trauma. Why can I not let go of someone who hurt me?

Robbie shared that twelve years ago she entered a relationship that felt like finally being seen. For the first time in her life, someone loved her simply for being herself. It was overwhelming in the best way. But over time, that connection became confusing and painful. What followed were years of emotional turmoil that left her broken and exhausted. Eventually she moved to another state because she could not bear watching him move on. Then, just months later, her adult daughter was killed in a car accident. Her daughter was her heart. They were incredibly close. She now lives with a grief that feels constant and endless. Her daughter strongly disliked her former partner because of the pain she watched her mother endure. And yet, Robbie still feels attached to both the grief over her daughter and the relationship that hurt her. She feels shame over still having feelings for her ex. She feels anger and love at the same time. It is confusing and exhausting. She asks how to move forward after so much loss. How to find purpose again. How to let go of the belief that she is unworthy of love.

Robbie, we hear you. And we want to talk about two powerful forces that are working together in your life. The first is a trauma bond with a narcissistic partner. The second is the deep grief of losing a child. These are two different kinds of pain. And understanding why they have become tangled is the first step toward untangling them.

Two Griefs, Not One

When we read Robbie's letter, the first thing we want to gently reflect is that she did not lose one relationship. She lost two. She lost her ex, someone who first felt like the center of her world, someone she depended on for a sense of worth and connection. And then she lost her daughter, the other main person in her life, the one she was so close to. In a short span of time, the two most important relationships of her life were gone.

This is not just one grief. This is two powerful sets of grief working at the same time. And they are very different in nature.

Grief over a narcissistic relationship is complicated because the person is still alive. The connection is not cleanly cut by death. It is cut by choice, by necessity, by survival. That kind of grief is tangled with anger, betrayal, longing, and confusion. Grief over a child is another kind of pain entirely. It is unnatural to outlive your child. It is a loss that does not resolve neatly. It changes you. It stays with you. And for someone with a history of complex trauma, both of these losses hit a nervous system that was already shaped by abandonment, shame, and the deep fear of being unworthy.

So why can you not let go? Because you are not just trying to release one person. You are trying to release a lifetime of unmet needs, a fantasy of finally being loved, and a grief that has no timeline.

Understanding Complex Trauma and the Scapegoat Child

Robbie shared something crucial in her letter. She was the scapegoat growing up in a large family. She was sensitive and empathetic. She learned to take care of the feelings of others. She learned to respond to the emotions around her as a way to survive.

What happens to a scapegoat who becomes an empath? A lot. There is a deep well of shame. There is an abandonment of self. There is anger that has nowhere to go. There is a feeling of being betrayed, judged, looked down on, rejected, and abandoned. And so the child learns to abandon herself. She puts her focus on caring for others, their emotions, their needs. That is where she finds her life. But deep inside there is this internal damage that comes from being the child everyone blamed.

The core belief that forms is simple and devastating. I am not good enough. Even when we fight against that belief, even when we resist it, it remains. It shapes how we see ourselves, how we choose partners, and how we respond to love. This is complex trauma in adults. It is not just a memory. It is a living pattern. It is a survival adaptation that once kept us safe but now keeps us stuck.

Why Do We Stay Attached to Someone Who Hurt Us?

This is the question at the heart of Robbie's letter. And the answer lives in something called a trauma bond.

A trauma bond forms when a narcissistic abuser uses coercive control to make you believe that you need their care and validation to feel whole. They wear you down until you believe you cannot survive without them. You become highly dependent on that relationship, even though it is abusive. This can happen in romantic relationships, in families, in friendships, and in work environments.

The cycle looks like this. First there is the idealization stage. This is the love bombing. The grooming. The period where they make you feel seen, heard, and special. For someone who grew up as the scapegoat, this feels like water in a desert. It feels like finally being met. Then comes the devaluing stage. They begin to criticize, blame, neglect, and withdraw. You start to feel like you are the problem. And then comes the discard stage. They pull away. They leave you confused and desperate for the version of them you first met.

But here is the cruel twist. The discard is never complete. They come back. They give you just enough warmth to keep you hoping. This is intermittent reinforcement. It is the same psychological mechanism that makes gambling so addictive. Sometimes you win big. Sometimes you lose everything. But the possibility of winning again keeps you playing.

Trauma bonding happens specifically because an abuser provides intermittent rewards and punishment. In doing so, a psychological conditioning takes place where the survivor becomes entangled in the relationship, always hoping to return to when it was good. Eventually, you will settle for almost any little breadcrumb of the version of who the narcissist was in the beginning.

For Robbie, this is why the feelings have not disappeared even after the relationship ended. Her limbic brain, the emotional part of her brain, is still chasing the fantasy of the love bombing stage. It is not looking at the evidence. It is looking at the feeling. Her cortex, the logical part of her brain, knows the truth. It knows the mask fell. It knows the years of behavior proved who this person really is. But the limbic brain is louder when it is triggered.

Why Does It Feel Like an Addiction?

Because it is. In these kinds of relationships, there is an addiction element. Think of someone withdrawing from heroin. Their brain is not thinking about the consequences. It is thinking about the high. It is thinking, is there a way I can use again and get back to that original happy place without the negative stuff?

That is what happens in narcissistic relationships. The survivor is not stupid. They are not weak. They are in the grip of an intermittent reward system that has rewired their nervous system. The hardest addictions to break are the ones with intermittent rewards. With alcohol or drugs, the consequences become consistent. They get worse and worse. But with gambling, and with narcissistic relationships, the rewards come just often enough to keep you trying. Maybe next time. Maybe next time it will be different. Maybe next time we will get back to the good.

This is why Robbie still feels attached. This is why she feels shame over still having feelings. And we want to say this clearly. That shame does not belong to her. It belongs to the person who exploited her longing for connection. It belongs to the system that taught her she was only valuable when she was meeting someone else's needs.

How Does Complex Trauma Distort Our Map to Connection?

For those recovering from complex trauma, relationships can feel like a confusing maze. We might feel a deep sense of loneliness even when surrounded by people. We might find ourselves constantly disappointed by those we thought were close. We ask ourselves, why do I feel so disconnected even from my family? Is it me? Am I expecting too much?

These painful questions are not a sign of failure. They are a sign that our internal relationship map has been drawn with the wrong coordinates. Complex trauma, stemming from repeated childhood adversity, skews our perception. It makes unsafe harbors look like home. It makes true connection feel foreign or insignificant.

Many survivors plot their relationships based on time and frequency, shared activities and fun, or history and positive feelings. We think, I spend a lot of time with them, so we must be close. Or, we always laugh together, so we must be connected. But the correct parameter for a close friendship is emotional safety. Can I be fully authentic and vulnerable with this person without fear of judgment, rejection, or being fixed?

When we introduce that parameter, our map shifts in a big way. That family member we see every week might actually belong in the acquaintance circle if there are topics we cannot discuss. That coworker we laugh with daily might be a casual friend if we cannot share a personal struggle. The relationship mapping exercise reveals a painful truth. Our social landscape may be far emptier of true intimate connection than we believed.

For Robbie, this distortion is made worse by the loss of her daughter. Her daughter was a safe connection. Her ex was an unsafe one. And now she is grieving both. The nervous system and complex trauma are deeply linked. When we lose a safe connection, our nervous system goes into survival mode. It craves any connection, even the ones that hurt us, because the alternative is the void.

What Happens in the Brain When We Cannot Let Go?

We want to offer a practical tool here. When you feel that pull toward the person who hurt you, when you feel that longing for the fantasy of how it was in the beginning, we invite you to pause. Recognize that this is your limbic brain speaking. It is the emotional part of your brain that was flooded with oxytocin during the love bombing stage. It is not based on facts. It is based on how you were made to feel.

Now, gently move into your cortex. This is the part of your brain that can look at evidence. It can remember the years of watching this person's behavior. It can recall the moments of betrayal, the moments of blame, the moments of neglect. When the limbic brain says, I miss them, they were so wonderful, I think we can get back there, your cortex can respond. That is my limbic brain going off emotions. Let us go back to the facts.

This is not about shaming yourself for having feelings. It is about understanding that feelings are not facts. They are messengers. And sometimes the messenger is a scared child who just wants to be loved.

How Do We Break the Cycle and Heal Deep Shame?

We have to treat the trauma bond like an addiction. When you get those feelings in your limbic brain, do not feed them. Get into your cortex. Remind yourself of the facts. And then, because your brain is still looking for attachment, create new attachments with safe people. This is essential.

Healthy attachments do not happen overnight. They require vulnerability, boundaries, and time. But they are the antidote to the fantasy. When we connect with safe people, we begin to teach our nervous system that connection does not have to hurt. We begin to heal the deep shame that came from being a scapegoat. We begin to develop a healthy sense of who we are.

This is where reparenting after complex trauma becomes so powerful. We learn to take care of ourselves. We learn to meet our needs on a regular basis. We learn to speak to ourselves with the compassion we never received. This is complex trauma healing. It is not about erasing the past. It is about building a future where we are no longer at war with ourselves.

Robbie asked how to let go of the belief that she is unworthy of love. The answer is not a single moment of insight. It is a practice. It is finding safe people and letting them see us. It is learning to take care of ourselves and meeting our twelve needs on a regular basis. It is developing a healthy sense of identity that is not dependent on someone else's validation. It is slow. It is messy. And it is possible.

Navigating the Long Process of Grieving a Child

We want to turn now to the second grief in Robbie's life. The loss of her daughter. We approach this with great care because for people from complex trauma, grief is a complicated matter.

Usually, when you lose someone close to you, we say you are looking at two to three years of going through the stages of grief. You go through a numb stage. Then you go through an emotional stage of anger, depression, and sadness that comes in waves. Then you go through a mental stage where your whole body is trying to resolve this pain. It cannot flip a switch. It takes time. And eventually, you come to an acceptance place and begin to move on.

But for a child, for a person who loses a child, this goes longer. It is not as intense, but it is longer. Every anniversary of the death, every birthday, every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, every major holiday, it crashes into you again. It is a grief that becomes part of who you are. It is a hole in your heart that you will carry for the rest of your life.

And we want to say this to Robbie. That does not mean you are not grieving in a healthy way. It means you are grieving in a human way. You can learn to accept that this pain is part of your life. You can learn that you can move on and still carry it. You can develop internal wisdom and character from it. You can help others because of it. You can connect with other people without forgetting your child. You can get past some of the guilt and develop healthy connections.

There are no shortcuts to grief. Many people try to find them. They try to move on too quickly. They try to numb the pain. And then they find themselves drawn back. They find other problems cropping up, depression, anxiety, addiction issues. The only way through grief is through it. And that means giving yourself permission to grieve for as long as it takes.

What Is the Difference Between Healthy and Unhealthy Attachments?

For someone like Robbie, who was a scapegoat and never really attached well as a child, there is an added challenge. When you grow up without secure attachment, you develop avoidant attachment, anxious attachment, or a combination of both. You learn that connection is either unsafe or unreliable. So when you finally feel connected to someone, you hold on tightly. You fear losing it because losing it means going back to being a nobody. It means going back to feeling abandoned.

This is why Robbie struggles to let go of both her ex and her daughter. With her daughter, the connection is broken physically, but she still has the memories. She can regularly remember her daughter. She can feed positive memories. She can make time to honor that connection. That can be very healing. But she must be careful not to obsessively think about her daughter and cut everybody else out.

With her ex, the connection is different. He is still living. Part of her still wants to maintain that connection because the fantasy is still alive. But she has to be able to say, no, this needs to be a breaking of connection because it is not healthy for me. Whenever she gets that urge, she must not feed it. She must get out of her limbic brain and back into her cortex.

This is not about being cold. It is about being kind to herself. It is about recognizing that some connections are not safe, no matter how much we wish they were. And it is about building new connections that are.

How Do We Find Safe Support and Move Forward?

We are made for connection. Robbie lost two connections. One was healthy. One was unhealthy. Now she has to build some healthy ones. Even in a remote community, there are ways to find support. There are online support groups for people who have lost a child. There are recovery communities for people healing from complex trauma. There are counselors who understand trauma bonding and addiction. There are safe people who are waiting to be found.

This is the healing journey. It is not linear. It is not easy. But it is possible. And it begins with one small step. It begins with reaching out. It begins with saying, I cannot do this alone. It begins with believing that you are worthy of love, even when you do not feel it yet.

A Final Word to Robbie and to You

Robbie, you are facing some challenging grieving time. But we hope this helps you a little. We hope it validates that it is okay to grieve. It takes a long time. It is super messy. And there is a part that will go on for the rest of your life. But there are practical things to do to help.

You are not broken. You are not unworthy. You are a survivor of complex trauma who learned to survive in a world that did not meet your needs. And now, you are learning to heal. That is brave. That is beautiful. And that is enough for today.

If this article resonated with you, we invite you to explore more of our resources on complex trauma recovery. You are not alone. And you are worth the effort it takes to heal.

The journey of healing from complex trauma is a process that deepens over time. At Tim Fletcher Co., our methodology is built on a progressive 4-Tier path to recovery:

Tier 1: Introductory Education. Build awareness and foundational language. Understand C-PTSD basics. Recommended Starting Point: Evergreen Library for micro-learning.

Tier 2: Enhanced Learning Tools. Develop agency and a deeper personal understanding. Gain practical tools with community support. Recommended Starting Point: ALIGN Courses for self-guided learning.

Tier 3: Immersive Recovery. Practice tools for transformation in a supported space. Experience real, lasting change. Recommended Starting Point: LIFT Online Learning, the core immersive program.

Tier 4: Supporting Others. Extend healing by equipping yourself to help others. Recommended Starting Point: COMPASS Internship for those called to lead and serve.

Whenever you are ready, we are here.